ANCHORAGE - A Russian tanker is preparing to off-load nearly four million litres of diesel and petrol to fuel-starved Nome, but first it must position itself near the Alaskan town's iced-in harbour to send the cargo through a 1.5-kilometre hose without a spill.
Led by a US Coast Guard icebreaker, the vessel ploughed through hundreds of kilometres of Bering Sea ice to reach Nome. It was holding steady about 13 kilometres off shore on Saturday.
Nome's harbour is iced in, preventing the tanker Renda from getting to the city dock.
It will have to moor offshore to transfer its load across the ice to fuel headers that feed a nearby tank farm.
The Coast Guard cutter Healy can only get so close to shore because of shallow waters.
Officials want to place the Renda ''where there's enough water around it that the Healy can then break the Renda free once the delivery is done,'' Coast Guard spokesman David Mosley said.
For days, operations officials have looked at how best to lay the segmented fuel hose across the shore-fast ice for the transfer. The idea is to get the tanker as close to the harbour as possible to reduce the chance of a spill.
A storm prevented Nome from getting a fuel delivery by barge in November. Without the tanker delivery, supplies of diesel, petrol and home-heating fuel in Nome are expected to run out well before the next delivery in late May.
Email a friend