The objective of this project was advance the state of the art and knowledge in chemical dispersant use when injected into a subsea oil, or oil and gas, release.
The project was accomplished in a series of tasks, as described below.
The objective of this research program is to continue research and development on the use of chemical dispersants. The program contains three separate tasks.
Task 1. Calm Seas Application and Dispersant Wash-Out
The objective of the proposed research was to develop real-time and passive monitoring protocols to effectively determine the impact of dispersant use and VOC release, in both surface and subsurface applications, on oil spill response worker safety.
The project was accomplished in a series of tasks, as described below.
The objective of this research program was to extend the research on chemical herders into pack ice conditions (mechanical containment recovery), in salt marshes (mechanical recovery and in situ burning), and in open water (dispersants). This project was a direct continuation of TAR Project 554 Mid-Scale Test Tank Research on Using Oil Herding Surfactants to Thicken Oil Slicks in Broken Ice.
Task 1. Using Herders to Enhance Mechanical Recovery of Oil in Pack Ice
Objective:
The objective of this project was to identify and provide rough cost estimates for the upgrades that would be required at the Ohmsett test facility to enable it to be used by researchers to study the process of direct injection of dispersants in subsea oil and gas well blowouts.
Chemical treating agents and chemical dispersants are designed to work effectively in salt water (35ppt salinity). Near shore environments are seasonally influenced by significant freshwater outfalls (i.e. Mississippi River) and northern marine areas where melting sea ice poses unique situations where the use of dispersants might be used. The water in these areas will be fresh (0% salinity) and brackish (10-15% salinity) and this may alter the effectiveness of chemical treating agents and dispersants and thus alter the treating agents and dispersant use decision.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) recently conducted independent dispersant effectiveness testing. Four dispersants were selected from the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Contingency Plan (NCP) Product Schedule and were tested on an Alaskan crude oil under simulated arctic conditions at Ohmsett. They include Corexit® EC9500A, Finasol® OSR 52, Accell® Clean DWD, and ZI 400. To capture operational effectiveness issues, the dispersants were applied to a surface slick using Ohmsett's spray bar, which simulated a system similar to a boat spraying system.
Planned wind projects on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf could consist of wind turbine generators connected to a centralized electrical service platform (ESP). The ESP could contain approximately 40,000 gallons of dielectric insulating oil and approximately 2,000 gallons of assorted oil-based fluids (diesel fuel, lubricating oils, etc.) stored on site for facility maintenance. In addition, each wind turbines could have several hundred gallons of lubricating fluid.
This project aimed to validate and improve the two correlation models using a well know oil spill model OILMAP, by adding crude oils from outside the GOM for which physical and chemical properties are available, introducing ten new crude oils from the GOM for which physical and chemical properties were measured in this study, considering existing data from large tank tests and field trials/spills, and using data from new small tank tests.
There is a need for research information and data on the effectiveness of chemical dispersants to answer questions and data gaps posed by BOEMRE regional offices, regulators and decision makers. A review of oil spill dispersants, their efficacy and effects, recently completed by the U.S. National Research Council (NRC 2005), recommended that research on chemical dispersants be conducted in several different areas.