Already in mid-June, SVT was able to reveal that the 77 square kilometer emission in the Bothnian Sea was believed to be tall oil.
This is now confirmed by the Coast Guard's own analysis of samples.
- It is either crude pine oil or pine diesel, says Jonatan Tholin, head of preliminary investigations at the Coast Guard.
The analysis landed on his desk on Thursday morning and he says that right now it is not possible to say much about the impact the emissions have on the environment.
Circled ship
In the investigation so far, a specific vessel has been circled.
- The ship is said to have left the Swedish port, has unloaded cargo in the northern half of Sweden and has cleaned its tanks out at sea, but I can not go into more details about the ship than that.
We need to carry out more investigative measures first, he says.
SVT has previously mapped the ship traffic and then told about a ship that delivered tall oil to Piteå.
It is still unclear where the huge emissions went.
- We have not received any reports that tall oil is inside the shoreline and our aircraft have not reported any emissions that can be attributed to this, says Jonatan Tholin and continues:
- We can not act as long as we do not know where it is.
Investigated as an environmental crime
The discharge is still being investigated as an environmental crime and the investigation is being led by environmental prosecutor Christer Jarlås.
- As the regulations are designed today, you can release certain amounts into the sea, but given the size of this, it does not seem to be a legal release, says Jonatan Tholin.