News

BP's problems in the Gulf of Mexico seem to be increasing, as the global company is coming under increasing pressure from the US government.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said BP have not met

“deadline after deadline”

in their attempts to seal the leak and also stated that the US government would

“push them out of the way appropriately”

if it was found that they were not doing what they were supposed to be doing.

BP have agreed to pay in excess of the current £52 million liability limit for the clean-up operation as oil continues to spill from the broken riser pipe on the sea bed.

Meanwhile, the US government has sent a specialist team to BP’s headquarters in an attempt to find a way to stop the leak. At the moment it is thought that a method of injecting heavy drilling fluids into the ruptured pipe could be the best option, but with the pipe at a depth of 5,000ft, it is no easy task.

It is hoped a short term solution will be found in the coming days, as the oil is now threatening the coastline of Florida and Cuba.

BP's efforts to contain the oil spill on the Gulf of Mexico seem to taken a setback, after it was reported that the oil containment device currently being used was not collecting as much oil as it had previously done three days earlier.

BP has been struggling to contain the leak which started over a month ago after the Deep Water Horizon oil rig exploded. They have tried to use various methods of containment but with the blow-out at a depth of 5,000ft, it is proving to be a difficult task. To date it is estimated that a quantity of oil in excess of 1million barrels has escaped from the ruptured riser pipe and the oil is now reaching the coastline on four US States.

The US government has taken a strong line with BP regarding the cleanup operation and the containment of the spill itself. Only on Saturday, US President Barak Obama said

"a breakdown of responsibility"

had led to the spill.

BP are working on a relief well which is due to be completed sometime in August, but in the meantime are working towards a short term solution to try to stem the flow of oil.

In the last article we discussed how important it is to use the right type of control equipment and the need to keep it in good working condition. Here we will continue with this discussion.

Check your control equipment

If you follow safe systems of work and a planned preventative maintenance (PPM) schedule, you will be able to notice any defects or problems before the system breaks down or needs to be used. If for example you use a variety of bunded spill pallets on your site, a regular check of the pallets for defects or damage will mean that if they need to contain a large spill, they will do so properly.

Keep maintenance systems up to date

It is really important that as an employer you make sure that you stay in control of the methods you use to monitor systems of work. So you need to make sure the control methods are followed once they are in place. It’s easy to set up a system and see it fall by the wayside when you have other things on your agenda. For systems like this to work, it is important that a duty holder is designated or a competent team of workers follow the stipulated maintenance routine.

Things they might check are:

• The control device is not leaking any contaminants

• Employees are following the correct systems of work

• The control equipment can still perform the task it was designed to do

• Estimate when the control equipment is coming to the end of its useful life

We have mentioned previously how important it is to have safe systems of work in place. And adequate control methods, to protect your employees from the risk of being exposed to a dangerous substance or chemical. There are a few things you can do to control the risk, including using a less harmful product than the one you are currently using and enclosing the process so none of the dangerous product will escape, such as using spill pallets.

In this article and the next we will discuss the need for the correct control equipment.

Using control equipment

There are many different types of control equipment and many different ways in which it can be used. From ventilation systems to clean refuges for workers and systems to collect leaks or spills, the list is almost endless.

If you have some form of control equipment on your site, it must be kept in good working condition and hence either be cleaned or maintained on a regular basis so it continues to function as efficiently as was initially intended. A user manual should be created or a planned preventative maintenance (PPM) schedule drawn up so information can be recorded and documented. The PPM should include a description of the system, any checks that need to be done to the system and the frequency of these checks, a list of consumables or spare parts that may be needed and a description of how the control equipment must be operated or used correctly by any employee.

We will continue this discussion in the next article.

It is perhaps quite apt to write an article about oil spill kits at the moment, as the US faces the largest oil cleanup operation it has ever seen.

Oil spill kits are not just essential for large scale spills, they are also important for companies who only use oil on an infrequent basis. There are of course many different types of spill kits currently available on the market with absorption capacities from just 10 litres to many thousands of litres.

If you are looking for an oil spill kit it’s worth performing a risk assessment on the amount of oil that may be likely to spill in your instance. There is no point buying a huge 1200 litre absorbing capacity kit if you only need a small kit to cope with small spills.

The perfect place to store oil spill kits is in an area that may be prone to spills, but if this can not be done, you can buy oil spill kits that can easily be carried on your shoulder or fit into a wheeled bin so they can be transported to the spill quickly and easily.

Tar balls that have washed up on the Florida coastline are undergoing tests to work out if they are from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Oil has already made landfall in three other US states and it is feared the impact of the spill will have far reaching consequences to the delicate ecosystems on land and under water.

The leak has been contained somewhat by BP over the last few days and the quantity of oil escaping has lessened. But, the amount of oil that leaked from the well is proving extremely difficult to clean up due to the huge quantity of the leak.

Spill collection vessels are continuing to use inflatable booms across the surface of the sea to collect the oil but recent aerial pictures show the enormity of the task that they are facing.

Meanwhile, US President Barak Obama has set up a commission to investigate the spill and investigate industry practices in the hope that a similar disaster can be averted in the future.

BP plan to pump large quantities of mud into the well to close it altogether, but it seems the damage is already done.

Employees need to be protected from any potential risk whilst at work. And, this is especially the case if they work with dangerous substances or contaminants. Thus, employers should assess the risk of any work task that an employee might do as part of his or her duties and put into place appropriate control measures to limit the risk to acceptable levels.

Controlling risk involves not just using the right type of equipment, which is of course essential, but also involved should be the introduction of good work practices to reduce exposure. Standard operating procedures (SOPs) should always state the equipment that should be used to do the task properly and the right method to carry out the procedure. This might mean sending staff on training sessions to make sure they are aware of the risks, or at least some form of instruction or supervision when carrying out the task.

Here are some ways to control exposure to employees:

• Use a safer substance rather than the one currently being used

• Use a different type of the same substance e.g. a solid rather than a liquid

• Change the process to limit the use of the substance

• Enclose the area where the harmful substance is contained e.g. use bunded oil tanks

• Keep spill kits or hazard control kits near the dangerous substance

• Always provide the right type of personal protective equipment

Collecting and processing spilled oil at sea is a difficult task. No more so when the oil is still leaking from the spill site.

Recovery teams are currently working against the clock in the Gulf of Mexico trying to contain and clean up such a leak after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on the 20th of April.

What devices are being used to contain the oil from the spill in the Gulf of Mexico?

It is extremely difficult to collect and process oil under the water surface, but on the surface things can be done. There are currently over 250 vessels in the Gulf of Mexico, just focussed on containing and cleaning up the spill. Some are using booms to collect the oil on the water surface. The booms used are systems of floats with water draughts and weights that collect the oil as they are pulled along by vessels. Nearly 200 miles of boom are currently being using to stop oil reaching the US coastline.

Another method being employed is the use of skimming devices that float on the surface of the water. They use brushes to ‘brush-skim’ the surface and have so far collected about 90,000 barrels of spilled oil-water mix.

Chemicals which disperse the oils are also being sprayed using aircraft and ships to try to break down the oil. And lastly, controlled burns of the oil on the surface have been tried but they are difficult to control and contain an associated risk of toxic smoke.

BP has finally managed to siphon oil from the leaking oil well in the Gulf of Mexico to an oil tanker. It took three attempts to direct a siphoning tube into the leaking pipe at a depth of 5,000ft using remotely operated vehicles (ROVs).

The leak was briefly contained on Saturday night, but the pipe became dislodged and further attempts had to be made to reinsert it. It is hoped that the tube will be able to collect most of the leak, but there is still oil leaking nearby from a smaller spill site that needs to be contained.

Spill containment devices are still being used on the surface, with booms containing some of the spill to designated areas and skimming brushes being used to remove the oil-water mix. Over the weekend scientists found a huge plume of oil floating at a depth of 4,000ft under the surface which stretched for nearly 10 miles.

BP plans to increase the flow of oil through the recovery tube over the next few days, as they try to stop the estimated leak, of 5,000 barrels of oil per day, damaging the surrounding eco-system. The spill has now affected three US states, with Mississippi the latest to find oil washed up along its coastline, along with Alabama and Louisiana.