There was no overloading — Petron

Petron Corp. yesterday reiterated its position that there was no overloading that occurred in Solar I as reported by the Board of Marine Inquiry.

"As far as we are concerned, there was no overloading since the bunker fuel we loaded was within the ship’s capacity in terms of volume and weight," Petron public affairs manager Virginia Ruivivar said in a statement.

The company’s record shows that the loaded volume was 2.19 million liters against the ships capacity of 2.24 million liters. This is equivalent to only 98 percent. The weight of the cargo, meanwhile, was only 2,064 metric tons or 97 percent of the vessel’s deadweight tonnage of 2,128 metric tons.

Petron added that its custody flow meters, which measures outgoing products at its Bataan Refinery is state-of-the-art and is accurate to 0.15 percent. The meters are "probed" regularly in accordance with the requirement of the Department of Science and Technology’s industrial technology and development institute.

"We are fully transparent and we are confident that the facts will bear us out. Regardless of this finding, we’ll continue our clean-up operations and help in the rehabilitation of the affected areas in Guimaras," Ruivivar said.

Since the spill, Petron has cleaned up 124 kilometers of shoreline collecting 1,534 metric tons of debris under its Ligtas Guimaras program. The company also continues to distribute relief goods and provide medical assistance to thousands of Guimaras residents affected by the oil spill.