Oil Spill in the Gulf & Other Places

Official: 'Severe Threat' as China Oil Spill Grows

July 21, 2010

Associated Press – China's largest reported oil spill more than doubled in size to 165 sq. miles (430 sq. kilometers) by Wednesday, forcing nearby beaches to close and prompting one official to warn of a "severe threat" to sea life and water quality.

The oil slick started spreading five days ago when a pipeline at a busy northeastern port exploded, sparking a massive fire that took more than 15 hours to contain. Hundreds of boats have been deployed to help with the cleanup.

At least one person has been killed in those efforts, a 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, who drowned Tuesday after a wave threw him from a vessel and pushed him out to sea, the state-run Xinhua News Agency reported. Another man who also fell in was rescued.

Beaches near Dalian, once named China's most livable city, were closing as oil started reaching their shores, Xinhua reported.

"The oil spill will pose a severe threat to marine animals, and water quality, and the sea birds," Huang Yong, deputy bureau chief for Dalian, China Maritime Safety Administration, told Dragon TV.

The environmental group Greenpeace China released several photographs this week showing oil-slicked rocky beaches, a man covered in thick black sludge up to his cheekbones. One worker, covered in oil, was being carried away by a colleague, but he was not identified.

The amount of oil spilled in the explosion was still not clear Wednesday, though China Central Television earlier reported an estimate of 1,500 tons. That would amount roughly to 400,000 gallons (1,500,000 liters) — as compared with 94 million to 184 million gallons in the BP oil spill off the U.S. coast.

State Oceanic Administration released the latest size of the contaminated area in a statement Tuesday.

Though the slick has continued to expand — it covered a 70-sq.-mile (180-sq.-kilometer) stretch earlier this week — officials maintain no more oil was leaking into the Yellow Sea.

The cause of the blast was still not clear. The pipeline is owned by China National Petroleum Corp.., Asia's biggest oil and gas producer by volume.

Images of 100-foot-high (30-meter-high) flames shooting up near part of China's strategic oil reserves late Friday drew the immediate attention of President Hu Jintao and other top leaders. Now the challenge is cleaning up the greasy brown plume.

"Our priority is to collect the spilled oil within five days to reduce the possibility of contaminating international waters," Dalian's vice mayor, Dai Yulin, told Xinhua on Tuesday.

But an official with the State Oceanic Administration has warned the spill will be difficult to clean up even in twice that amount of time.

The Dalian port is China's second largest for crude oil imports, and last week's spill appears to be the country's largest in recent memory.

Video: Oil Clean-up Continues in Dalian

China Races to Prevent Oil Slick Spreading to Open Sea

July 21, 2010

Xinhua - China is speeding up its clean-up of an oil spill to stop it from spreading into the open ocean, five days after pipelines exploded here, causing a lingering oil spill that has spread to tourist beaches.

The slick has reached Dalian tourist attractions: the Golden Pebble Beach and the beach of Bangchui Island. One third of Golden Pebble Beach is covered by the greasy pollution, and large amounts of oil were also found on the beach of Bangchui Island, according to the State Oceanic Administration Wednesday.

Monitoring vessels could not conduct the daily survey of the oil spill Tuesday because of rough weather. According to Monday's survey, about 366 square kilometers of ocean was affected, including 52 square kilometers that were polluted and 12 square kilometers that were classified as "severely" polluted.

Clean-up staff are competing with the time to prevent the oil from reaching the international waters.

The Maritime Affairs Administration of Liaoning Province has mobilized all staff under the age of 50 to join in the clean-up, including helping direct sea traffic and clean up the slick.

The clean-up started last Saturday. On Tuesday, Dalian officials said they have in total mobilized forty special oil-skimming vessels and about 800 fishing boats to mop up most of the slick by the weekend.

"Our priority is to collect the majority of the oil within five days to reduce the possibility of it contaminating international waters," Dai Yulin, vice mayor of Dalian City, Liaoning Province, told Xinhua Tuesday.

Further, he said maritime agencies have set up 40 monitoring stations to watch a 1,500-square-kilometer area off the city's coast.

Maritime agencies and oil companies have laid down more than 15,000 meters of oil barriers to prevent the slick from spreading while biotechnicians are using 23 tonnes of oil-eating bacteria to dissolve toxic compounds in the oil-polluted waters.

A 25-year-old firefighter, Zhang Liang, drowned Tuesday after the wave took him away when he went underwater to clean the boat pump. Another man who was thrown into the sea by the wave was rescued.

The Dalian oil reserve is at the heart of northeast China's crude oil production base and it is one of China's largest oil industry bases while Dalian Port is China's second largest port for crude oil imports.

The oil pipeline blasts in Dalian last Friday have affected refined oil supplies in southern China but oil prices there will not climb as a result, industry analysts said Tuesday.

Chinese petroleum companies have had to reduce oil shipments from Dalian to southern Chinese provinces because the port had been partly closed since the incident.

On Tuesday, authorities lifted a partial ban on maritime traffic at Dalian. But local officials said oil shipments from Dalian would not be immediately restored.

PetroChina's north-to-south oil shipments from Dalian port -- usually 30,000 to 50,000 tonnes per day -- have been affected, said Chu Jiewang, an analyst at Shanghai-based C1 Energy Co. Ltd., a leading oil industry information provider.

Southern China refineries have scaled back operations while at least three China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC) subsidiaries have reduced sales of refined oil in southern provinces, Xinhua was told.

The Maritime Affairs Administration of Liaoning Province reported that the berths in Dalian City have fully re-opened to traffic as of 5 p.m. Tuesday as waterways affected by the oil slick have largely been cleaned up.

Authorities said they have directed about 420 vessels away during the past four days due to shipping restrictions since the spill.

The incident happened when two crude pipelines exploded last Friday evening in Xingang Port in northeast China's Dalian City after a 300,000 tonne oil ship had unloaded its oil. The tanker left the harbor safely.

The amount of leaked oil remained unclear Wednesday.

An investigation team was formed Sunday to find out the cause of the incident. But no results have been released yet.

From June to late August fishing in the waters out from Dalian City is not allowed. Cao Chenglin, a Dalian fisherman, said his boat was too small to join the oil spill clean-up, but he worried if he would be able catch any fish when the season opened.

"It's heartbreaking. Hopefully the oil spill can cleaned up as soon as possible, " Cao said.