Maritime Oil Research Articles

Fundamental Study on a New Thin Oil-film Recovery Device Based on the MHD Method

The MHD maritime oil spill recovery method has many advantages in tackling the marine thin oil-film. The existing device, in which the MHD channel is arranged horizontally, can’t operate successfully under wave conditions and the oil and air bubbles can’t move through the MHD channel smoothly. A new method with the MHD channel arranged with a slight tilt angle is proposed to improve the effect of the thin oil-film recovery. In this paper, the hydrodynamic characteristics of the seawater and air two-phase flow under the action of electromagnetic force with the MHD channel arranged obliquely were studied numerically and the results show that the static pressure decreases gradually from the MHD channel's inlet to the outlet. The flow rate decreases slightly as the tilt angle increases. The pressure rise and the effective power increase slightly as the tilt angle increases.

Maritime Oil Spill Risk Assessment for Hanhikivi Nuclear Power Plant

Maritime Oil Spill Risk Assessment for Hanhikivi Nuclear Power Plant

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Maritime Cruise Base Site Selection Strategy Research in the Bohai Sea

Since the maritime traffic accidents and oil spill risk problem is getting increasingly serious, on the base of the maritime and oil spill accidents historical data analysis, the risk source in the Bohai Sea is discretized into finite cell. The risk analysis in matter element analysis method has been used to determine every cell’s level of risk and the demand for cruising power of each risk point has been evaluated. The specific location to build maritime unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) cruise base needs to go through a cost-effectiveness analysis. Taking the relationship between risk point and cruise base’s location into consideration, the multi-target site selection model of UAV cruise base has been established. In this model, genetic algorithm has been used to optimize the site selection and finally, it is able to provide decision-making suggestions for the planning and construction of the Bohai maritime UAV cruise base.

A NATIONAL REVIEW OF AUSTRALIA'S MARITIME ENVIRONMENTAL EMERGENCY RESPONSE ARRANGEMENTS

ABSTRACT Australia's National Plan for Maritime Environmental Emergencies (‘the National Plan’) is a cooperative national strategy for the preparing, responding and recovering from maritime casualty and marine pollution incidents. A review of the National Plan was conducted between 2011 and 2012 following a series of shipping and offshore petroleum incidents which presented the most significant challenges to National Plan since its inception in 1973. The Review incorporated two streams of work – a national risk assessment modelled the current and 10 year outlook of the marine pollution threat to Australia and a capability analysis, involving consultation with over 90 stakeholder groups, identified areas for improvement in national preparedness. Forty-seven recommendations were forthcoming from the review including:Implementing a modern governance model for the National Plan, clarifying responsibilities and providing for the formal engagement of stakeholders.Alignment of planning and response systems with mainstream emergency services to improve the national response capability.Implementing a single response arrangement for maritime casualty and oil and chemical pollution.Addressing gaps in capability, including the development of a national chemical response capability, nationally accredited training and succession planning for the National Response Team. This paper describes the conduct of the Review, the significant outcomes for Australia's preparedness and the ongoing program to embed these outcomes into all levels of response planning in Australia.

Availability modeling and optimization of dynamic multi-state series–parallel systems with random reconfiguration

Most studies on multi-state series–parallel systems focus on the static type of system architecture. However, it is insufficient to model many complex industrial systems having several operation phases and each requires a subset of the subsystems combined together to perform certain tasks. To bridge this gap, this study takes into account this type of dynamic behavior in the multi-state series–parallel system and proposes an analytical approach to calculate the system availability and the operation cost. In this approach, Markov process is used to model the dynamics of system phase changing and component state changing, Markov reward model is used to calculate the operation cost associated with the dynamics, and universal generating function (UGF) is used to build system availability function from the system phase model and the component models. Based upon these models, an optimization problem is formulated to minimize the total system cost with the constraint that system availability is greater than a desired level. The genetic algorithm is then applied to solve the optimization problem. The proposed modeling and solution procedures are illustrated on a system design problem modified from a real-world maritime oil transportation system.

Evaluation of Ship-Diversion Induced Emergency on Port Traffic Volumes

The worst ice blockages along the Yellow Sea coast and Bohai Sea had severe effects on maritime shipping, oil and gas mining and farming activities in the winter of 2009 and 2010. Ice blockages made some small ships divert to neighboring ports, which also affected these ports' operations. To evaluate the effect of ship-diversion induced emergency on port traffic, we propose a simulation model considering ship-diversion induced emergency, port transportation and operations. Then we carry out simulation experiments on a container terminal in Dalian Port. The experiment results show that ship-diversion induced emergency increased the peak hourly traffic volume, average daily traffic and thirtieth hourly volume, which provides a basis for port traffic planning and organization.

Ship Route Design for Avoiding Heavy Weather and Sea Conditions

This paper covers the current state of maritime oil transportation in the Baltic Sea and the development of oil transportation in the 2000s, as well as estimations of transported oil volumes in 2020 and 2030 in the Gulf of Finland. The scenarios were formulated on the basis of a current state analysis, energy and transportation strategies and scenarios and expert assessments. The study showed that the volumes of oil transportation in the Gulf of Finland will increase only moderately compared to the current status: 9.5-33.8 %, depending on the scenario. Green energy policy favours renewable energy sources, which can be seen in the smaller volumes of transported oil in the 2030 scenarios compared to the 2020 scenarios. In the Slow development 2020 scenario, oil transport volumes for 2020 are expected to be 170.6 Mt (million tonnes), in the Average development 2020 187.1 Mt and in the Strong development 2020 201.5 Mt. The corresponding oil volumes for the 2030 scenarios were 165 Mt for the Stagnating development 2030 scenario, 177.5 Mt for the Towards a greener society 2030 scenario and 169.5 Mt in the Decarbonising society 2030 scenario.

Changes in Oil Transportation in the Years 2020 and 2030 – The Case of the Gulf of Finland

This paper covers the current state of maritime oil transportation in the Baltic Sea and the development of oil transportation in the 2000s, as well as estimations of transported oil volumes in 2020 and 2030 in the Gulf of Finland. The scenarios were formulated on the basis of a current state analysis, energy and transportation strategies and scenarios and expert assessments. The study showed that the volumes of oil transportation in the Gulf of Finland will increase only moderately compared to the current status: 9.5-33.8 %, depending on the scenario. Green energy policy favors renewable energy sources, which can be seen in the smaller volumes of transported oil in the 2030 scenarios compared to the 2020 scenarios. In the Slow development 2020 scenario, oil transport volumes for 2020 are expected to be 170.6 Mt (million tons), in the Average development 2020 187.1 Mt and in the Strong development 2020 201.5 Mt. The corresponding oil volumes for the 2030 scenarios were 165 Mt for the Stagnating development 2030 scenario, 177.5 Mt for the Towards a greener society 2030 scenario and 169.5 Mt in the Decarbonizing society 2030 scenario.

Geospatial Web Services for Responding to Ecological Risks Posed by Oil Spills

The increased maritime oil transportation raises the risk of marine oil spill accidents. An oil spill accident can cause severe harm to the ecosystem. Adequate contingency planning for oil spill and efficient combating operations require ecological data and knowledge to be integrated in tools that facilitate the decision making. A great deal of the decisions required during these operations is of spatial nature, such as defining areas with high priority for safeguarding. Also, real time decision making is required in the operations. All of this calls for spatial and on-sit accessible tools. The authors analyze and discuss geospatial Web services and an application develop[ed for responding to the ecological risk posed by oil spills. The case study presented in this paper concerns the Gulf of Finland and the Finnish Archipelago Sea. The results indicate that geospatial services are an efficient method to deliver ecological knowledge and information for oil spill combating.

Maritime oil freight flows to 2050: Delphi perceptions of maritime specialists

This paper aims to synthesise maritime specialists' perceptions of changing patterns of maritime oil freight flows to 2050. Debate spans published maritime oil flows globally, diverse drivers of future flows including economic growth, shipping market changes and haul lengths. A classic Delphi study to explore the perceptions of likely trends and flows to 2050 recruited a panel of early career and established maritime specialists, many with long term career commitments to this industry. Underpinned by market volatility and legislative uncertainty, the perceptions of both groups coincided and were conservative. Local sourcing, new Arctic seaways and fossil fuel intolerance will tend to reduce oil freight work but perceptions of ship re-routing to avoid for example Emission Control Areas and piracy would tend to lengthen hauls. In advanced industrial nations, reducing energy intensities and diminishing social tolerance of fossil fuels imply gradually reducing maritime oil shipments. However, to achieve radical national commitments to carbon emissions reductions will necessitate specialist education for naturally conservative maritime professionals and vigorous oil import reduction policies to curtail domestic demand for oil shipments.

Impacts of Climate Changes on Management Policy of the Harbors, Land Areas and Wetlands in the Sao Paulo State Coastline (Brazil)

Santosharbor and Sao Sebastiao Oil Maritime Terminal are the most important oil and gas facility in the Sao Paulo State Coastline. Santosharbor had, in the last decade, increased rapidly the container handling rate, being the first in Latin America. Santos Metropolitan Region is one of the most important of Brazilian Coastline, also considering the tourism. For that great economic growth scenario it is very important to have wave climate and tidal levels well known considering the sea hazards influence in ship operations. Since the hind-cast just represents the deep water wave climate, to make time-series of the wave’s parameters in coastal waters, for evaluation of sea hazards and ship operations, it is necessary to take into account the variations of those parameters in shallow waters with coastal instrumental data. Analysis of long term wave data-base (1957- 2002) generated by a comparison between wave’s data modeled by a “deep water model” (ERA40-ECMWF) and measured wave’s data in the years 1982-1984 by a coastal buoy in Santos littoral (Sao Paulo State, Brazil) was made. Validation checking procedures with instrumental measurements of storm surges made in other years than 1982-1984 shows high level of confidence. These data, obtained from the climatological analysis compared with a data set found from a scale model of the whole area of Santos Bay, Estuary and nearby beaches (Brazil), showed the impact of maritime climate changes, wave climate and tides upon harbor and coastal structures maintenance, beaches stability, tidal inlet saline intrusion and wetlands flooding. In the same time, the complex environmental system, that characterized the area included between Santos and Caraguatatuba, generates different natural hazard event affecting the maritime activity. A comparative study about the coastal flooding (Santos area) and the fluvial flooding (Juqueriquere river) was conducted. An analysis about the sea level rise, the wave climate and the flooding risk as well as the sediment transport was developed. Considering the increasing of the sea hazards, the high values of the facilities and infrastructures in Sao Paulo State Coastline, it is necessary to mitigate the risks from the point of view of the harbor and coastal structures maintenance and projects purposes increasing defenses procedures. Hence, based on the results obtained by the Authors in previous researches, are highlighted guidelines strategies suggested for Access Channels dimensions, wharves free-board, jetties and breakwaters dimensions, dredging rates, rigid and flexible littoral defenses, saline intrusion and land protection against flooding (including wetlands).

German maritime security governance: a perspective on the Indian Ocean Region

Besides the high number of attacks by Somali pirates, terrorists have threatened to disrupt Western maritime trade and oil and gas supplies in the Indian Ocean Region. This case study of German maritime security governance aims to examine these threats faced by Germany, and German countermeasures and preparedness. The German economy relies heavily on its international sea trade and Germany is home to the world's biggest container shipping companies. On one hand, authorities and stakeholders have been eager to improve risk assessment and implement international agreements. On the other hand, the different interests of ship-owners, seafarers and insurers, as well as a lack of agreement between the different ministries, are major challenges for German maritime security governance. Germany chooses to act within the international context concerning maritime security, but generally not in a leading role. However, maintaining a secure Indian Ocean region is paramount to ensuring its own economic security.

About the Authors

About the Authors

Safety in maritime oil sector: Content analysis of machinery space fire hazards

An in-depth study of the practice within the maritime oil industry was undertaken to ascertain safety issues in seafaring vessels. It was more concentrated on the type of accidents that occur in machine spaces of seafaring vessels in this industry. The main focus of the research was streamlined to fire in machinery spaces. The literature review later concentrated on two of such incidences, they are oil spill and fire events. An investigation was done to assess those factors which actually contribute or are in association to fire outbreak. A content analysis methodology was used to investigate the associative relationships to fire outbreak with the aid of NVivo 9.0 software. The investigation focused on 15 key in-depth reports on machinery space incidences which were uploaded into the software. The results indicate that leakages on hot surfaces were the major causes of fire hazards in seafaring vessels. The results from using this methodology also highlighted two more fire hazards that were not so apparent in previous studies. They are generator fire and compressors fire. The results supported other studies about leakages on hot surfaces as a major contributor, but also clearly show that there are other hazardous factors of fire in machinery spaces that require further investigation.

About the Authors

About the Authors

Oil Spills: Law on Liability with Special Reference to the Indian Regime

Oil is not only the most sought after but also the most transported commodity worldwide and because of its physical and chemical nature, sea is the most convenient medium of transportation. Oil pollution is a recurring phenomenon and has gravest effects on marine environment as well as economic conditions of the people inhabiting the areas around the affected areas. Oil pollution of the sea began with the introduction of oil fuel in ships and increased with the carriage of oil cargo in bulk and has been ever increasing ever since. Oil pollution might result from collision of vessels carrying oil cargo or from its bunkers. Tanker accidents, however, are not the only source of oil pollution. Marine based oil pollution can emanate either from ships or from offshore installations.Pictures of the Deep Water Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico and MSC Chitra and MV Khalijia 3 collision in the Arabian Sea splashed across the print and television media educe the latent potential of environmental calamity a marine accident might cause. Accidental pollution of sea by oil is inevitable. It is the price that mankind has to pay for the benefits of an industrial society. Now the big question arises as to who is to be held liable for accidents that lead to such catastrophic effects on the marine environment?States either enter into regional as well as international instruments or depend on common law principles or statutory laws to tackle the menace of oil pollution. Fourteen international conventions and protocols provide a framework for international co-operation to combat emergency situations threatening the marine environment. The international order is principally concerned with the avoidance of accidents at sea, and with regulation of the operational discharge of oil in the cleaning of ballast tanks of oil tankers. Civil liability for oil pollution has been the subject of international conventions for decades.The law of oil spill liability is a mixture of civil liability and criminal regimes in certain jurisdictions like U.S. The liability and fund conventions limit the liability of the ship-owner in case of maritime accident causing oil pollution. Principles governing the law on oil spill liability are strict liability, channeling of liability, and caps on liability limit. The issue arises as to the propriety of capping the liability limits in the cases of oil spill where the implications of one incident are immense, costs involved in the cleanup are massive and the damage caused to the natural resources and private parties is also grave. India which has a vast coastline is susceptible to pollution by maritime oil spill accidents and in the wake of recent incidents it has become imperative to analyze the Indian scheme of laws governing oil spills and see whether it is appropriate enough to meet the challenges of claims arisen by such an incident. The paper seeks to analyze the international liability regime in case of marine based oil pollution and the status of Indian laws in dealing with accidental oil spills.

About the Authors

About the Authors

Maritime crude oil transportation – A split pickup and split delivery problem

The maritime oil tanker routing and scheduling problem is known to the literature since before 1950. In the presented problem, oil tankers transport crude oil from supply points to demand locations around the globe. The objective is to find ship routes, load sizes, as well as port arrival and departure times, in a way that minimizes transportation costs. We introduce a path flow model where paths are ship routes. Continuous variables distribute the cargo between the different routes. Multiple products are transported by a heterogeneous fleet of tankers. Pickup and delivery requirements are not paired to cargos beforehand and arbitrary split of amounts is allowed. Small realistic test instances can be solved with route pre-generation for this model. The results indicate possible simplifications and stimulate further research.

19 down, 34 Nations to go: AFRICOM and Spill Response Capacity Building

ABSTRACT The U. S. African Command (AFRICOM), the sixth Department of Defense independent command as of October 2008, is responsible for partnering with the many African nations and leading the military and war prevention efforts on behalf of United States on the African continent. One of their many missions is to assist in developing environmental response and awareness programs for maritime oil spills. An aggressive and ambitious slate of missions involving the 53 nations that make up Africa has already engaged Cape Verde, Senegal, the Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo, Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique, Equatorial Guinea, Mauritius, Kenya, the Seychelles, and the Central African Economic Community (CEEAC) and reached over 450 students. The attendees at these multi-day courses have included an eclectic assortment of environmental ministries, tourism ministries, military officials, health ministries, local officials from the host venue, as well as industry representatives. The survey nature ...

Risk management of oil maritime transportation

The largest oil deposits discovered in the world are located in places far from developed countries that are major consumers of energy. This situation is the reason why, for two decades, huge quantities of hydrocarbons are transported everywhere in the world either by sea or by road. The oil trade and the market are subject to an inexorable competitive pricing. In reality, the age of the tanker intervenes in the decision-making process; it is often the cheapest available tonnage offered by the oldest ships that controls prices. It is therefore difficult to ensure that quality pays for; this phenomenon probably involves some risk for the maritime security as a whole: human (accidents, shipwrecks) and environmental (vegetation pollution e.g. fauna and flora), and on health).