Till July 18, Liaoning Provincial Maritime Safety Bureau had applied 8000-meter oil fence, 22-ton oil dispersant, and 3.7-ton oil absorption felt to deal with the 4-5 square nautical miles of crude oil affected region. Some 100 tons of oil has been collected. And at least 20 oil skimmers were working to clean the spill, the bureau said.

On July 16, an oil pipeline exploded at 6 pm near Dalian's Xingang Harbor, triggering another blast at a smaller pipe nearby, Xinhua News Agency reported. It is estimated that the “seriously polluted” region is about 10 sq km offshore, affected region 50 sq km and 11 sq km of the ocean in the area are "relatively polluted".

Xu Zuyuan, Vice Minister of Transport, has hosted a special conference at the Chinese Marine Search and Rescue Center, to pass on the directions from Vice-Premier Zhang Dejiang on the operations and arrange further treatments to clean up oil spill. Vice-Premier Zhang rushed to the scene on Friday night right after the explosion.

By Xie Fang & Ren Ruqin