Prevention Of OIL

SPILLS

OUTLINE
Oil spill
Causes of oil spill
Effects of oil spill
Major Oil Spills
Various types of Preventions
Methodolgy
Conclusions
References

Causes of Oil Spills

Sinking or leakage of Oil
carrying vessels or Oil pipelines
Illegal dumping by industries
Countries at war
Terrorist activities
Natural Disasters

Effects of Oil Spills

Effects entire marine life
Blocks entrance of oxygen
in water
Fishes hatch with twisted
spines and deformed
hearts
Effects the food web when
oil reaches sea bed
Natural recovery process
may require upto 10 years

Major Oil Spills

Arabian Gulf Spills (1991)
Location Persian Gulf
Cause terminals and oil tankers
destroyed
Quantity of oil spilled 6 to 8
million barrels
Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (1989)
Location Alaskan waters
Cause Ship wreckage
Quantity of oil spills 260,000
barrels
Gulf Oil Spill (2010)
Location - Gulf of Mexico
Cause - oil well below the gulf
blew out
Quantity 260 million gallons

PREVENTIONS
Double-hulling - builddouble hullsinto
vessels, which reduces the risk and
severity of a spill in case of a collision or
grounding. Existing single-hull vessels
can also be rebuilt to have a double hull.
Secondary containment - methods to
prevent releases of oil or hydrocarbons
into environment.
Blowout Preventer
Well castings

 Making shipping safer

Ship crew must be well
trained and experienced
Strict fire safety
regulations apply on
board
Individual tanks within
ships should be limited in
size so that spills are
smaller
Vessel traffic control to be
used in more congested
areas to reduce the risk of
collision

 Keeping the navigator

informed
Up to date information on
changing weather conditions
Interpretation of radar and
satellite image reports for
sensitive coastal areas and
inland water routes
Computer based videodisplay that allows
navigators to track the ship
course in relation to hazards
and warns the navigator
Monitoring and control
equipment on ships;
discharged oil-water mixtures
can be traced back to the
ship that was carrying the oil

Methodology
There are a number of methods
which may apparently be used to
deal with oil spills in seawater. Some
options used for marine protection
from oil pollution include:
Mechanical Collection
Chemical Dispersants
Naturally available materials

By mechanical collection
Setting fire to the oil spill:
Frequently crude oil is set on
fire in a wrecked ship when
an accident occurs. The
problem of burning surface
oil is very difficult due to less
thickness of the layer and
large surface area. The
volatile fraction evaporates
quickly and makes it
impossible to ignite without
doping special measures.

Skimming: It can be performed by employing devices

for collecting oil from a large area of water to make it a
thicker layer in harbour sheltered places.

By Chemical Dispersants

Gelling: Spraying
gelling agents with a
certain amount of
mixing energy into the
oil spill causes
formation of gel or
coagulation. The
resulting lumps can be
collected Mixing
easily in
the fine granular solids of
Sinking:
small
vicinity
of density
a wrecked
fairly
high
(sand) culminates into slurry,
sinking
ship. the oil spill to the bottom of the seabed.
Absorbing: Floating oil can be separated due
to absorption applying chemicals.

By using naturally available materials

CORCHORUS DEPRESSUS - This plant acts as a sinking
material when used in the powder form for removal of oil
from seawater by absorbing oil and settling to the bottom .

ARACHIS HYPOGAEA - The solid

pulp that remains after edible oil is
extracted from it as a high protein
live stock feed which enables it to
absorb the oil spill from sea water
which gets collected on the
surface.

BENTONITE CLAY: It acts as a sinking material

when added to oil spill polluted water sample
ACTIVATED CARBON: This material causes the oil
spill to form a gel or coagulate, however due to its
chemical composition it may have negative side
effects on marine health life environment

CONCLUSION
Most oil spills and most serious accidents are
caused by human error, so this can be reduced if
one takes extreme precautions and proper safety
assessments
Focusing on many techniques such as Blowout
preventer and well castings can contain the oil
spill
Use of naturally available materials such as
CORCHORUS DEPRESSUS, ARACHIS HYPOGAEA,
BENTONITE CLAY & ACTIVATED CARBON helps
containing the spill

REFERENCES
Oil Spill
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_spill
Major Oil Spills
http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/wildernessresources/stories/the-13-largest-oil-spills-in-history
Spill response dispersants kill fish, journal Environmental
Toxicology and Chemistry. Retrieved 2010-05-21.
Dr. Brian Dicks (1998), Paper presented at the International
Seminar on Tanker Safety, Pollution Prevention, Spill Response and
Compensation, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil