Can we handle the muck?
New Delhi   11-May-2010

MURPHY'S LAW - "anything that can go wrong, will go wrong" - seems to be the operative rule in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill - Time Magazine said in its latest cover story.
 
In view of the given skepticism about India's disaster preparedness, the scale of the Mexico spill could arouse serious apprehensions - after all the country has huge petroleum assets like the Bombay High. There have already been leaks that were not handled at best, like in Orissa and over five years ago off the Gulf of Kutch. Then, there is the controversial Alang shipbreaking yard, Asia's largest, which has often aroused concern over the toxic environment effects, though not necessarily because of oil spills.

Nonetheless, India's oil sector majors claim they are well equipped. FC Edge takes a look:

India's largest explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) claims to follow all measures.

"ONGC has not experienced any such mishap in its history," said UN Bose, director (technology and field services) of ONGC, referring to the Mexico spill.

"ONGC has a health, safety and development vertical that takes care of safety and preventive measures," he added.

There may be two kinds of oil spills, explains another senior official of ONGC who did not want to be quoted. In Mexico, it happened because of failure of dead man valve. It happened after a deepwater horizon rig exploded, rupturing the well. A dead man switch is used to stop the activity when human operations fail. In such a spill the immediate step is to shut the source of oil. Then, the spilled oil can be soaked with soaking pads if the volume is less or is flowed out using a pipeline. So does ONGC have the technological wherewithal to tackle a disaster of the scale in the Gulf of Maxico? Well, it may well claim to be following the requisite safety precautions, what would be the fallout when a disaster happens?

Preparing for the worst

The ONGC official said another spill occurs from leaks from tankers anchored on the shore. India has experienced this kind of spill at the eastern coast in Orissa. Such a spill is treated with microbes.

IndianOil (IOC) has developed oilivorous technology - (S) to clean oil spills, said Anand Kumar, director (R&D) of IOC. The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) had developed the technology for treating sweet crude spills. IOC developed it to treat sour crude, he said. Oil sludge is generated during a spill. It is also seen during the process of crude oil refining and storage in large tank farms. This oil sludge is totally made ecologically friendly through bio-remediation within 60-90 days.

"The technology has been successfully used to remove recent oil spills in Haldia," Kumar said. Generally, a blend of five microbes is selected to bio-degrade a wide range of hydrocarbon contaminants. Consisting of natural bacterial isolates, it is safer to handle and has no disease causing organisms. It has excellent capability to degrade wide range of hydrocarbon contaminants, including organo-sulphur compounds and is totally environmentally safe. But it works better on spills on land areas. Extending the same application on aquatic or marine systems where the conditions are altogether different in terms of nature of medium (microbes don't thrive and survive very effectively in saline water) and concentration, requires a focused approach and specialised application.

At present, IOC and TERI are working on an Indo-Australian joint project to extend the scope of application of the technology on aquatic and marine systems as India has a long coastal belt and many sea ports that handle transportation of crude oil and petroleum products. Ruias-promoted Essar Exploration & Production India (EEPIL) is presently drilling at onshore locations. 

"Among the land blocks where drilling is being carried out, EEPIL charters rigs from contractors. The company carries out a rigorous technical audit of these rigs to check pressure control equipment. These rigs are also checked to ensure they operate optimally while controlling the formation pressure. Periodic testing and safety meeting is carried out while the rigs are operating." EEPIL said in response to FC Edge's queries on their preparedness.

"In addition, the key people involved in running the rig operations are carefully checked for competency training and relevant certifications. An updated emergency response plan is also in place in line with the operations carried out, to ensure safe operations," EEPIL added. Reliance Industries (RIL) did not respond to FC's queries. Sourav Das, the official spokesman of Cairn India, the operator of India's biggest onshore oil field in Rajasthan declined to comment saying: "We cannot reveal details on our safety techniques for security reasons."

The government has also notified safety rules for offshore operations. Petroleum and Natural Gas Rules 2008 were promulgated and Oil Industry Safety Directorate (OISD) was asked to administer them. OISD reviews safety recommendations periodically and looks into any incident on Indian territory.