The commercial vessel Goliath crashed into two tugboats just before noon, with TasPorts confirming the sinking of both tugs at 5pm. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has flown three inspectors to Tasmania to assess the damage from the incident.

On Saturday, TasPorts chief operating officer Stephen Casey said the tugboats had about 60,000 litres worth of fuel in them combined, but he was unsure about how much of that had spilled into the Mersey River.

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"The priority ... is to control and contain the oil spill," he said. We have a large amount of fuel and oil coming off the two tugs that are fully submerged. [We're] containing that and starting the process to remove some of that oil from the water itself."

Mr Casey said TasPorts had hired an expert salvage contractor from NSW.

"Sometime this week they'll take over the site and take on the salvage operation, which includes recovering any more of the fuel that might still be in the tanks and then planning for recovery of the vessels from the bottom of the river floor," he said.

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Mr Casey said TasPorts responded immediately to the incident.

"It was contained immediately upon impact," he said.

"We had a boom in place to contain the fuel and then within 45 minutes we had a much larger boom that brought the oil spill under control."

Environmental Protection Authority state pollution control officer Tony Port said his organisation was in the process of containing the oil spill.

"We are working to assist in the recovery of the oil," he said.

"We've provided some equipment and some expertise to assist TasPorts in doing a job they've done well until now."

Mr Port said he believed the majority of the oil spilt from the tugboats has been contained thanks to "TasPorts diligence and quick action".

"Some oil has released, but we believe most of the oil has been captured inside the boom."

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In regards to the oil that has been released, Mr Port was unsure about the impact of it on the environment.

"We've got vessels on the water looking at the marine environment and people looking at the impacts on the wildlife in the region," he said.

"But as of yet, we haven't seen any significant impacts of the oil yet."

Mr Port said the EPA has been monitoring the Mersey River as far as Latrobe for oil.

"We have very strong tides in the Mersey, so the oil is actually travelling on the tide quite significantly," he said.

"We're just doing due diligence to ensure that we've got a broad area covered."

Mr Port was thankful only a small amount of oil was not contained.

"It would have had a significant impact on the environment and on the recreational capacity of the beaches," he said.

"We would have had a significant clean up response that would have been more difficult."

In terms of overall volume, Mr Port said the spill is "pretty significant compared to other incidents", but reiterated that most of the oil was contained.

"The other spills that we've had have been offshore and we've had to then follow up and clean up for a long time in very adverse weather conditions - winter weather, cold weather," he said.

"We've actually been very lucky in that the response has been so quick and been able to contain the leaking."

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