KARACHI, Aug 24: The lighterage operation on Tasman Spirit resumed on Sunday, but only when the Pakistan Navy came to the rescue of salvagers by providing its low-capacity tanker, PNS Gwadar.

Sources privy to the salvage operation said that the foreign team of salvagers expressed its inability on Sunday morning to use the already in-service oil tanker, Fair Jolly, any further after it developed a major hole in its keel. The ship has now been excluded from the salvage operation as there was a possibility of its keeling over.

It hit the broken metal pipes and other submerged parts of the stranded ship, which caused a crater in its bottom, said the sources, adding that Fair Jolly has been withdrawn from the operation as its economical repairing was not possible in a short period.

The Fair Jolly had started the salvage operation on Aug 4 and it continued working intermittently till last Wednesday, ferrying about 30,000 tonnes of crude stored in the grounded tanker. A couple of barges were also deployed in the operation but due to their limited capacity, they managed to transfer only an insignificant quantity of oil.

In the meantime, oil continued leaking into the sea on Sunday as well. Conservative estimates put the quantity of oil spilled into the sea at 20,000 tonnes.

KPT’s Brig Iftikhar Arshad Khan said that following the salvagers’ refusal to deploy their ship any further, the KPT requested the Pakistan Navy to provide a ship, which was granted by the Chief of the Naval Staff.

He said the salvagers had agreed to make payment against the services of the naval ship, which is employing the PN personnel. After extracting about 500 tonnes of crude oil from Tasman Spirit, they had started pumping out to another big ship, Endeavour-II, in the evening.