ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES FOR A PERMIT-WIDE DRILLING PROGRAM IN A SENSITIVE MARINE ENVIRONMENT

1994 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 750
Author(s):  
Barry Smith ◽  
Julie Martine ◽  
Graeme D. Hubbert
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Marine Environment ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Surface Current ◽  
Environmental Studies ◽  
Local Environment ◽  
Specific Work ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
North West ◽  
Response Planning

An integrated program of environmental studies was undertaken in support of an application to conduct permit-wide exploratory drilling in a shallow, sensitive marine environment. The program comprised permit and well site specific work which was carried out in parallel with a corporate due diligence program established by the permit Operator.Scientific studies undertaken for permit area EP 341 off the north west coast of Western Australia comprised underwater surveys, aerial video reconnaissance, surface current tracking surveys and oil spill trajectory modelling to characterise the local environment and identify sensitive resources at risk of impact from oil spills. Survey data were used to prepare an environmental impact assessment report and an oil spill contingency plan, which provide a set of site-specific environmental management guidelines for use by field and office personnel involved with the drilling program. A 3D oil spill trajectory model successfully predicted current flows in the complex hydrodynamic environment of the permit areas, demonstrating its usefulness as a real time tool for oil spill response planning.

scholarly journals OIL SPILL INCIDENTS AND DISPERSANT APPLICATIONS IN KUWAIT

1987 ◽  
Vol 1987 (1) ◽  
pp. 247-253
Author(s):  
Salah M. Al-Mazidi ◽  
Omar Samhan
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Marine Environment ◽  
Petroleum Hydrocarbons ◽  
Petroleum Hydrocarbon ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Petroleum Products ◽  
Coastal Environment ◽  
Industrial Activities ◽  
Oil Refineries ◽  
North And South

ABSTRACT Since the discovery of oil in Kuwait, most oil-related activities have been located along the coastline 50 km south of Kuwait City. Other related industrial activities have been developed in this area apart from oil and petroleum products export in order to diversify the national sources of income. For these reasons, the potential for large oil spills in Kuwait's marine environment is highest along the south coast, where oil refineries and exporting facilities are located. An average of 219 barrels of oil were spilled annually between 1979 and 1985, and 2,100 gallons of dispersants were used in cleanup operations. The majority of incidents involved less than 5 barrels of oil and 500 gallons of dispersants. Incidents involving more than 100 barrels of oil and 5,000 gallons of dispersants were confined to the Sea Island and Mina Al-Ahmadi North and South Piers. This distribution undoubtedly affects the concentration of petroleum residues in various components of the marine environment, resulting in an increase in tar ball density along this coast, reaching a maximum at Ras Az-Zor, and significantly higher levels of vanadium and petroleum hydrocarbons in sediments and oysters collected south of Mina Al-Ahmadi. The objective of this paper is to report on the number, volume, and frequency distribution of oil spill incidents in Kuwait and the usage of dispersants in cleanup operations. Vanadium and petroleum hydrocarbon concentrations also are described as is the sensitivity of the southern coastal environment to oil spills. Recommendations have been made on how to conduct cleanup operations for any future oil spill incidents along the southern shoreline of Kuwait.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONTINGENCY MEASURES IN DETERMINING OUTER CONTINENTAL SHELF OIL AND GAS DEVELOPMENT

1981 ◽  
Vol 1981 (1) ◽  
pp. 571-575
Author(s):  
Raymond R. Emerson
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Environmental Risk ◽  
Oil And Gas ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Contingency Planning ◽  
Outer Continental Shelf ◽  
Production Potential ◽  
Oil And Gas Development ◽  
Site Specific ◽  
The U.S

ABSTRACT Oil spills are one of the major concerns associated with oil and gas development along the outer continental shelf. The U.S. Department of the Interior is presently planning lease sales at the rate of seven per year. Many of these leases are being proposed in areas where the risks associated with oil spills are difficult to assess. The major objective of the decisionmakers in this process is to select a leasing plan from the list of proposed blocks that will offer the maximum production potential within an acceptable level of environmental risk. This objective can be obtained with proper contingency planning which should include site-specific designs. A proposed leasing plan could be limited in its production potential by the habitats more vunerable to a potential oil spill. These areas are identified using a model system developed by the U.S. Geological Survey. In this model, the local meteorology and physical oceanography are coupled to produce trajectories of hypothetical oil spills. These trajectories, along with oil resource estimates, are used to establish overall probabilities of an oil spill contacting specific coastal areas and habitats. Using linear programming techniques, the blocks that can yield the maximum resource recovery within specified limits of environmental risk are identified. Site-specific contingency measures (such as stockpiles of cleanup equipment) concentrated at the more vulnerable habitats will allow the decisionmaker to accept a higher level of environmental risk and significantly increase the number of blocks that are suitable for leasing. A proposed lease sale area for the northeast Gulf of Alaska is used to demonstrate the importance of contingency planning in determining various levels of offshore oil and gas resource development.

National Oil Spill Response Planning in the U.S.S.R.: Principal Conceptions and Objectives

1991 ◽  
Vol 1991 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-5
Author(s):  
O. Khalimonov ◽  
S. Nunuparov
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Data Bank ◽  
Effective Utilization ◽  
Contingency Plan ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
International Monitoring ◽  
Oil Spill Response ◽  
System Data

ABSTRACT International and domestic experience in the response to major oil spills at sea confirms the vital necessity of a national contingency plan to guarantee effective utilization of national resources and those of assisting countries and organizations. Experience in responding to recent major oil spills underlines deficiencies connected with the shortage of technical means and also with ineffective organization of the response and cooperation of all parties involved. This results in unjustifiable delays in decision making and, finally, in catastrophic damages to the environment. The main principles of the U.S.S.R. national oil spill response plan, currently under consideration for approval, are as follows:involvement of a wide range of national forces and forces of the neighboring countries under preliminary agreed-upon schemes;strengthening and development of appropriate legal instruments to stipulate obligations of the parties involved in pollution response operations;development of a mechanism to reduce impediments to financial, technical, and related agreements required prior to commencement of operations (sources of finances, preliminary approval of the response technology by competent authorities, facilitation of custom procedures);unification of the structure of the U.S.S.R national contingency plan with a view to making it compatible with corresponding plans of neighboring countries following the prototype developed by the International Maritime Organization (IMO);cooperation in the establishment of the international monitoring system, data bank, and computerized exchange of information.

Estimating the Cumulative Cost of OPA 90 to Private Industry

1999 ◽  
Vol 1999 (1) ◽  
pp. 257-265
Author(s):  
Edward J. Maillett ◽  
Gary A. Yoshioka
Keyword(s):  
Cost Effectiveness ◽  
Private Sector ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Private Industry ◽  
Discounted Cost ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
Cumulative Cost ◽  
The Cost

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to estimate the cumulative cost incurred by private industry as a result of the various regulations enacted under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA 90) and to compare these costs against the estimated effectiveness of the program in terms of avoided future oil spills. The authors reviewed Federal Register announcements of federal agency rulemakings to identify estimated costs to industry and to determine if reported costs are one-time occurrences for capital-related expenditures or represent annual estimates for repeated activities. The authors then estimated the total costs of each rulemaking through the year 2015. The costs of regulations implemented under OPA 90 that impact the private sector range from zero to $3.5 billion in discounted dollars. Based on these individual government estimates for each OPA 90 regulation, the authors estimate the discounted cost to industry to comply with all of the OPA 90 requirements to be $12.1 billion, the largest portion of which affects the marine vessel industry. Total benefits of the rulemakings are estimated to exceed 3.6 million barrels of avoided oil spills through the year 2015. Over one-half of this benefit estimate results from the facility response planning requirements for non-transportation-related on-shore facilities and pipelines. The cost effectiveness of regulations implemented under OPA 90 ranges between several hundred dollars to over $26,000 per barrel of avoided oil spill.

CALIFORNIA'S GNOME TRAJECTORY INITIATIVE TO DETERMINE BEST ACHIEVABLE PROTECTION FOR SENSITIVE SHORELINE RESOURCES FROM VESSEL OIL SPILLS

2005 ◽  
Vol 2005 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-165
Author(s):  
Carl Jochums ◽  
Glen Watabyashi ◽  
Heather Parker-Hall
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Oil Pollution ◽  
Time Intervals ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Environmental Consequences ◽  
Playing Field ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
Objective Standard ◽  
Shoreline Protection

ABSTRACT California has initiated a new approach to create an objective standard and regulate best achievable protection (BAP) for sensitive shoreline protection from vessel spills. The Oil Pollution Act (OPA 90) and California's Lempert-Keene-Seastrand Oil Spill Prevention and Response Act (SB 2040) mandate BAP as the standard for preparedness and response. BAP poses the critical response planning questions: “How much response resources should industry provide?” and “In what timeframes should those resources be deployed?” Prior California regulations intended to achieve BAP by relying on vessels to identify hazards, trajectories, environmental consequences, and response resource plans, produced less than optimal results in many instances. Though effective in theory, this approach resulted in fuzzy consequences and vague arrangements for adequate response. Because it was neither clear what sites would be protected (and what response resources would be required) nor at what time, and because it was consequentially not clear what response resources would be engaged to execute protection, drilling C-plans became obtuse. This in turn fostered “paper tiger” OSROs and resulted in an uneven playing field for business competitors. In Californias new approach, OSPR used many of the original concepts to identify BAP by using the NOAA GNOME oil spill model for generic vessel risk threats for California ports and along the California coast. This paper explains the theory, steps, and details. As a result of this process, BAP has been defined in terms of specific site deployments at specific time intervals and presented in tables in regulation. This new approach provides a number of benefits and solutions to the difficult issues in the former approach, including a standard for BAP.

OIL SPILL RESPONSE RESEARCH: A GOOD INVESTMENT?1

1997 ◽  
Vol 1997 (1) ◽  
pp. 719-721 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elmer P. Danenberger
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Research Funding ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Total Response ◽  
Careful Planning ◽  
Response Planning ◽  
Good Investment ◽  
Research Expenditures ◽  
Oil Spill Response ◽  
Government Research

ABSTRACT The Nation's commitment to oil-spill response research can be measured by comparing research expenditures with response planning and oil spill costs. Total response planning and preparedness costs are estimated at $295 million to $440 million per year. Total costs for an oil spill can be as high as $570 per gallon, with spills such as the Valdez spill costing an estimated $6 billion. These costs vastly exceed the estimated 1996 industry and government research expenditures of $1 million and $5 million, respectively. Other significant national costs could possibly be reduced by improving spill response capabilities. Sustained research funding accompanied by careful planning and coordination could substantially reduce the national costs associated with oil spills and increase the benefits of response planning programs.

scholarly journals Oil Spill Detection using Sentinel-1 Multitemporal Data in Offshore Karawang

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 69-79
Author(s):  
Godfried Junio Sebastian Matahelemual ◽  
Agung Budi Harto ◽  
Tri Muji Susantoro
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Northern Coast ◽  
Marine Animals ◽  
North West ◽  
Short And Long Term ◽  
Java Sea ◽  
Multitemporal Data ◽  
Thresholding Algorithm

Oil spill is a serious problem that could lead to economic and ecological losses, both in the short and long term. On July 12, 2019, there occurred an oil leakage around YYA-1 oil platform of Pertamina Hulu Energi Offshore North West Java (PHE ONWJ), located off the northern coast of Karawang, Java Sea. This incident has caused the death of fishes and marine animals, damage to coral reefs, mangroves, and seagrass beds, and several health problems of coastal communities. Therefore, it is necessary to map and monitor oil spills, so that actions can be taken to prevent the spread of oil spills. This study aims to map the distribution of oil spills in Karawang sea using multitemporal Sentinel-1 data from July to September 2019. The detection is carried out using the adaptive thresholding algorithm combined with manual interpretation. The result shows that the oil spills spread around Karawang sea from YYA-1 platform to Sedari Village and there are oil spills spreading from the Central Plant F/S platform. The oil spills tend to shift westward from July to September 2019. This shifting is supposed to be influenced by current and wave factors that were dominant moving westward at that time. Based on data processing, it was found that the oil spill area from July to September was respectively 24.79 km2, 20.05 km2, and 27.12 km2.

scholarly journals Oil Spill Scenarios in the Kotor Bay: Results from High Resolution Numerical Simulations

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giulia Zanier ◽  
Massimiliano Palma ◽  
Andrea Petronio ◽  
Federico Roman ◽  
Vincenzo Armenio
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Surface Current ◽  
Ship Traffic ◽  
Large Eddy ◽  
Contingency Plans ◽  
Coupling Procedure ◽  
Marine Surface ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Wind Flows

A major threat for marine and coastal environment comes from oil spill accidents. Such events have a great impact on both the ecosystem and on the economy, and the risk increases over time due to increasing ship traffic in many sensitive areas. In recent years, numerical simulation of oil spills has become an affordable tool for the analysis of the risk and for the preparation of contingency plans. However, in coastal areas, the complexity of the bathymetry and of the orography requires an adequate resolution of sea and wind flows. For this reason, we present, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the first study on the subject adopting Large Eddy Simulations for both the low-atmosphere and sea dynamics in order to provide highly-resolved marine surface current and wind stress to the oil slick model, within a one-way coupling procedure. Such approach is applied to the relevant case of Kotor Bay (UNESCO heritage since 1979), in Montenegro, which is a semi-closed basin surrounded by mountains that is subject to an intense ship traffic for touristic purposes. Oil spill spots are tracked along ship paths, in two wind scenarios.

The Exxon Valdez Oil-spill: Ecological and Social Consequences

1992 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 253-258 ◽  
Author(s):  
David G. Shaw
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Oil Spill ◽  
Marine Environment ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
The United States ◽  
Environmental Damage ◽  
Prince William Sound ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Exxon Valdez

Major oil-spills, such as occurred following the grounding of the tanker Exxon Valdez in March 1989 in Prince William Sound, Alaska, account for only a small fraction of the total anthropogenic input of petroleum to the marine environment. Yet major spills can result in significant and even acute impacts, trigger ecological changes requiring decades for recovery, and command considerable public attention. Thus catastrophic oil-spills in general, and the Exxon Valdez spill in particular, differ from other chronic human alterations of coastal marine systems.Estimates of the fate of the 38,000 metric tons of crude oil lost by the Exxon Valdez are imprecise, but perhaps 30–40% evaporated, 10–25% was recovered, and the rest remains in the marine environment. Roughly 1,500 km of coastline were oiled in varying degrees. Much of this coastline consists of gravel beaches into which oil penetrated to depths as great as 1 m.The ecological effects of the spill on the marine environments of Prince William Sound and adjacent coastal areas of the Gulf of Alaska were extensive, but natural recovery, aided by clean-up efforts, is expected. Judging by the consequences of other oil-spills affecting rocky shorelines, as well as previous natural and anthropogenic disturbances to Prince William Sound, it appears likely that most affected biotic communities and ecosystems will recover to approximately their pre-spill functional and structural characteristic within from five to twenty-five years.This oil-spill had major social effects. Many individuals, whether personally present or viewing the spill around the world on television, were saddened by the environmental damage, and felt that an important public trust had been broken. These feelings, together with dissatisfaction with the results of early clean-up efforts, gave rise to popular sentiment in favour of every possible clean-up and mitigation effort — regardless of cost, effectiveness, or possible negative consequences.The response to the Exxon Valdez oil-spill by government and the oil industry revealed serious inadequacies in the plans and institutions for dealing with major marine oilspills in the United States. Attempts to recover spilled oil, and to respond to the spill's environmental consequences, were hampered by a low level of preparedness and lack of clear agreement about the goals of response efforts. Attempts are under way to improve oil-spill prevention and response capabilities in Alaska and the rest of the United States. However, these efforts are not yet complete, and it remains to be seen whether an improved response will be made to the next major oil-spill.

Reducing the oil spill threat to the marine environment (Foreword)

Baltica ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 27 (special) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Author(s):  
Victor Klemas ◽  
Nerijus Blažauskas
Keyword(s):  
Oil Spill ◽  
Marine Environment ◽  
Russian Federation ◽  
Oil Spills ◽  
Project Development ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
South Eastern ◽  
Kaliningrad Oblast ◽  
Response Capacity ◽  
Eastern Baltic

Presented in this special issue studies aims to contribute in order to limit the damage from oil spills and to facilitate containment and cleanup efforts; to optimize the response to oil spills as well as facilitate the preparation of comprehensive maps of most valuable assets as well as prepare joint response plans between neighbouring Kaliningrad Oblast of Russian Federation and Lithuania. The results of common Lithuanian-Russian project “Development of solutions for effective oil spill management in the South-Eastern Baltic” takes an attempt to operationally harmonize and scientifically ground a response capacity for this commonly used area

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document