A United States Coast Guard fact-finding team anticipates that the Panama-registered container ship MSC DANIT might have been involved in a suspected oil pipeline strike around eight months before the San Pedro Bay Pipeline spill, which provided an estimated 3717 barrels (130000 gallons) of oil into the ocean off Orange County.

Probers reckon a 366-meter cargo ship dragging anchor in rough seas caught an underwater oil pipeline and pulled it across the seafloor, weeks before a leak from the line fouled the Southern California coastline with crude oil.

Still undetermined is whether the impact caused the October leak in California, or if the line was hit by something else at a later date or failed due to a preexisting problem, Coast Guard says.

— NBC News (@NBCNews) October 17, 2021

California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta launched a probe on Monday into an offshore oil spill that seeped thousands of oils into the Pacific Ocean, killing dozens of animals. Bonta told reporters that it isn’t evident whether an inquiry would prompt a criminal or civil move, but he said the state Department of Justice is ready to do what is mandatory to get a complete accounting of “what and how it happened, who did what, when and entirely disclose the actuality and circumstances of that incident.”

Pipeline Pulled To Over 100 Feet

Moreover, a panel of federal probers attempting to hunt for the cause of the oil spill boarded the MSC DANIT soon after the huge ship arrived this weekend of the Harbor Department of the City of Long Beach, the same region where the seepage was identified in October.

Furthermore, on Sunday, Coast Guard Lt. j.g. SondraKay Kneen said that during a previous trip by the ship during a heavy storm in Jan. 2021, probers expected its anchor dragged for an unknown distance before hitting the sixteen-inch steel pipeline. It is also believed the anchor bent the oil pipeline but did not break it.

Kneen said that the influence would’ve knocked an inch-thick concrete casing off the steel pipe and took it out over 100 feet. She said that they’re still looking at numerous vessels and scenarios.

On Saturday, the Coast Guard designated the owner and operator as parties of interest in its inquiry into the leak, assessed to have released nearly twenty-five thousand gallons into the water, killing fish, birds, and mammals.

A Swiss-Italian international shipping line, “MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A.,” the MSC DANIT’s operator, is headquartered in Switzerland and has a fleet of six-hundred vessels and over 0.1M employees.