State authorities in Brandenburg reported a major oil spill north of Berlin late on Wednesday, saying there had been an accident affecting a pipeline connecting a major oil refinery to the Baltic Sea port of Rostock. 

"An accident occurred on the PCK pipeline near Gramzow/Zehnebeck, resulting in a large oil spill," a spokesman for Brandenburg's Environment Ministry said. "Emergency services are on site. No information can be provided at this time about the cause or the exact extent of the damage." 

The fire department later estimated that roughly 200,000 liters (about 52,835 gallons) of oil had escaped from the pipeline at a pumping station in Gramzow. For orientation, that amount of liquid would fill a little less than one-tenth of an Olympic swimming pool. 

Alexander Trenn of the Schwedt fire department said the leak had a pressure of around 20 bar (roughly 290 psi) at its peak, causing a fountain of oil several meters high to spew out. 

Specialist machinery was being used to remove the spilled oil. Clean-up operations would continue into Thursday morning, he said. Trenn said around 100 fire department officers and some 25 company employees were working on site.

Nature reserves situated near PCK's Schwedt refinery on Polish border

A major oil refinery is located near the border to Poland in Schwedt, operated by PCK. The company says on its website that the facility can process 11.5 million metric tons of oil a year, "making it one of the largest crude oil processing sites in Germany."

Meanwhile, the AFP news agency cited a PCK spokeswoman as saying that "deliberate external influence" such as sabotage could already be "ruled out."

Local public broadcaster rbb reported that by 7:45 p.m. local time (1845 UTC/GMT), "the leak was for the most part plugged, although some oil was still leaking out." 

Pipelines connect the refinery to the major port of Rostock to the northwest. 

Gramzow is situated slightly northwest of Schwedt, on the northern tip of a large nature reserve to the north of Berlin. The refinery is also next to another national park.

The areas between Berlin and the Polish border are heavily forested and also the site of the Oder River, which serves as the border much of the time. 

Edited by Sean Sinico