Montara Oil Spills

1803 Words4 Pages

INTRODUCTION I. BACKGROUND A. History of Oil Spills The oil spills accidents started to occur at the beginning of the twentieth century. As figure 1 shows, in the seventies, there were 788 oil spill disasters, which resulted in 3.5 million tonnes of oil to be spilled in the oceans. This quantity dropped to 1.3 million tonnes in 454 accidents in the eighties. In the nineties, it reduced to 0.3 million tonnes of oil was spilled in 179 accidents. In 2014, the total number of oil spills happened is five spills only, which is very low comparing to the years of the last century. Despite that, even this small number should have been avoided. Therefore, oil spills must be studied to prevent them from happening completely. (The International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation [ITOPF], 2014) B. 2009 Australian Montara Oil Spill The Montara Development Project is constructed in Timor sea and it is 250 kilometer to the northern west of Western Australian coasts. In August 21, 2009, a sudden blowout and fire on the Montara wellhead base, which resulted in the Montara, oil spill. …show more content…

Since it has lower density than the water therefore it will float and it will be at the top of water surface. There are three kinds of skimmers, which are weir skimmers, oleophilic skimmers and suction skimmers. Firstly, a weir skimmer is a sheet that is located on the water surface and under the oil layer. It removes the oil by oil by moving this sheet horizontally to contain the oil inside it. Then, the oil the oil is pumped in to a proper container. Secondly. Oleophilic skimmers are belts, disks or mop chains that absorb water. After the oleophilic skimmer contains the oil, they could be separated by squeezing the skimmer in a disposal. Thirdly, suction skimmers that remove the oil by sucking it by a hose and a pump into a tank. This technique is very efficient but it needs trained operator. (Nomack,

Open Document