 Tug boats Help Refloat Grounded Tanker February 03, 2006
The tugs pulled the tanker into deeper water where it will be inspected thoroughly, but there was no indication the ship had leaked any fuel while hard aground on the beach.  Unified Command photo by Petty Officer Christopher McLaughlin
A Unified Command consisting of Tesoro, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation is in place to handle the East Forelands Incident, pertaining to the tanker Seabulk Pride. At present, the crew and pilots remain on board the vessel. There have been no injuries reported by Unified Command, the vessel is stable and there has been no oil product lost from the tanker. Two tugs were mobilized from Homer Thursday morning. Due to a number of safety concerns stemming from one of the response tugs, Unified Command delayed an attempt to refloat the grounded vessel until 8:00 Friday morning to coincide with the morning high tide. The Seabulk Pride is a 600 ft, double hull and bottomed oil tanker utilized by Tesoro Alaska Company to transport oil. At the time of the grounding, the tanker was carrying 3,987,942 gallons (94,951 barrels) of Vacuum Tower Bottom Blend (VTBB). VTBB is a residual oil product that is not processed at the Tesoro Refinery in Nikiski. VTBB has a thick consistency, similar to asphalt. The Seabulk Pride is also carrying 224,532 gallons (5,346 barrels) of Bunker Oil, 47,670 gallons (1,135 barrels) of gasoline, 520,800 gallons (12,400 barrels) of Heavy Vacuum Gasoline Oil (HVGO) and 100,506 gallons (2,393 barrels) of Diesel Fuel 2. The Port of Registry of the T/V Seabulk Pride is Port Everglades, Florida. The vessel was built in 1998 by Newport News Shipbuilding, Inc.
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