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Municipal employees clean Itapua beach, in Salvador da Bahia, polluted by the oil spill. In recent weeks, many volunteers have been hard at work to rid the beaches of thousands of tons of oil cakes. REUTERS / Lucas Landau

Delta Tankers, the managing company of the Greek oil company Bouboulina , "main suspect" of the gigantic oil spill in Brazil, denied this Saturday, November 2 any involvement. About one hundred beaches in nine Brazilian states have been affected by this spill.

According to Delta Tankers, Bouboulina " arrived at its destination without having any problems during his trip and unloaded all of his cargo without any loss ". On Friday night, the Brazilian authorities said the Greek ship was the " main suspect " of the oil spill that sullied more than 2,000 kilometers of coastline in the north-east of the country.

While the origin of the oil pollution, which would have occurred at the end of July, remained mysterious for weeks, the Brazilian authorities affirmed to have identified thanks to satellite data this Greek oil company " which transported crude oil from the oil terminal 'José in Venezuela and was traveling to South Africa .

But according to an investigation by Delta Tankers, " there is no evidence of leakage or transfer from ship to vessel (STS) or delay of Bouboulina during her trip between Venezuela and the Malaysian port of Melaka ". The managing company said it was " ready to deliver documents of this study to the Brazilian authorities " but these " have not yet been in contact with us, " she lamented in her statement.

Five suspicious ships

On Saturday morning, a few hours before the release of the Delta Tankers press release, the Greek port police, which reports to the Ministry of the Merchant Navy, said that " five ships, including one Greek, were considered suspect for this oil spill, according to research done in Brazil . However, it did not specify either the names of the vessels or the companies that own them.

The Brazilian authorities on July 29 detected the spill of oil, more than 700 km from the coast of Paraiba State, state of northeastern Brazil. It was on August 30 that oil began to appear on the Brazilian coast, then moving south into the state of Bahia. The authorities are still unaware if the origin of this " unpublished " oil spill is accidental or criminal.

But in recent weeks, many volunteers were hard at work to rid of the thousands of tons of oil cakes beaches hitherto deemed paradise.

(With AFP)