The Egyptian Journal of Hospital Medicine Vol., 7 : 58 – 64 June 2002 I.S.S.N: 12084
Oil Pollution hazards from reception facilities On Sidi Krier Coast-Alexandria
Prepared by: E.E.Siam & M.M.Rfaat Marine environmental protection program Arab Academy for science and Technology and Maritime Transport
Abstract: Increased world demand on energy is accompanied by an increase on oil production and transport. The transport of a huge amount of oil from production field to consumption countries caused series problems to the marine environment. The actual study is focused on the oil pollution in the Egyptian northern coast waters. Water samples were taken and analyzed and the average dispersed oil concentration in ppm is determined. The oil industry and specially the reception facilities on board and on land are responsible for this pollution. The study details the reasons of the accumulated oil pollution and gives recommendations to reduce the marine environmental damage.
Introduction Oil is the main source of world bilges, 30,000 tons from docking, energy. The huge amount of oil world 20,000 tons from terminal operation and production reached 69,685,000 barrels 50,000 tons from others. per day in 1996[l]. The number reflects The U.S. Coast Guard reported in from one side the economic needs for 1997[4] that 174 different oil types are that type of fuel and the size of the introduced into different water bodies. problem of the sea water pollution by Also, the report showed that through oil. 1992 only, the large majority of spills In the United States, the U.S. are believed to result from human error. coast guard reported pollution spills The problem of oil spills and sea water from 1973 to 1997[2]. The greater pollution has two sides; On-Land and volume of spills was 22 million gallons On-Board. in 1975 and the smaller was IO million The On-Land problem was gallons in 1997. translated by governmental and nongo - An international oil spill statistics vernmental organizations into oil spill (1997)[3] showed that nearly 49 million contingency plans [5]. Examples of gallons oil spilled world wide into the these plans are the British Colombia Oil marine and inland environments from Spill Contingency plan. The original all sources as the result of 136 incidents plan was prepared in 199 1 after the during 1997. Netscape barge spill in 1989 off of The National Academy of Greys Harbour and Exxon Valdez spill Science in United States reported in in 1990 in Price W illiam. Alaska The 1980 that 1.5 million tons entered to the plan was amended in 1992 and in 1997. sea as a result of all shipping operations. The On-Board problem was realized by 700,000 tons of this quantity is due to the International Maritime tanker operations, 400,000 tons are due Organizations. Which concluded that, to tanker accidents, 300,000 tons from if it is to reduce pollution from spill, it
Refree : Prof ; Dr. Abla M . Helmy Afify. 58
E.E.Siam & M.M.Rfaat
must be at the source namely the ship • Insufficient surveillance and specially the oil tanker and for the at sea, which makes the objective of reducing human error. The risk of discovery very International Convention for the small. Prevention of Pollution from ships 1973 • Bureaucracy and high and the 1978 protocol required an demands on evidence in emergency plan to reduce oil pollution order to tie a ship to a from ships in accidental case. specific discharge. Regulation 26 of MARPOL[6] give an According to international regula objective of this plan is to provide -tions discharges of oily and chemical guidance to master and offices aboard wastes and garbage are not allowed in for their duties when oil pollution open waters. Such wastes should be incident occurs or likely to occurs. stored onboard and delivered to port The regulation 26 requires that reception facilities.This is how it should every oil tanker of 150 tons and any be, but unfortunately this is too often ship other than an oil tanker of 400 tons not the case. shall carry an oil pollution emergency The main objective of the world plan. strategy is to stop discharges from all types of ships-from large tankers to Reception operation in oil transport fishing vessels and pleasure crafts. The Reception operation has two meanings in oil industry. On-Board strategy comprises three parts: tankers reception facilities include all • Mandatory rules for equipment and operations involved in ships to deliver their oil loading and discharging. On-Shore wastes in port, together reception facilities involve all with effective surveil - equipment used in receiving and storage lance and control of all liquids and waste from ships. systems, and The number of oil spills international agreements registered annually has been increasing. on how to punish those Most of the oil spills consist of oil who violate the rules. contaminated bilge water and oily • A fare and harmonized sludge (and not of oil contaminated system between the ballast water or tank washing water countries on how ports from oil tankers) and such waste may be should be allowed to discharged from any ship, irrespective recover their costs for of type and size. receiving and treating There are several reasons for this ship-generated waste in negative trend, e.g.: environmentally • Increased world traffic acceptable ways. with sub-standard ships. • Investments to build • Lacks of operations for new, or improve ships to deliver waste to existing, reception port reception facilities. facilities in nearly all • The lack of capacity to ports. receive ship-generated It is important to resume the waste is obvious in ports. important guidelines for the prevention of pollution of the sea by oil from
59 Oil Pollution hazards from reception facilities
machinery spaces of ships of less than In the last years, the seawater in most 400 gross tonnages as: populated areas changed its color from Such ships should be fitted with clear topaz to green-brown with a lot of approved oily-water separating or oil- tar balls spreaded on seawater surface filtering equipment and sufficient tank and along the shoreline. The reason was capacity for oily residues, which enable obvious: the young petroleum industry the ship to comply with paragraph (3) along this coast with large number of oil (b) of regulation IO of annex I of tankers changing from the Sumid MARPOL 73/78. terminal. Such ships should be equipped To evaluate the environmental with holding tank(s) to retain generated damage caused to the sea and oily bilge water and other generated oily consequently to the shore, seawater residues on board for subsequent samples were taken during the return discharge to reception facilities, which leg from Europe of the Arab Academy enable the ship to comply with Training Ship AIDA IV. The return leg paragraph (4)(b) of regulation 10 of approaches the territorial waters from annex I of MARPOL 73/78. the west and passing parallel to the Tanks required by paragraph I Egyptian Northern coast to reach the and 2 above should be equipped with Alexandria port. pumping facilities and standard Alexandria port is one of the discharge connection to enable heavy traffic ports of the Mediterranean pipes/hoses of reception facilities to be Sea. Geographically, the port lies connected.(ship should preferably be between latitude 310.13N - 3 1'.20N and equipped, & with-the quick Release longitude 290.78E 29'.86E.The port connection of the European standard received over 4058 vessels called at EN 1305, but may alternatively be Alexandria of different categories and equipped with a standard discharge the throughput reached 847 million tons connection referred to in regulation 19 during the year 1997.The port contains of Annex I of MARPO-L--73/-7-8).The 71 berths handling different types of tank(s) should have adequate capacity cargo (Seatrade [7]).Cargo ships come taking into account the type and in the first place of the ships calling the condition of the ship, trading pattern, port About 70% of the Egyptian foreign time at sea, etc. trade are served at this port. Inside the For ships of less than 24 meters port there are large numbers of service long the administration may allow other boats, tugboats, floating cranes, supply arrangements than stated in paragraph vessels, military ships, submarines and 1-3 above. dry docks. The total length of the berths is 40.000 m. and the surface area is Pollution Evaluation of Oil Industry 7500000 square meters. Inside all these on the Egyptian Northern Coast areas of operation, the different cargo
The Egyptian Northern coast handling systems are distributed along extends from Alexandria to the the berths. The port dimensions are 7- Egyptian-Libyan boarders. This coast km length and 2 km maximum width. was characterized by the soft white The depth of the water is between 5.5 to sands and the clear seawater. In the last 18 in (MRCC [81).The port contains two decades, this coast was privileged two main basins, the inner of which for Egyptian summer tourism where a covers about 200 acres and extends lot of touristic villages were established. from Ras El-Tin lighthouse top El-
60 E.E.Siam & M.M.Rfaat
Kabary area, and the outer basin covers The charging oil terminal of this line is about 450 acres and extends from the located at Sidi-Kreir at 27 km from the end of the inner basin to the end of the port of Alexandria. The terminal station breakwater. The port contains has offshore facilities of six-single Alexandria shipyard in the outer basin mooring load vessels from 150000 with two building berths of capacity up DW T and 350000 DW T through to 20000 wt for cargo ships and 38000 floating hoses. wt for bulk carriers, four slipways and It is documented that the mooring two dry-docks-85000 wt and 10000-wt points are supplied by deballasting capacity. There is also Egyptian facilities working as receiving facilities Shipbuilding and Repair Company in of the dirty ballast at the rate from 3000 the inner harbor with a slipway and to 5000 M3 /hr. The SUMED docum - floating dock-6000 ton capacity ents [9] states that: "the dirty ballast (Seatrade [7]). received from tankers is treated in the All petroleum activities are onshore treating plant at the rate of concentrated on the western side of 8000 cu. meters per hour. The plant Alexandria port from the entrance to consists of four fixed roof tanks each Sidi Kreir, 27 km west of Alexandria. 30.000 cu. meters nominal capacity, The centers of petroleum activities are each equipped with four skimmers to the petroleum harbor, El-Mex industrial skim. zone, El-Agamy region, and Sidi Kreir Separated oil,(water with poor oil and Al-Alamein region. content is discharged to concrete basins Samples of seawater (42 samples) containing packages of tilted plate were taken along the return leg and interceptors to separate oil from water, analyzed to prove the existence of oil then to a holding basin for final check pollution by finding the oil fingerprints; of water cleanliness and finally (water is figures (1, 2). The quantity in ppm of discharged to Sea with an average oil the dispersed oil was determined content of six parts per million and with experimentally. It was found that the a maximum of ten parts per million, a oil concentration varies from 6 ppm to level far better than the International nearly 65 ppm at the port of Alexandria requirements. The treatment of the with an average value parallel to the deballast water is a mechanical process northern coast of 23 ppm. The average and thus avoids the risks associated with estimated spilled oil in a wide region of thermal and chemical processes. the northern coast was 2.3-kg oil per ton of seawater. Conclusions and recommen - A review to the petroleum dations: activities along this coast points that the major contributor in this pollution is the The measured average value of SUMED terminal, which is the major the hydrocarbon concentration in activity and having the largest reception seawater was found to be 23 ppm it facilities in this area. This line is must be noted that this average value belonged to the Arab Petroleum was measured at a distance of nearly I Pipelines Co. SUMED is an Egyptian Omiles from the shoreline. This means Company created for the purpose of that the pollution may increase on pipelines construction to transfer crude approaching the coast. oil from AIN-SUKHNA at Suez Gulf to This quantity of pollution could SIDI-KREIR at the Mediterranean sea. be explained by the increased activity of
61 Oil Pollution hazards from reception facilities
oil industry along the northern coast. discharge from the plant with the But this is not only the reason, this seawater must be subject to the industry is partially responsible by some prevailing wind, the surface currents release of uncontrolled treated and the underwater current. The result water.The major part of this pollution needs no explanation; oil pollution is returns to the vessels navigating in this accumulated under no mixing and no area. Some of these vessels releases dilution. important quantity of ballast water The damage caused to the marine while others releases the bilge water. environment by oil pollution takes The concentration of 6 ppm for the many years to be repaired. A small released water at SUMED outlet is '/3 of amount of oil enters the marine the measured value.This large- environment consumes huge amount of difference may be due to one of two dissolved oxygen to decay. The best reasons or both of them. solution to protect is to stop releasing The first reason of the actually oil in seawater. increased concentration of the oil Stopping marine pollution at the content in seawater along the northern northern coast requires adequate coast may be due to the meteorological mechanism to ensure that no conditions in this area. The prevailing uncontrolled releases from the oil wind is NW and it is always companies. Also requires the control of perpendicular to the coastline.The wind the Egyptian Coast Guard to prevent generates waves, which may push releases from the vessels navigating in surface water from the northwest to the this area. port area passing along the shoreline.The other reason of the measured oil concentration may be due to release of uncontrolled discharged water from the treating plant.At any situation the mixing of the released
62 E.E.Siam & M.M.Rfaat
6 MARPOL, 73/78, References . International Maritime
Organization, London- 1. BP Statistical Review of 1978. W orld Energy, 1997. 7. Arab Shipping Guide- 2. Polluting incident Egypt. Seatrade Review, Compendium-U.S. Coast August 1998.pp. 36-37, Guard report, 1973-1997. 1998 3. International Oil Spill 8. Activities of the Statistics, 1997-Reports Egyptian Harbon and for Spill Professional, Suez Canal during 1992. 1997. The statistical annual 4 . Annual Data and report, Vol. 10. Part 2. Graphics-U.S. Coast MRCC (Maritime Guard report, 1969-1997. Research and 5. B.C. Marine Oil Spill Consultation Center). Contingency plan-B.C. Arab Academy for Ministry of Science and Technology Environment, Lands & and Maritime Transport, Parks, 1997. 1993
9. SUMED annual report Alexandria, Egypt, p. 2
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63 Oil Pollution hazards from reception facilities
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