Posted on behalf of Jane Qiu
Two oil spills off the coast of northeastern China last month have badly polluted 840 square kilometres of the sea, according to a statement released on Tuesday by the country’s State Oceanic Administration (SOA). The quality of water in the spill area has dropped to Grade IV – the worst on the administration’s four-grade pollution scale – from the pre-spill level of Grade I.
This is the first government briefing since the first spill took place a month ago. The announcement caused a public outcry because the extent of the spills is far greater than an earlier figure – 200 square metres – disclosed last Friday by the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) when it dismissed the leak as “minor incidents”.
The leak took place in the Penglai 19-3 oilfield in Bohai Gulf (also known as the Bohai Sea – see map), a largely enclosed body of water flanked by three provinces and the city of Tianjin. Penglai 19-3 is the country’s largest offshore oilfield jointly owned by the CNOOC and ConocoPhillips China, a subsidiary of the US oil giant which is in charge of the drilling operation.
The first spill took place on platform B on 4 June when pressurised water was forced into the Earth’s crust; nearly two weeks late, another leak hit platform C due to a surge in the well for unknown reasons, says the SOA statement. The officials say that the leak is now under control, although a small slick could still be seen from the two platforms.
SOA and CNOOC are also severely criticised for the delay in public disclosure about the accidents, which first came to light on Sina Weibo, a popular microblog website, on 21 June. SOA says that ConocoPhillips China first notified the leak on 4 June, but that it takes time to complete the investigation process.
According to the government rules, however, any oil spills have to be immediately reported to the public. This could ensure timely impact assessment and more effective mitigation measures. “People who live in the coastal areas have a right to know so they can make preparations,” Yang Fuqiang, a Beijing-based advisor of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group headquartered in New York, told New York Times.
Many are concerned that the spills may cause far-reaching and prolonged damage to Bohai’s marine environment, especially the area’s active fishing industry. Several Chinese newspapers have reported dead fish and shellfish farmed in waters close to the spill site, but whether this is caused by the oil leak is yet to be confirmed.
China’s lax marine environmental-protection law is also under attack. Based on the current stipulation, CNOOC and ConocoPhillips will face a maximum penalty of 200,000 yuan (US$31,000), which, to many, is ridiculously low. Wang Bin, deputy director of SOA’s environmental-protection bureau, says, however, that the government could demand more compensation after it has assessed the leak’s impact on the environment.
Critics also fear that the Penglai incident may be a sign of worse things to come. China’s offshore oil drilling is undergoing a rapid stage of proliferation, with production doubling in the past five years – mainly because of increasing energy demand and the country’s largely untapped offshore oil resources.
At the Penglai oilfield, ConocoPhillips is installing new drilling platforms and floating vessels to increase the crude-oil production to about 69,000 barrels a day this year, from less than half the amount two years ago.
In 2008, CNOOC unveiled an ambitious plan to invest 200 billion yuan ($31 billion) in the coming 10-20 years on offshore oil drilling in the South China Sea.
With such a rapid increase in infrastructure construction and oil production, more effective safety measures, spill-response mechanisms, oversight, and law enforcement must be in place to ensure safe development of offshore oil drilling.
Correction: New platforms will increase production to 69,000 barrels per day, not 69 million as previously stated.
Credit: Wikimedia Commons