President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Wednesday assured that the siphoning operations on the sunken oil tanker off Bataan’s coast will be finished soon.

“The estimate of our Coast Guard together with the salvors, in their calculation, it will take two weeks to siphon oil from the ship,” Marcos said during the distribution of presidential aid to farmers and fisherfolk in Cavite affected by the disaster.

The President said the siphoning operations already started four days ago.

“Maybe there’s only 10 days left. After 10 days when we have siphoned all the oil, we can try to recover that ship, refloat it and take it to another place,” he added.

The latest data from the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) said that 574,067 liters were recovered from the MT Terranova on 19 to 27 August.

On Wednesday, siphoning was temporarily stopped to change the booster pump, which speeds up the flow rate in the operation.

Further, the PCG reported that two wing van trucks arrived at Seafront Shipyard to haul the oil-contaminated waste materials.

The PCG said minimal oil sheen was observed during the siphoning operation, while its vessels BRP Sindangan, BRP Boracay and BRP Malamawi utilized water cannons to clear the oil sheen in the area.