Authorities at Europe’s second largest port, Antwerp, said on Friday they closed a dock for traffic after detecting late on Thursday afternoon an oil spill that had occurred during a bunkering operation.^{1) 2)}

The Port of Antwerp is Europe’s second-largest port after Rotterdam and handles a lot of petroleum and petroleum products as it has huge storage facilities and is part of the Amsterdam-Rotterdam-Antwerp (ARA) hub.^{3) 4)}

ARA is one of the world’s top oil hubs, due to its physical infrastructure, pricing benchmarks, and massive oil consumption.^{5) 6)}

Antwerp also has a large number of connections via shortsea, inland navigation, road, and rail between the port and the major chemical and petrochemical sites in Europe. In addition, the chemical cluster at Port of Antwerp-Bruges is the largest in Europe and the most versatile in the world.^{7) 8)}