Activists of Greenpeace, whose Rainbow Warrior vessel has been in the port of Sibenik for a few days, on Saturday presented video footage showing bubbles coming out of the rusty pipes of the sunken gas platform Ivana D in the northern Adriatic.

The activists warn that they could not get an answer from the Croatian oil and gas provider INA on what is going on at the site, apart from the information that an investigation is under way, although 17 months have passed since the accident.

INA’s offshore gas platform “Ivana D” ended up on the seabed after a tempest in the Adriatic in early December 2020. After the accident, it had been located 50 kilometres northwest of Pula.

Croatia’s Assistant Sea and Transport Minister said, after the sunken platform had been located, that it posed no threat to navigation. Ivana D is in a zone where navigation is prohibited, and it sank to the depth of more than 25 metres, so if even a vessel happens to pass through that area, the sunken platform will not threaten it, according to the information provided by the authorities on 10 December 2020. The official also reassured the public that no gas had leaked from the platform and there was no threat of pollution. He said then that INA would be told first to eliminate all pollution-prone items, such as accumulators, from the platform, and after that consideration would be given to plans to pull out the sunken platform or to some other options.

However, Petra Andric of Greenpeace Croatia today said that the platform had not yet been removed from the seabed and that the video showed that it was possible that metane was still leaking.

She also wondered whether the government was at all aware of the real state of affairs at that platform wreck.

“It is high time some concrete steps were taken,” Andric said.

“We need the Adriatic sun and not the underground gas.”

The captain of the Rainbow Warrior vessel, Hettie Geenen, praised the scenery of the Adriatic.
This has been the third visit of the Rainbow Warrior to Croatia’s coast.