Eco vigilance in oil zone, Tuesday, December 14, 2010, Spread
Before Ghana pumps its first oil from the heart of the Jubilee Field on Wednesday, the country has already started brooding over environmental concerns, particularly in respect of oil spillage.
The first picture of what awaits the country emerged when Kosmos Energy, a partner in the Jubilee Field, spilled some 706 barrels of toxic substances into the country’s marine waters and attracted a GH¢40-million slap from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Since then, there has been a lot of debate concerning Ghana’s nascent oil industry.
What makes the situation worrying is that there appears to be scanty environmental regulations governing offshore oil production in the country.
Some of the institutions responsible for environmental protection appear inept in dealing with the consequences of an environmental catastrophe emanating from oil production.
Although Section 25 of the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) Act, Act 2002, mandates the Minister of Transport to make regulations for the protection of the marine environment, no such regulations have yet been introduced.
Ghana may want to take a cue from Ecuador, which lacked environmental regulations until 1990, and reports indicate that that country’s dependence on oil revenue has since hindered environmental law enforcement.
Oil spills may cause shifts in population structure, species abundance and diversity and distribution. Habitat loss and the loss of preys also have the potential to affect fish and wildlife populations.
A baseline survey of the Jubilee Field shows low levels of contaminants in the marine environment. As many as 89 species of fish and marine mammals, including 18 different species of dolphins and small whales, have been confirmed to inhabit the sea in the Western Region.
Five species of sea turtles and a number of species of marine birds exist in the region. All five species of sea turtles are listed as endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and national wildlife conservation regulations.
The role of the EPA
The EPA is mandated to formulate and implement Ghana’s environmental policies and is, therefore, expected to lead the crusade against environmental pollution resulting from oil production in the country.
But the question remains as to whether the agency has the capacity to contain or counter the game of cover-ups and denials that are associated with the oil and gas industry. Can the EPA flex its muscles against giant oil companies which flaunt the country’s environmental regulations?
The EPA provides a response in two important policies that seek to regulate the oil industry and mitigate its effect on the environment.
The National Oil Spill Contingency Plan and the Oil and Gas Environmental Assessment Guidelines provide the regulatory framework for the environmental management of the petroleum sector.
According to Mr Kojo Agbenor-Efunam, the EPA’s Principal Programmes Officer responsible for Oil and Gas, the agency had been involved with Tullow Oil and its partners in the Jubilee Field since the commercialisation process started.
He said the companies had conducted an environmental impact assessment which evaluated the entire project and mitigation measures.
He said the document, which was reviewed by the EPA before it was sanctioned, contained ways to deal with gas flaring, oil spill and waste management.
“We also have a day-to-day monitoring and weekly updates of their environmental performance to ensure that we are adequately in the know about what goes on and around the rig,” he stated.
Mr Agbenor-Efunam admitted that cover-ups were oil industry practices but he believed the EPA’s follow-ups and severe penalties would deter companies from engaging in malpractice.
As to whether the EPA will be a biting and not just a barking institution in an industry that is replete with strong forces and power brokers who have the ability to scale environmental concerns remains a puzzle to be unravelled in the years ahead.
Chief among the environmental concerns globally is oil spill, which is a consequence of the fossil fuel age that makes seas barren with crude black oil, in addition to transferring ecological damage over large areas in relatively short periods of time.
The April 24, 2010 British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon accident which made international headlines resulted in the discharge of a staggering 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf of Mexico.
The incident raised global concerns over tackling the menace in the industry and analysts believe major spills are likely to increase in the coming years as industry players strive to extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult terrain.
Predictions are that future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to work. These are landscapes where, when things go wrong, it will be harder to respond.
The spill, the largest in US history which claimed 11 lives, left as many as 60,000 barrels of oil per day leaking into the water, threatening wildlife along the Louisiana Coast.
The spill reached the Louisiana shore on April 30, 2010, affected about 125 miles of coast and by early June the oil had reached Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.
In just three days, oil slick from the BP spill spread over 580 square miles, which is six times the total land area of Ghana.
A spill of that magnitude occurring in the Jubilee Field could have adverse effect on Ghana and, for that matter, a considerable part of the West African coastline.
Again, an oil spill in the Jubilee Field will bring in its wake the pollution of the ecosystem and initiate a cycle of poisoning that could last for decades.
The African experience with oil spill
The tale of oil pollution in oil-producing countries in Africa does not leave much for the continent to be proud of.
Gabonese environmental experts admit that a huge amount of extracted oil ends up spilled into the ocean, which constitutes about 18,000 tonnes of crude per year going waste in that country.
Angola’s offshore platforms in the northwest of that country have, on a number of occasions, polluted beaches and forced fishermen to stop work.
In the case of Nigeria, the country’s experience with oil with regard to environmental pollution leaves a sour taste in the mouth of about 30 million Niger Delta dwellers who are clustered in a degraded and oil-polluted enclave that covers 20,000 sq.km within wetlands of 70,000 sq.km.
The Niger Delta Region is the largest wetland and third largest drainage basin in Africa. The well-endowed ecosystem, which contains one of the highest concentrations of bio-diversity on the planet, supports abundant flora and fauna, arable terrain that can sustain a wide variety of crops, lumber or agricultural trees, and more species of freshwater fish than any ecosystem in West Africa.
A report compiled by the World Wildlife Federation (WWF-UK), the World Conservation Union and representatives from the Nigerian Federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation estimated in 2006 that up to 1.5 million tonnes of oil had been spilled in the delta over the past half century.
Last year, Amnesty International pegged the amount of spill in the region to at least nine million barrels of oil and accused the oil companies of human rights outrage.
Statistics from the Nigerian Federal government indicate that more than 7,000 barrels of oil were spilled between 1970 and 2000.
There are 2,000 official major spillage sites, many of them going back in decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.
According to experts, Nigeria's over 40-year-old oil pipelines, pumps and installations have been leaking millions of barrels of the best crude in the world continuously for years, such that much of the Niger Delta Region has become a swamp full of rivulets and pools of ever leaking crude.
Shell, which works in partnership with the Nigerian government in the delta, claims 98 per cent of its oil spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by militants, adding that only a minimal amount is due to deteriorating infrastructure.
However, Shell’s claims are hotly disputed by the communities and environmental watchdog groups who point accusing fingers at the vast chain of rusting pipes and storage tanks, corroding pipelines, semi-derelict pumping stations, old wellheads, as well as tankers and vessels cleaning out tanks.
The scale of the pollution is mind-boggling. The government's National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (Nosdra) states that between 1976 and 1996 alone more than 2.4 million barrels contaminated the environment.
The report said, "Oil spills and the dumping of oil into waterways has been extensive, often poisoning drinking water and destroying vegetation. These incidents have become common due to the lack of laws and enforcement measures within the existing political regime."
There are predictions that the Niger Delta, which is home to 40 different ethnic groups, couldexperience
a loss of 40 per cent of its inhabitable terrain in the next 30 years.
Another report says, "Since the inception of the oil industry in Nigeria, there has been no concern and effective effort on the part of the government, let alone the oil operators, to control environmental problems associated with the industry."
Oil spills from history
From 1967 till date, oil spills have become a major headache globally. A long list of such spills and their effects are as follows:
1967: March 18, Cornwall, England: The Torrey Canyon ran aground, spilling 38 million gallons of crude oil off the Sicily islands.
1976: Dec. 15, Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, USA: The Argo Merchant ran aground and broke apart southeast of Nantucket Island, spilling its entire cargo of 7.7 million gallons of fuel.
1977: April, North Sea: Blow-out of well in the Ekofisk oil field leaked 81 million gallons.
1978: March 16, off Portsall, France: Wrecked supertanker Amoco Cadiz spilled 68 million gallons, causing widespread environmental damage over 100 miles of Brittany coast.
1979: June 3, Gulf of Mexico: Exploratory oil well Ixtoc 1 blew out, spilling an estimated 140 million gallons of crude oil into the open sea. Although it is one of the largest known oil spills, it had a low environmental impact.
1979: July 19, Tobago: The Atlantic Empress and the Aegean Captain collided, spilling 46 million gallons of crude. While being towed, the Atlantic Empress spilled an additional 41 million gallons off Barbados on August 2.
1980: March 30, Stavanger, Norway: Floating hotel in North Sea collapsed, killing 123 oil workers.
1983: Feb. 4, Persian Gulf, Iran: The Nowruz Field platform spilled 80 million gallons of oil.
Aug. 6, Cape Town, South Africa: The Spanish tanker, the Castillo de Bellver, caught fire, spilling 78 million gallons of oil off the coast.
1988: July 6, North Sea off Scotland: 166 workers killed in explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha rig in the North Sea. There were 64 survivors. It is the world's worst offshore oil disaster.
Nov. 10, Saint John's, Newfoundland: The Odyssey spilled 43 million gallons of oil.
1989: March 24, Prince William Sound, Alaska: The tanker Exxon Valdez hit an undersea reef and spilled 10 million–plus gallons of oil into the water, causing the worst oil spill in US history.
Dec. 19, off Las Palmas, the Canary Islands: Explosion in Iranian supertanker, the Kharg-5, caused 19 million gallons of crude oil to spill into the Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles north of Las Palmas, forming a 100-square-mile oil slick.
1990: June 8, off Galveston, Texas: The Mega Borg released 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston as a result of an explosion and subsequent fire in the pump room.
1991: Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait: During the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 MI off Kuwait. The spill had little military significance. On Jan. 27, US war planes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil.
April 11, Genoa, Italy: The Haven spilled 42 million gallons of oil in Genoa port.
May 28, Angola: the ABT Summer exploded and leaked 15–78 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola. It's not clear how much sank or burned.
1992: March 2, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million gallons of oil spilled from an oil well.
1993: Aug. 10, Tampa Bay, Florida: Three ships collided, the barge Bouchard B155, the freighter Balsa 37 and the barge Ocean 255. The Bouchard spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay.
1994: Sept. 8, Russia: Dam built to contain oil burst and spilled oil into the Kolva River tributary. The US Energy Department estimated spill at two million barrels. The Russian state-owned oil company claimed spill was only 102,000 barrels.
1996: Feb. 15, off Welsh coast: Supertanker Sea Empress ran aground at port of Milford Haven, Wales, spewed out 70,000 tonnes of crude oil and created a 25-mile slick.
1999: Dec. 12, French Atlantic coast: Maltese-registered tanker Erika broke apart and sank off Brittany, spilling three million gallons of heavy oil into the sea.
2000: Jan. 18, off Rio de Janeiro: Ruptured pipeline owned by the Brazilian government oil company, Petrobras, spewed 343,200 gallons of heavy oil into the Guanabara Bay.
Nov. 28, Mississippi River south of New Orleans: The oil tanker Westchester lost power and ran aground near Port Sulphur, La., dumping 567,000 gallons of crude oil into the lower Mississippi. The spill was the largest in US waters since the Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989.
2002: Nov. 13, Spain: The Prestige suffered a damaged hull and was towed to sea and sank. Much of the 20 million gallons of oil remains underwater.
2003: July 28, Pakistan: The Tasman Spirit, a tanker, ran aground near the Karachi port and eventually cracked into two pieces. One of its four oil tanks burst open, leaking 28,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea.
2004: Dec. 7, Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska: A major storm pushed the M/V Selendang Ayu up onto a rocky shore, breaking it into two. 337,000 gallons of oil was released, most of which was driven onto the shoreline of Makushin and Skan Bays.
2005: Aug.-Sept., New Orleans, Louisiana: The Coast Guard estimated that more than seven million gallons of oil was spilled during Hurricane Katrina from various sources, including pipelines, storage tanks and industrial plants.
2006: June 19, Calcasieu River, Louisiana: An estimated 71,000 barrels of waste oil was released from a tank at the CITGO Refinery on the Calcasieu River during a violent rainstorm.
July 15, Beirut, Lebanon: The Israeli Navy bombed the Jieh coast power station and between three and 10 million gallons of oil leaked into the sea, affecting nearly 100 miles of coastline. A coastal blockade, a result of the war, greatly hampered outside clean-up efforts.
August 11, Guimaras island, The Philippines: A tanker carrying 530,000 gallons of oil sank off the coast of the Philippines, putting the country's fishing and tourism industries at great risk. The ship sank in deep water, making it virtually unrecoverable, and it continued to emit oil into the ocean as other nations were called in to assist in the massive clean-up effort.
2007: December 7, South Korea: Oil spill caused environmental disaster, destroying beaches, coating birds and oysters with oil and driving away tourists with its stench. The Hebei Spirit collided with a steel wire connecting a tug boat and barge five miles off South Korea's west coast, spilling 2.8 million gallons of crude oil. Seven thousand people were tasked to clean up 12 miles of oil-coated coast.
2008: July 25, New Orleans, Louisiana: A 61-foot barge carrying 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel collided with a 600-foot tanker ship in the Mississippi River near New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel leaked from the barge, causing a halt to all river traffic, while clean-up efforts commenced to limit the environmental fallout on local wildlife.
2009: March 11, Queensland, Australia: During Cyclone Hamish, unsecured cargo aboard the container ship MV Pacific Adventurer came loose on deck and caused the release of 52,000 gallons of heavy fuel and 620 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser, into the Coral Sea. About 60 km of the Sunshine Coast was covered in oil, prompting the closure of half the area's beaches.
2010: Jan. 23, Port Arthur, Texas: The oil tanker Eagle Otome and a barge collide in the Sabine-Neches Waterway, causing the release of about 462,000 gallons of crude oil. Environmental damage was minimal, as about 46,000 gallons was recovered and 175,000 gallons dispersed or evaporated, according to the US Coast Guard.
The Norwegian Environmental tactic
Norway, one of the shining examples of the world’s oil-producing countries both in the management of oil resources and environmental pollution, has established a Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA) which is to ensure the country’s preparedness in case of acute pollution.
The NCA works in collaboration with the Norwegian Clean Seas Association for Operating Companies to ensure that the country’s offshore operators comply with the authority’s oil spill contingency requirement for rigs and platforms.
The way out
The environmental catastrophe of the Gulf of Mexico, caused by the blow-up of the BP-operated deepwater oil rig in April this year, should serve as a wake-up call to Ghana’s nascent oil industry.
In the BP case, in spite of its location more than 4,000 metres below the seabed, the oil found its way onto the surface and continued to spread, killing countless wildlife.
This shows that deepwater oil rigs cannot be a remedy to potential environmental mishaps as experts envisage, even with all the advanced technology involved.
This further calls for tighter safety regulations to check possible laxity by oil firms and prevent such a disaster from happening in Ghana.
The first picture of what awaits the country emerged when Kosmos Energy, a partner in the Jubilee Field, spilled some 706 barrels of toxic substances into the country’s marine waters and attracted a GH¢40-million slap from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Since then, there has been a lot of debate concerning Ghana’s nascent oil industry.
What makes the situation worrying is that there appears to be scanty environmental regulations governing offshore oil production in the country.
Some of the institutions responsible for environmental protection appear inept in dealing with the consequences of an environmental catastrophe emanating from oil production.
Although Section 25 of the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) Act, Act 2002, mandates the Minister of Transport to make regulations for the protection of the marine environment, no such regulations have yet been introduced.
Ghana may want to take a cue from Ecuador, which lacked environmental regulations until 1990, and reports indicate that that country’s dependence on oil revenue has since hindered environmental law enforcement.
Oil spills may cause shifts in population structure, species abundance and diversity and distribution. Habitat loss and the loss of preys also have the potential to affect fish and wildlife populations.
A baseline survey of the Jubilee Field shows low levels of contaminants in the marine environment. As many as 89 species of fish and marine mammals, including 18 different species of dolphins and small whales, have been confirmed to inhabit the sea in the Western Region.
Five species of sea turtles and a number of species of marine birds exist in the region. All five species of sea turtles are listed as endangered by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) and national wildlife conservation regulations.
The role of the EPA
The EPA is mandated to formulate and implement Ghana’s environmental policies and is, therefore, expected to lead the crusade against environmental pollution resulting from oil production in the country.
But the question remains as to whether the agency has the capacity to contain or counter the game of cover-ups and denials that are associated with the oil and gas industry. Can the EPA flex its muscles against giant oil companies which flaunt the country’s environmental regulations?
The EPA provides a response in two important policies that seek to regulate the oil industry and mitigate its effect on the environment.
The National Oil Spill Contingency Plan and the Oil and Gas Environmental Assessment Guidelines provide the regulatory framework for the environmental management of the petroleum sector.
According to Mr Kojo Agbenor-Efunam, the EPA’s Principal Programmes Officer responsible for Oil and Gas, the agency had been involved with Tullow Oil and its partners in the Jubilee Field since the commercialisation process started.
He said the companies had conducted an environmental impact assessment which evaluated the entire project and mitigation measures.
He said the document, which was reviewed by the EPA before it was sanctioned, contained ways to deal with gas flaring, oil spill and waste management.
“We also have a day-to-day monitoring and weekly updates of their environmental performance to ensure that we are adequately in the know about what goes on and around the rig,” he stated.
Mr Agbenor-Efunam admitted that cover-ups were oil industry practices but he believed the EPA’s follow-ups and severe penalties would deter companies from engaging in malpractice.
As to whether the EPA will be a biting and not just a barking institution in an industry that is replete with strong forces and power brokers who have the ability to scale environmental concerns remains a puzzle to be unravelled in the years ahead.
Chief among the environmental concerns globally is oil spill, which is a consequence of the fossil fuel age that makes seas barren with crude black oil, in addition to transferring ecological damage over large areas in relatively short periods of time.
The April 24, 2010 British Petroleum (BP) Deepwater Horizon accident which made international headlines resulted in the discharge of a staggering 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf of Mexico.
The incident raised global concerns over tackling the menace in the industry and analysts believe major spills are likely to increase in the coming years as industry players strive to extract oil from increasingly remote and difficult terrain.
Predictions are that future supplies will be offshore, deeper and harder to work. These are landscapes where, when things go wrong, it will be harder to respond.
The spill, the largest in US history which claimed 11 lives, left as many as 60,000 barrels of oil per day leaking into the water, threatening wildlife along the Louisiana Coast.
The spill reached the Louisiana shore on April 30, 2010, affected about 125 miles of coast and by early June the oil had reached Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.
In just three days, oil slick from the BP spill spread over 580 square miles, which is six times the total land area of Ghana.
A spill of that magnitude occurring in the Jubilee Field could have adverse effect on Ghana and, for that matter, a considerable part of the West African coastline.
Again, an oil spill in the Jubilee Field will bring in its wake the pollution of the ecosystem and initiate a cycle of poisoning that could last for decades.
The African experience with oil spill
The tale of oil pollution in oil-producing countries in Africa does not leave much for the continent to be proud of.
Gabonese environmental experts admit that a huge amount of extracted oil ends up spilled into the ocean, which constitutes about 18,000 tonnes of crude per year going waste in that country.
Angola’s offshore platforms in the northwest of that country have, on a number of occasions, polluted beaches and forced fishermen to stop work.
In the case of Nigeria, the country’s experience with oil with regard to environmental pollution leaves a sour taste in the mouth of about 30 million Niger Delta dwellers who are clustered in a degraded and oil-polluted enclave that covers 20,000 sq.km within wetlands of 70,000 sq.km.
The Niger Delta Region is the largest wetland and third largest drainage basin in Africa. The well-endowed ecosystem, which contains one of the highest concentrations of bio-diversity on the planet, supports abundant flora and fauna, arable terrain that can sustain a wide variety of crops, lumber or agricultural trees, and more species of freshwater fish than any ecosystem in West Africa.
A report compiled by the World Wildlife Federation (WWF-UK), the World Conservation Union and representatives from the Nigerian Federal government and the Nigerian Conservation Foundation estimated in 2006 that up to 1.5 million tonnes of oil had been spilled in the delta over the past half century.
Last year, Amnesty International pegged the amount of spill in the region to at least nine million barrels of oil and accused the oil companies of human rights outrage.
Statistics from the Nigerian Federal government indicate that more than 7,000 barrels of oil were spilled between 1970 and 2000.
There are 2,000 official major spillage sites, many of them going back in decades, with thousands of smaller ones still waiting to be cleared up. More than 1,000 spill cases have been filed against Shell alone.
According to experts, Nigeria's over 40-year-old oil pipelines, pumps and installations have been leaking millions of barrels of the best crude in the world continuously for years, such that much of the Niger Delta Region has become a swamp full of rivulets and pools of ever leaking crude.
Shell, which works in partnership with the Nigerian government in the delta, claims 98 per cent of its oil spills are caused by vandalism, theft or sabotage by militants, adding that only a minimal amount is due to deteriorating infrastructure.
However, Shell’s claims are hotly disputed by the communities and environmental watchdog groups who point accusing fingers at the vast chain of rusting pipes and storage tanks, corroding pipelines, semi-derelict pumping stations, old wellheads, as well as tankers and vessels cleaning out tanks.
The scale of the pollution is mind-boggling. The government's National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (Nosdra) states that between 1976 and 1996 alone more than 2.4 million barrels contaminated the environment.
The report said, "Oil spills and the dumping of oil into waterways has been extensive, often poisoning drinking water and destroying vegetation. These incidents have become common due to the lack of laws and enforcement measures within the existing political regime."
There are predictions that the Niger Delta, which is home to 40 different ethnic groups, couldexperience
a loss of 40 per cent of its inhabitable terrain in the next 30 years.
Another report says, "Since the inception of the oil industry in Nigeria, there has been no concern and effective effort on the part of the government, let alone the oil operators, to control environmental problems associated with the industry."
Oil spills from history
From 1967 till date, oil spills have become a major headache globally. A long list of such spills and their effects are as follows:
1967: March 18, Cornwall, England: The Torrey Canyon ran aground, spilling 38 million gallons of crude oil off the Sicily islands.
1976: Dec. 15, Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, USA: The Argo Merchant ran aground and broke apart southeast of Nantucket Island, spilling its entire cargo of 7.7 million gallons of fuel.
1977: April, North Sea: Blow-out of well in the Ekofisk oil field leaked 81 million gallons.
1978: March 16, off Portsall, France: Wrecked supertanker Amoco Cadiz spilled 68 million gallons, causing widespread environmental damage over 100 miles of Brittany coast.
1979: June 3, Gulf of Mexico: Exploratory oil well Ixtoc 1 blew out, spilling an estimated 140 million gallons of crude oil into the open sea. Although it is one of the largest known oil spills, it had a low environmental impact.
1979: July 19, Tobago: The Atlantic Empress and the Aegean Captain collided, spilling 46 million gallons of crude. While being towed, the Atlantic Empress spilled an additional 41 million gallons off Barbados on August 2.
1980: March 30, Stavanger, Norway: Floating hotel in North Sea collapsed, killing 123 oil workers.
1983: Feb. 4, Persian Gulf, Iran: The Nowruz Field platform spilled 80 million gallons of oil.
Aug. 6, Cape Town, South Africa: The Spanish tanker, the Castillo de Bellver, caught fire, spilling 78 million gallons of oil off the coast.
1988: July 6, North Sea off Scotland: 166 workers killed in explosion and fire on Occidental Petroleum's Piper Alpha rig in the North Sea. There were 64 survivors. It is the world's worst offshore oil disaster.
Nov. 10, Saint John's, Newfoundland: The Odyssey spilled 43 million gallons of oil.
1989: March 24, Prince William Sound, Alaska: The tanker Exxon Valdez hit an undersea reef and spilled 10 million–plus gallons of oil into the water, causing the worst oil spill in US history.
Dec. 19, off Las Palmas, the Canary Islands: Explosion in Iranian supertanker, the Kharg-5, caused 19 million gallons of crude oil to spill into the Atlantic Ocean about 400 miles north of Las Palmas, forming a 100-square-mile oil slick.
1990: June 8, off Galveston, Texas: The Mega Borg released 5.1 million gallons of oil some 60 nautical miles south-southeast of Galveston as a result of an explosion and subsequent fire in the pump room.
1991: Jan. 23–27, southern Kuwait: During the Persian Gulf War, Iraq deliberately released 240–460 million gallons of crude oil into the Persian Gulf from tankers 10 MI off Kuwait. The spill had little military significance. On Jan. 27, US war planes bombed pipe systems to stop the flow of oil.
April 11, Genoa, Italy: The Haven spilled 42 million gallons of oil in Genoa port.
May 28, Angola: the ABT Summer exploded and leaked 15–78 million gallons of oil off the coast of Angola. It's not clear how much sank or burned.
1992: March 2, Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan: 88 million gallons of oil spilled from an oil well.
1993: Aug. 10, Tampa Bay, Florida: Three ships collided, the barge Bouchard B155, the freighter Balsa 37 and the barge Ocean 255. The Bouchard spilled an estimated 336,000 gallons of No. 6 fuel oil into Tampa Bay.
1994: Sept. 8, Russia: Dam built to contain oil burst and spilled oil into the Kolva River tributary. The US Energy Department estimated spill at two million barrels. The Russian state-owned oil company claimed spill was only 102,000 barrels.
1996: Feb. 15, off Welsh coast: Supertanker Sea Empress ran aground at port of Milford Haven, Wales, spewed out 70,000 tonnes of crude oil and created a 25-mile slick.
1999: Dec. 12, French Atlantic coast: Maltese-registered tanker Erika broke apart and sank off Brittany, spilling three million gallons of heavy oil into the sea.
2000: Jan. 18, off Rio de Janeiro: Ruptured pipeline owned by the Brazilian government oil company, Petrobras, spewed 343,200 gallons of heavy oil into the Guanabara Bay.
Nov. 28, Mississippi River south of New Orleans: The oil tanker Westchester lost power and ran aground near Port Sulphur, La., dumping 567,000 gallons of crude oil into the lower Mississippi. The spill was the largest in US waters since the Exxon Valdez disaster in March 1989.
2002: Nov. 13, Spain: The Prestige suffered a damaged hull and was towed to sea and sank. Much of the 20 million gallons of oil remains underwater.
2003: July 28, Pakistan: The Tasman Spirit, a tanker, ran aground near the Karachi port and eventually cracked into two pieces. One of its four oil tanks burst open, leaking 28,000 tonnes of crude oil into the sea.
2004: Dec. 7, Unalaska, Aleutian Islands, Alaska: A major storm pushed the M/V Selendang Ayu up onto a rocky shore, breaking it into two. 337,000 gallons of oil was released, most of which was driven onto the shoreline of Makushin and Skan Bays.
2005: Aug.-Sept., New Orleans, Louisiana: The Coast Guard estimated that more than seven million gallons of oil was spilled during Hurricane Katrina from various sources, including pipelines, storage tanks and industrial plants.
2006: June 19, Calcasieu River, Louisiana: An estimated 71,000 barrels of waste oil was released from a tank at the CITGO Refinery on the Calcasieu River during a violent rainstorm.
July 15, Beirut, Lebanon: The Israeli Navy bombed the Jieh coast power station and between three and 10 million gallons of oil leaked into the sea, affecting nearly 100 miles of coastline. A coastal blockade, a result of the war, greatly hampered outside clean-up efforts.
August 11, Guimaras island, The Philippines: A tanker carrying 530,000 gallons of oil sank off the coast of the Philippines, putting the country's fishing and tourism industries at great risk. The ship sank in deep water, making it virtually unrecoverable, and it continued to emit oil into the ocean as other nations were called in to assist in the massive clean-up effort.
2007: December 7, South Korea: Oil spill caused environmental disaster, destroying beaches, coating birds and oysters with oil and driving away tourists with its stench. The Hebei Spirit collided with a steel wire connecting a tug boat and barge five miles off South Korea's west coast, spilling 2.8 million gallons of crude oil. Seven thousand people were tasked to clean up 12 miles of oil-coated coast.
2008: July 25, New Orleans, Louisiana: A 61-foot barge carrying 419,000 gallons of heavy fuel collided with a 600-foot tanker ship in the Mississippi River near New Orleans. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel leaked from the barge, causing a halt to all river traffic, while clean-up efforts commenced to limit the environmental fallout on local wildlife.
2009: March 11, Queensland, Australia: During Cyclone Hamish, unsecured cargo aboard the container ship MV Pacific Adventurer came loose on deck and caused the release of 52,000 gallons of heavy fuel and 620 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser, into the Coral Sea. About 60 km of the Sunshine Coast was covered in oil, prompting the closure of half the area's beaches.
2010: Jan. 23, Port Arthur, Texas: The oil tanker Eagle Otome and a barge collide in the Sabine-Neches Waterway, causing the release of about 462,000 gallons of crude oil. Environmental damage was minimal, as about 46,000 gallons was recovered and 175,000 gallons dispersed or evaporated, according to the US Coast Guard.
The Norwegian Environmental tactic
Norway, one of the shining examples of the world’s oil-producing countries both in the management of oil resources and environmental pollution, has established a Norwegian Coastal Administration (NCA) which is to ensure the country’s preparedness in case of acute pollution.
The NCA works in collaboration with the Norwegian Clean Seas Association for Operating Companies to ensure that the country’s offshore operators comply with the authority’s oil spill contingency requirement for rigs and platforms.
The way out
The environmental catastrophe of the Gulf of Mexico, caused by the blow-up of the BP-operated deepwater oil rig in April this year, should serve as a wake-up call to Ghana’s nascent oil industry.
In the BP case, in spite of its location more than 4,000 metres below the seabed, the oil found its way onto the surface and continued to spread, killing countless wildlife.
This shows that deepwater oil rigs cannot be a remedy to potential environmental mishaps as experts envisage, even with all the advanced technology involved.
This further calls for tighter safety regulations to check possible laxity by oil firms and prevent such a disaster from happening in Ghana.
Very interesting. We have a lot to learn from.
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