LAPPEENRANTA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY Faculty of Technology BH60A2800 Energy and Environmental Challenges in Russia

Oil accidents in Russia

Group members:

Irne Tourjansky, G0395530 Michael Cerny Csaba Jakabos, G0395475

Lappeenranta, 20 February 2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 3 2 OIL ACCIDENTS IN RUSSIA .................................................................................... 5 2.1 Usinsk Oil Spill ................................................................................................ 7 2.2 Ships sank at Strait of Kerch ............................................................................. 9 3 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................14 REFERENCE ..................................................................................................................15

1 INTRODUCTION
Any substance which is liquid at room temperature and doesn't mix with water is oil. We can separate two groups of oils: organic and mineral. Organic oils made by metabolic processes from plants, animals and other organisms. Mineral oils produced by geochemical processes from ancient fossilized organic materials like algae and zooplankton.

Picture 1: organic oil

Picture 2: mineral oil

Oil is one of the most important material in the world, because it contains hydrocarbons which give much more energy than the other materials during the burning process. The humankind have a very long relationship with the oil: the ancient people already started to use organic oils a few thousand years ago. Before the 1850s the humankind used the mineral oils only in limited amount, because they have access only the surface resources. Everything had changed as the technology was developing during the 20th century, we started to use better tools and machines, this way we got access to the underground oil storages. The techniques of oil processing also developed and we started to produce fuel, petroleum and gasoline. As the industry was developing and the car usage was growing at the last century the usage level of oil raised radically, as we can see at 3rd picture.

Picture 3: Oil production in the past and expectation in the future

As we see before the oil usage and production radically raised during the last century. This process needs a very good transportation system to grant enough oil supply for the customers. The main parts of this system is the oil pipelines, oil tankers and oil rigs. All of the countries need oil, so this support system makes a world wide web, which makes a lot of threats for the environment. The size of the system makes a lot of weak points, where problems can be occur: broken or not proper insulated pipes let oil into the nature the oil tankers can sink, or broke or simply get a leak and split a lot of oil in the ocean oil rigs in the middle of the ocean can cause serious problems for the ocean's flora if they broke, burn, etc. any transportation or storage of oil can be dangerous as the material is very flammable
Picture 6: oil rig got burn Picture 5: wrecked oil tanker Picture 4: cross country oil pipeline

The spilled oil can cause serious problems in the nature. Most of the oil accident happens at the seas, where the hydrocarbons from oil can instantly kill the marine organisms or the spreading oil cover the plumage of birds or the marine mammals' coat. This process destroy the animals' natural body warm balance and when they try to clean themself the oil get a way to their body and cause death. In this assignment we will take an inside look of the Russian oil accidents.

Picture 7 - Bird trapped in oil accident

Light oil, for example diesel oil, consists of a significant proportion of acute toxic volatile short-chain aromatic hydrocarbons, so even a little amount of diesel in the water will cause significant environmental impacts. It will lead to a shortage of the oxygen amount in the water, damaging the unique fauna said Vladimir Chuprov, head of the energy department at Greenpeace.[4] Most of these light oils dissolve easily into the water. Then the oil goes through a series of physical and chemical processes that degrade it, while the time factor for this processes depends heavily on the temperature and other maritime conditions (like the salt and oxygen amount). If the temperature comes close to zero degree, the process of biodegradation stops.[4] In contrary, heavy oil is less toxic to marine life as it contains lower concentrations of acute toxic aromatic hydrocarbons. On the other side this kind of oil is much more resistant to degradation and will therefore remain much longer in the environment than light oils. This kind of oil is the main reason of the physical contamination on the coasts, which threats bigger animals like seabirds.[4]

2 OIL ACCIDENTS IN RUSSIA

Russia is the biggest country in the world with the size of 17,098,242 km2 and because of this size the country has a lot of oil resources (eight largest oil reserves in the world[1]) and it is the largest producer of oil. Because of this main role in the oil industry it's very important to have a safety oil transfer system in the country, which sometimes not working very well: the nation spill 5 million tonnes (1% of the output) of oil in every year (just to have a comparison: this amount is equivalent with five BP's Deepwater Horizon oil disaster in 2011 at the Gulf of Mexico []).

Table 1- Oil spills in Russia 1974-2004

The main reason of the oil spills in the country is the old and mostly poorly maintained pipeline system, which long is more than a million kilometers. "Russia is the only country in the world today where regular, significant oil losses during extraction and transport are perceived as the norm. The generally accepted global oil industry standard is zero losses, i.e. losses in the region is 0.1% or below"[]. In oil spill classification there are three levels[]: 1. Local level spills: spill which is not exceeding 500 tonnes of oil. The spill's localization and elimination is the company's responsibility. where the accident happened. They must make contracts with cleaning agencies for that case if they don't have enough manpower. 2. Regional level spills: spill which is from 500, but not exceeding 5000 tonnes of oil. The company's responsibility is to report the accident to the rescue coordination centre, which will notify all the special services. The regional disaster commission (the members are: directors of civil defense and emergency centers, regional and company environmental departments) preparing solutions to how to deal with the accident 3. Federal level spill: spill which is exceeding 5000 tonnes of oil. Localization and elimination of this size of accident not only the regional disaster commission's responsibility, but the Unified State Emergency Warning and Eradication System,
Russias Ministry of Civil Defense, Emergencies and Disaster Relief, Russias State Marine Rescue Service too and sometimes foreign companies as well, if they have an agreement with Russia.

In this assignment we will investigate accidents from all levels.

2.1 Usinsk Oil Spill

In 1994, one of the world's biggest oil accident (referred to as the August accident) happened in the republic of Komi, Northern Russia. More than 100,000 tonnes of oil splashed from a broken old pipeline near the city of Usinsk, 60 kilometers from the Arctic Circle. Experts said the spill was eight times bigger than the Exxon Valdez oil Spill in 1989. The pipeline, which runs between Kharyaga oilfield and Usinsk, had been leaking since February 1994, but the owner company, called Komineft, built a dike for contain the spilled oil behind an earth dam. This construction was very common in Russia and it's worked fine until October 1st, when the cold and snow collapsed the dike and allowed the lake of oil to spill all around the tundra. A part of the spilled oil reached the Kolva and Usa Rivers, which have a connection with the Barents Sea. The other part of it remained spread over the tundra (about 100 km2) and froze during the wintertime.
Picture 8 - The oil spill near Usinsk

Table 2 - The worst oil spills 1967-2002 []

The biggest problems with the accident were the after effects. The event made a big impact on the flora and the local

villagers' life. Oil has low rates of evaporation at low temperature and the frozen ground also prevents the seeping, so the oil remains on the surface for a long time and makes an extensive thermokarst erosion with the underlying ice. The effects remain visible for many years, the trees only grow a meter in a decade and the regeneration of tundra vegetation can take more than 100 years. The people in the villages suffered for years from the air pollution from the oil spills and the fishes from the river disappeared and the remained part of them smell bad when the villagers cooked them at home.
Picture 9 - oil spill in the tundra

Picture 10 - Komi people at the tundra

The investigation showed there was a few major accidents before 1994 in the Komineft complex. In 1988 around 20,000 tonnes of oil spilled when a pipeline got burn and in 1992 almost 30,000 tonnes of oil spilled to the nearest rivers from ruptured pipelines. Finally, the Komineft got a $600,000 fine for the pipeline spill, but the company was unable to pay it, because of its financial problems. The Russian government handled the cleaning of the oil, where the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank helped with $25 million and $100 million. An Australian-US joint venture also worked during the cleaning process, their teams constructed massive earthwork to hold the oil flood back.

2.2 Ships sank at Strait of Kerch

On November 11, 2007 one of the biggest environmental disasters of the Black Sea region occurred. While a mighty storm with wind speeds of up to 35 meters per second and waves of up to over five meters[6], altogether thirteen vessels have been sunk, stranded or damaged, causing loss of life, property and harmed the
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environment of the region. The incident happened to take place in a narrow water way with high traffic, called the Strait of Kerch (see figure XXXX). It connects the Black Sea and Azov Sea and separates Russia and Ukraine. Two of the ships which ran aground were vessels to transport oil, but no oil leak could be recognized. Analysis of the sea water close to the wrecks proofed this, said Sergei Petrov, spokesman for the regional branch of Russia's Emergency Situations Ministry.[1] The real problem have been the four ships, that actually sunk: The Russian tanker Volganeft-139, the Ukrainian motor vessel Volnogorsk, and the two Russian motor vessels Nahichevan and Kovel. Volganeft-139 carried 3,463 tonnes of residual oil (heavy fuel oil type M-100) and caused an oil spill of about 1,300 tonnes.[4] The high amount of leaked oil corresponds with the dimension of the damage the ship experienced, as it broke into two parts and the two pieces drifted four kilometers away from each other because of the heavy sea. Initial reports invoking the Russian environmentalist and co-chairman of the group ECODEFENCE! Vladimir Slivyak, wrote that according to the Russian authorities propensity to underplay disasters, there can't be any reason to expect the entire oil of the ship had not spilled.[4] But later analysis have shown that at least the half of the oil could be pumped off the ship or collected nearby from the water surface. The other three motor vessels that have been sunk were carrying altogether 6,900 tonnes of sulfur on board[4], which also was spilled into the sea. In contrary to the other two vessels, divers observed a slight marine diesel fuel leak from the Kovel, which drifted to the Ukrainian shoreline, due to the destruction of its engine compartment.[3]

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Suddenly after trying to rescue as much crew members as possible (which was relatively successful, but still eight sailors died in the accident[3]) huge efforts took place to minimize the damages of the health of the human population, the environment and to avoid injuries of the trade and the tourism in the region.
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The biggest problem have been the bad weather conditions in the days after the catastrophe. Still there were winds of 18 to 20 meters per second and waves of up to 2.5 meters[3]. The weather and additionally the strong currents in the Strait of Kelch prevented the emergency workers from collecting the oil from the ships and from the water surface through the use of booms during the initial 24 hours. The results were, that parts of the oil reached the shorelines of both sides of the Strait of Kerch[4], other parts sank to the seabed.[4]. To clean the coastline hundreds of people had to shovel the tar-like, oil-laden sands and seaweed into piles on the shore.[4] Besides that seventeen technical units were engaged in clean-up efforts and fifteen ships performed oil spill contingency operations in the Kerch Strait.[5] The situation got even worse, as the wind changed its direction after one week, resulting in the contamination of additional areas. At 20 November 2007 the Ukrainian Ministry of Transport provided her analysis data, showing that the total amount of the immediate spillage was 1,300 tonnes of heavy fuel oil, 2.3 tonnes of oil lubricants, 25 tonnes of marine diesel fuel oil and 5.5 tonnes of heating oil.[4] The different kinds of oil are known to have different impacts on the environment due to their physical and chemical properties, because of that the knowledge about the kind of oil spilled in an accident is important to define the right counter-measures.

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The oil of the Volganeft-139 was identified as the heavy type of oil, so impacts on the biology of the marine ecosystem weren't expected, but in the end around 30,000 seabirds were killed in the first two months after the oil spill. Additionally the Government of Ukraine prohibited the fishing in the area, which caused large economic damages.[4] And the oil leak could be expected to have long-term effects as it will remain a source of contamination unless removed: Anyone who wants to fish these waters in the upcoming years will find oil on them., said Vladimir Slivyak, Russian environmentalist and co-chairman of the group ECODEFENCE![4] In fact, due to analysis of an international team developed by the European Commission Environmental Programme, the concentration of petroleum hydrocarbons in the region ranged from 42 to 560 mg/kg, while concentrations above 100 mg/kg begin to affect many organisms.[4] After the accident questions came up how such a huge oil spill could happen. Especially because the captains have been warned of the bad weather conditions. Anatoly Yanhuck, coast guard officer of that region, took the captains under his wings. The weather had been worse than the forecasts predicted.[4] And no one is responsible for the weather, of course. But the way the water traffic is handled with respect to the current weather conditions underlies very well the responsibility of the authorities. Due to that the Ukrainian primes minister Viktor Yanukovich questioned the maritime safety in the Kerch Strait: "In the Bosphorus straits, it's not possible to use tankers without double hulls. How is the Kerch Strait different? It isn't.[3] The news agency Bellona takes this accident as an example, showing that the Russian expansion plans in the oil and gas sector, and the policy to pursue its superpower status as an oil and gas exporting country just leads to catastrophes like this one. This event again confirms the absolute imperfection of the technology and the danger of oil and gas industry activity - and most importantly, this event shows how terrible the results can be not only for the environment but living people as well. [...] Experts say that this catastrophe shows the complete inadequacy of warning systems and reaction time to emergencies. It is as yet unknown if it will be possible to restore the ecosystem and how much effort, how many means and how much time this will take.[4] The Russian environmentalist Vladimir Slivyaklaid claims the Russian authorities to be responsible for the catastrophe by allowing too weak ships like the Volganeft-139 to operate in such strong weather conditions and especially in such a sensitive and threatened region.[4]

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2.3 Oil rig accident at the Sea of Okhotsk

Russia is the world second-largest oil exporter. But most of the oil is produced onshore. Thats why there have not been many significant oil platform accidents in recent years. But last December, a tragic accident occurred, provoking the death of about 50 people. Russia is trying to expand its production offshore and this accident could be harmful to this project. On the 18th December 2011, while the rig Kolskaya was being towed in the Sea of Okhotsk, a heavy wave damaged some of the rigs equipment and flooded the crews dining room. 67 people were on board: 53 from the crew and 14 as workers (drill operators, crane drivers) [1][2][6]. The rig had to face a strong storm with waves of about 6 meters and a wind around 20m/s. A SOS message was
Figure 1: localization of the Sea of Okhotsk where the accident occurred, webside of the North Pacific Ocean [C]

sent but the rescuers received it 3 hours later [7]. The crew was waiting for being rescued by helicopter when the rig capsized and sank in 2O minutes in waters, at 1000 meters deep [1]. The water temperature was 1C and the air temperature around minus 17C [3]. The rig was 200km from the shore of Sakhalin Island but the rescues arrived too late. 195 people (4ships and 5 aircrafts) worked to find survivors or bodies [4]. 14 people from Kolskayas crew were saved by the ice breaker Magadon and the supply tug Neftegaz-55 in charge of towing the rig [2]. After one day, 14 people were alive, 15 bodies were found and 38 people were still missing. The tug also had to return because of technical problems caused by high waves (leak during the rescue, but the hole was patched up quickly) [3][7]. During the rescue, weather conditions were still really bad, and the hope to find survivor was small, even though each person was equipped with hydrothermal-suits and that there were 4 life boats available [4]. Two of them have been found, empty [4]. There was no risk for environment in this accident, since the rig was carrying only a small amount of oil, but many people died. It shows another dimension of oil accident [1][3].

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The drilling rig was 69m long, 80m wide and could take 102 people on board. It was built in 1985 in Finland and started its operations in the Okhotsk sea in September to drill and test a well in this area. The rig belongs to the Murmansk based company

Arktikmorneftegaznazvedka. It had just finished to work under a contract with Gazprom. [3] The companys general director Yury Melekhov

maintained that the vessel was in good technical conditions and that the crew was experienced. [8]
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Actually, the President Medvedev ordered a probe and two main origins of the accident were highlighted [1]. The safety regulations were violated and the poor weather conditions disregarded. Indeed, the regulations forbid the towing of rigs in stormy conditions. To this, the companys general director answered that the worsening weather conditions were expected and that they were aware of the danger. [8] Then, some safety regulations were not followed. When the rig is being towed, the Russian law allow only a minimal number of crew member to be aboard. In the accident of the 18th December 2011, about half of the people should not have been on the platform, and should have been transported on a separate vessel [2][6]. Moreover, the question of wanted to make profit even if it is dangerous for the crew was underlined. The towing of the rig was dangerous in December. But waiting longer would have mean losing money. And the crew did not have the choice and had to go. [8] The crew members wives alleged that the crew was forced to go out to sea in bad weather conditions since the next period suitable for towage in the area was only expected in February, meaning the rig would have been in downtime for several months and the company would have suffered loss of profit as a result. [8] To summarize, it seems that there were some infringements about towing and safety rules, and that bad weather conditions were disregarded. The direct consequences of the accident is the mourning of families : 53 people dead or missing. Some psychologists have been contacted to help the family and the rigs owner will give $93,000 to each family [5].

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But there are other consequences : this accident underlines some issues which are still linked to this new offshore production. Thus, it highlights the fact that technologies are not well adapted to ice and to strong winter weather conditions, linked to the Arctic climate [8]. It shows an absence of infrastructure for first-response operation when there is an accident such as oil leaks, and also a lack of transparency [8]. Since nothing is change to ameliorate this, the accident could be repeated, with worst consequences, a oil slick for example. This accident can also have social and political consequences with some demonstration, as it can be seen on the picture. Some hidden issues are now visible, since as the fact that the life time of the rig was past, and that the fact that the crew was trapped by the company, and even by the state [9]. And finally, this accident gives a new reason for ecologists to complain about platform in the Artic area. [10]
Figure 2 : Photo of a demonstration [9]

This accident did not lead to an oil slick, but to the death of 53 people, because of infringement in safety rules. There is now a new wreck in the sea. This tragic event can have consequences on the development of rigs in the future.

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2.4 Accident at the White Sea

In the Onega Bay trading port oil tankers' loading complex opened in 2003 by the

"Volgotanker" (Volga oil fuel shipping company). They planned to transport 800,000 tonnes of oil during the summer and 1,5 million during next year. Large storage tankers was placed at this place and smaller ships delivered oil products to them.
Picture ?? - Nefterudovoz-57

On September 1st, 2003, the "Nefterudovoz-57" ship's hull got several holes after a collision with the tanker "Zoja-I", which had no damage. The spill was discovered only four days after the accident and stretched 74 kilometers: the oil stuck into the birds' feather and fishermen found oil residue in their nets at the neighboring villages. The oil terminal's management didn't prepare proper plans for this situations, so they didn't coordinate the cleaning up process well and they make a lot of mistakes: the people, who made the clean up didn't have good qualifications or equipment the eyewitnesses said that the company organized an oil collection and an open burning of the collected oil residue and the dead birds The representatives of the company reported false information about the spilled amount of oil and the progress of the cleaning procedure. This also mislead the civil defense, who gave false information to the journalist, when they announced that there was no environmental catastrophe and all of the effects had been cleaned up in 50 minutes. On October 14th, 2006 a criminal case started against the tanker's captain, Vasily Ramzaev. Inspection concluded that more than 100 tonnes of oil was spilled from the tanker. The results also showed, that 1,5 hours after the accident nobody make any action and the oil spill already reached 1750 meters length. But finally the case was dropped on January 14th, 2006, because of new amendments, which left out significant harm and damage as punishable acts by law. The only charge was responsibility for injury or loss of life, but nobody got hurt, only the environment, so they let free the captain. But the inspections proved the company's guilty and it was fined to pay 12 million rubles to the regional government. The Volgotanker appealed the decision, but in October 2004 the court dismissed the last appeal and the company had to pay the fee.

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3 CONCLUSION

http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2007/oillaws_needed

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REFERENCES
!!!!!- http://www.treehugger.com/fossil-fuels/russia-spills-5-million-tonnes-oil-equivalent-6-bpdisasters-every-year.html http://bellona.no/filearchive/fil_Chapter_4._Oil_and_gas_accidents_prevention_and_liquidation.pdf http://chartsbin.com/view/mgz http://www.bellona.org/english_import_area/energy/39771

Decades long stuff: http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2007/kumzhinski

Case1 - 1994: http://www1.american.edu/ted/KOMI.HTM http://bellona.no/filearchive/fil_Chapter_4._Oil_and_gas_accidents_prevention_and_liquidation.pdf you will find a longer text about the accident http://www1.american.edu/ted/KOMI.HTM From the middle of the article is the 94s accident: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/18/apenterprise-russia-oil_n_1156030.html Case2 - Oil rig accident - 2011-12-18: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-18/dozens-missing-in-russian-oil-rig-disaster/3737352 http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/269517/20111219/russian-oil-rig-accident-death-toll-storm.htm http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2011/sinking_oilrig Case3 - Ship sank - 2007 november 12: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/12/world/main3486845.shtml http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/gallery/2007/nov/12/internationalnews1 http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/12/pollution.russia http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/oil-spill-in-black-sea-strait-could-be-regionsworst-environmental-disaster.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerch_Strait_oil_spill#Oil_spill http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2007/tanker_split http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/ukraine_pdna.pdf

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CaseXXXXX- 2006: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14116559/ns/world_news-world_environment/t/serious-spill-largerussian-export-pipeline/#.TzUdF7Giv4s http://www.xn--c1adwdmv.xn--p1ai/english/681614.html http://www.energy-pedia.com/news/russia/burst-oilpipe-in-bryansk-rattles-the-oil-markets http://dlib.eastview.com/browse/doc/9847043 http://www.coreindex.com/companies/c/Industrial/Cleaning/Oil-Spill-Clean-UpControl/z/Russia/Bryansk/

Case XXXXX- 2011 may: http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2011/kandalashka_spill http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2012/white-sea-oilspill

Other stuffs another one from 2006??: http://www.bellona.org/articles/articles_2006/41972 http://www.steeltank.com/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=x94l50%2BfHfI=&tabid=187&mid=614 page 14 http://bellona.no/bellona.org/articles/articles_2006/41972

2005: http://www.bellona.org/english_import_area/energy/renewable/40482

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http://www.mapreport.com/citysubtopics/russia-d-1.html#2001 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001451.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills

PICTURES:
http://www.reconnections.net/oil_tanker.jpg http://blogs.ft.com/energy-source/files//home/virtual/v2.blogs.ft.com/var/www/html/wpcontent/blogs.dir/30/files//2010/12/macondo-explosion.jpg http://www.alaska-in-pictures.com/data/media/17/scenic-alaska-oil-pipeline_3237.jpg http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/jun2010/3/7/bp-oil-spill-pic-ap-259019097.jpg http://www.vegyireakcio.hu/kornyezet.php

http://www.greendiary.com/entry/worst-oil-spills-date/ http://www.alaskajournal.com/images/cache/7b93917f27d9a8a76e6699d1d19a8d58.jpeg http://www.darkgovernment.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/crude-oil-barrel.jpg http://www.thefatlossauthority.com/fat_loss_tips/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/olive-oilimagine.jpg

http://lh4.ggpht.com/X6LP9PbwMd4/Tu6TBGhVz0I/AAAAAAAAFNE/LB41BoIxwlQ/image%25255B5%25255D.png http://www.bellona.org/imagearchive/c4b52440c4aa122e8a2f1effdf94f901 http://static.themoscowtimes.com/upload//photos/large/2005_03/2005_03_01//volgotanker_2.jpg http://www.riverships.ru/english/albums/frolov.shtml

acs

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http://cdn2.shipspotting.com/photos/middle/5/9/1/762195.jpg

http://www.pollutionissues.com/Co-Ea/Disasters-Oil-Spills.html#b
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/europe_enl_1194879338/html/1.stm

http://www.noruec.com/innhold/rapporter/fagrapporter/vern_havmiljo/hav24_2006_07_onega_oil spill_final.pdf