Nicholas P. Cheremisinoff and Anton Davletshin: Emergency Response Management of Offshore Oil Spills. Guidelines for Emergency Responders

Abstract

Between the end of April and September 2010 the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was never out of the news and clearly represented an opportunity for a book on the subject. From the outset the authors seem determined to stress the hazards associated with crude oil, starting with the statement that ‘‘Crude oil is toxic to humans. The industry downplays and argues that crude oil is of low toxicity to humans’’. Crude oil is not a chemical entity but a variable complex mixture ranging from low boiling (light) crudes which can almost be used as diesel fuel without processing, to heavy crudes containing high levels of sulfur, to highly degraded crudes such as Trinidad Lake Asphalt. The nature of the crude oil involved in a particular spill is important since, in general, the heavier the crude the more likely it is to have adverse environmental effects. The MV Braer went aground off Shetland in January 1993 and released 85,000 tons of oil. However, the oil was a light one and the weather was so bad with 100 mph gales that after a week little evidence of the spill remained. A small amount of detergent was used but it was negligible compared to the quantities normally used. On the other hand I am sure that traces of tarry material from the Torrey Canyon spill of 1967 can still be found at the high water mark along parts of the Cornish coast. As far as toxicity is concerned no one should handle quantities of crude under conditions of poor ventilation nor would anyone be advised to swallow crude oil but I would not classify it as toxic under most conditions likely to be encountered in real life. The remainder of this chapter consists of a table of major oil spills giving size, location and date. All of this information is readily available from the web and I fail to understand why it is necessary to use three different units of quantity—(US) gallons, barrels and ‘‘Equivalent number of Olympic size swimming pools’’, a unit that seems to be totally superfluous. Oil spills arise from two major sources—transport by tanker and pipeline and from production installations. Improvements in tanker design and operation have resulted in a gradual decline of spills from tankers and properly maintained pipelines should cause little pollution. That caused by production rigs is often unpredictable and as offshore installations move into deeper water and more hazardous locations it is not surprising that incidents such as the Deepwater Horizon disaster will occur from time to time, although this means that safety should prevail over all other factors and regretfully this is not always the case. I have stressed the various sources of oil spills since the next chapter, entitled ‘‘Origins of Spills’’, deals exclusively with production sources. Within this remit it gives a good description of the far-from-simple task of the drilling of a new well. It does give the reader an insight into the complexities of what might seem to be a simple process of E. R. Adlard (&) Burton, South Wirral, UK e-mail: chromatographia@springer.com