Preparing for Arctic Oil Spills; Ocean Trials Off Svalbard

11 July 2008

Around twenty international scientists spent the month of May in the lab and on the ocean outside the Svalbard archipelago in Arctic Norway investigating the behavior of oil spills in Arctic waters, and how such spills can be handled under Arctic conditions.

Testing a floating boom in the Arctic. Click to enlarge. Source: SINTEF

The full-scale trials—which included tests of oil skimmers and fire-resistant oil booms, the burning of floating oil and a monitoring experiment that was controlled via satellite—produced results that offer a basis for the further development of measures to protect against oil-spills in ice-infested regions.

The experiments were carried out as part of an international collaborative research program, “The joint industry programme on oil-spill contingency for Arctic and ice-covered waters”, which was launched in 2006. This is the largest and most wide-ranging R&D program on such oil spills to date, with a total budget of NOK 60 million (US$11.8 million, €7.5 million) spread over three and a half years.

Six oil companies (StatoilHydro, Agip KCO, Total, Conoco Philips, Chevron and Shell) that operate under Arctic conditions, SINTEF, and several other organizations are collaborating in the program designed to enhance the understanding of Arctic spills, improve the technology and increase the ability to react rapidly in the event of a disaster.

Burning the oil in situ can be effective, and in certain cases it may be the only way of keeping it under control. Click to enlarge. Photo: SINTEF

The project includes projects at three levels: laboratory trials at SINTEF SeaLab, field experiments in Svea on Svalbard and offshore field experiments in the marginal ice-edge around the Svalbard archipelago.

The projects are looking at how oil behaves under a wide range of ice conditions, and are trialing various methods of collecting and dealing with oil, in order to improve the efficiency of oil-spill contingency measures in these regions. Burning the oil in situ can be very effective, and in certain cases it may be the only way of keeping it under control.