North Sea Oil Spill

Totally_Baffled · Post by **Totally_Baffled** » 12 Aug 2011, 23:04

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-14513509

12 August 2011 Last updated at 22:41 Share this pageEmail Print Share this page

21ShareFacebookTwitter.Shell fights North Sea oil spill Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has said it is working to stop a leak at one of its North Sea oil platforms.

The company would not say how much oil may have been spilt from the Gannet Alpha platform though it said it had "stemmed the leak significantly".

Just what we need!!

I dont know about you lot, but I could do with some good news!!!

Look on the bright side, this particular platform is owned by Exxon.

Time to give the yanks a taste of their own medicine, sue the hell out of them!!!!!!

Post by **clv101** » 12 Aug 2011, 23:20

One positive aspect of there not being much oil left under the North Sea, is that there's not much to leak!

The entire Gannet field reportedly produced around 13,500 barrels of oil between January and April of this year.

This seems to be a pretty minor leak.

RogerCO · Post by **RogerCO** » 12 Aug 2011, 23:22

It did give rise to this wonderful quote from someone in Shell or DECC

"There is a finite amount of oil that can be released."

Yep.

Post by **clv101** » 12 Aug 2011, 23:23

clv101 wrote:One positive aspect of there not being much oil left under the North Sea, is that there's not much to leak!

The entire Gannet field reportedly produced around 13,500 barrels of oil between January and April of this year.
This seems to be a pretty minor leak.

On second thoughts - that line the BBC article is obviously wrong! Maybe 13,500 barrel per day? Or 13,500 thousand barrels?

Post by **clv101** » 12 Aug 2011, 23:25

This link: http://www.divinglore.com/Offshore_Platforms_Gannet.htm
Suggests the platform produces 70-90k barrels per day (probably name plate it's capacity).

Post by **clv101** » 13 Aug 2011, 00:55

The six oil fields that make up the Gannet system produced a total of 208 thousand tonnes from Jan-July inc. this year, or an average rate of just under a thousand tonnes or 7.4 thousand barrels per day. Water depth is 95m, there's not much analogy here with Deepwater Horizon, shouldn't be a major issue. Field by field data: https://www.og.decc.gov.uk/pprs/full_production.htm

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Aug 2011, 09:04

From this morning's Telegraph:

The company confirmed last night that it had managed to stem the leak from a pipe leading to the Gannet Alpha platform. Its engineers are now watching to see whether the fix has worked.
"We can confirm we are managing an oil leak in a flow line that serves the Shell-operated Gannet Alpha platform," a spokesman said.
"We deployed a remote-operated vehicle to check for a subsea leak after a light sheen was noticed in the area. We have stemmed the leak significantly and are taking further measures to isolate it. The subsea well has been shut in, and the flow line is being de-pressurised.
"We continue to monitor the situation on the surface and subsea. Also a stand-by vessel is on station with oil spill response equipment and dispersant if required."
All four platforms serving Shell's Brent field have been shut for maintenance after a piece of the Bravo platform fell into the sea in January.

That last paragraph conjures up some curious visions.

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 13 Aug 2011, 09:06

clv101 wrote: On second thoughts - that line the BBC article is obviously wrong! Maybe 13,500 barrel per day? Or 13,500 thousand barrels?

According to Argus Media, the Gannet field produced about 13,500 barrels of oil between January and April.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011 ... -north-sea

Post by **clv101** » 13 Aug 2011, 10:36

The BBC article has been updated to:

The Gannet oil field reportedly produced about 13,500 barrels of oil per day between January and April of this year.

Which makes a more sense.

Post by **adam2** » 13 Aug 2011, 10:53

Although the amount of production shut in by these mishaps is very small in global terms, I would expect significant upwards pressure on prices.
TWO oil fields shut in, one due to the leak and one due to a bit of the platform falling into the sea, is the sort of thing that excites oil traders.

Does anyone know what percentage of global production this is ? I guess less than 1%.

ziggy12345 · Post by **ziggy12345** » 13 Aug 2011, 11:27

0.016%

Lots of fields shut down over the summer for maintenance. Usually for a couple of days to a week. Fluctuation in global production minute by minute is more than this

biffvernon · Post by **biffvernon** » 14 Aug 2011, 10:30

Looks like this incident started earlier and will end later than Shell would have liked us to know.
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/sc ... 6818293.jp

mindscience · Post by **mindscience** » 15 Aug 2011, 11:18

It's just one after the other, isn't it? Riots, oil spills...

I've always been very appalled (I'm not sure that's the right word to describe it, but let's go with this) at the whole oil tanker idea - I mean, given how often oil spills happen and what they mean for the environment, isn't there a better way to transport the bloody oil? Or to better protect it? I mean I haven't done enough research on the matter, but it just seems ridiculous, cause an oil spill causes so much damage to the species and the water and nature and all that...

Ah.. good old capitalism...

Post by **adam2** » 15 Aug 2011, 12:17

Modern oil tankers operated by developed nations have a good safety record, they are required to be double hulled in most circumstances in order to reduce the risk of spillage.

Standards may be lower in some developing countries.

In this case though the spilled oil escaped from a subsea pipeline, not a tanker.
Given reliable and quick acting means of detecting such detecting such leaks, and then shutting off the flow, only relatively small volumes of oil escape.