A Preliminary Evaluation of the Economic Feasibility for Building a Multi-purpose Large Oil Spill Response Vessel in South Korea

Abstract

While the amounts of oil spill caused by the VLCC Hebei Spirit indicated 2.5 times more than that of the VLCC Sea Prince, the economic, environmental, and social damages derived from the Hebei Spirit spill were estimated to be about 30 times greater than those from the Sea Prince incident. This study consolidates the appropriate justification for building a multi-purpose large oil spill response vessel to allow swift and efficient handling of catastrophic marine pollution events through an analysis of technical and economic feasibility of such a project. The result of the technical feasibility analysis illustrates that a hopper dredge and oil spill response vessel with a capacity of 4,000 tons should be more appropriate. The result of the economic feasibility analysis indicates that under the most conservative estimates the project appears to be slightly impractical, with a benefit/cost ratio of 0.82, in which self-help efforts, however, can facilitate the project. And medium to optimistic estimates present benefit/cost ratios are estimated to be 2.72 and 5.82 respectively, representing apparent economic feasibility.