Russian Experience in Emergency Preparedness and Oil Spill Response Planning in Oil and Gas Industry

Abstract

The majority of new Russian oil and gas developments are located either in harsh, like Siberia inland, Arctic and Far East off-shore, and/or in sensitive environmental conditions, such as all the above, Caspian and Baltic Sea. Besides of affordable good practice intents, there are two additional items making HSE management of such developments a challenging issue. First is that during last years State regulation in the HSE issues demonstrates never yet seen severization of requirements, where some of them are much stronger that those in other countries. The second is that nowadays developments are participating by foreign companies, both as stakeholders and contractors. Newcomers entering Russian developments may become anxious about an evident gap between what they know as a common practice and what they are requested in this country. The paper is mainly focused on emergency preparedness and oil spill response planning:What is required by the State regulation andHow the industry can comply with. Introduction The stress is made on the harmonization of Russian regulations with foreign norms, rules and standards, apprised as the best way to international HSE cooperation [1]. Author's own experience gained in HSE management of some challenging projects [2] and in participation in State conducted reviews as an invited HSE expert demonstrates that Oil Spill Response (OSR) requirements are not yet harmonized and are subject for that in nearest future. Although overview examples are mainly drawn from offshore industry, the same is indicated for inland developments too. Let us consider two main points on which OSR planning in Russia to be based:worst case discharge to be withstood by OSR Plan;time of spill localizations. Worst Case Discharge Russian regulation has established the following worst case discharges since 2000:offshore stationary and floating production facility and terminal - spill of 1500 tons;pipeline:by small leakage - 2 % of oil transfer during 14 days;by significant rupture - 25 % of oil transfer during 6 hours + oil volume between nearest securing valves;tanker - 2 tanks. The above uniform requirements are unconditional with no respect to facility location and engineering design, development and operational phasing, implemented safety measures and discharge scenarios. Offshore facilities When comparing the above with that required by USA MMS [3]: "For an oil production platform facility, the size of your worst case discharge scenario is the sum of the following: the maximum capacity of all oil storage tanks and flow lines on the facility; the volume of oil calculated to leak from a break in any pipelines connected to the facility considering shutdown time, the effect of hydrostatic pressure, gravity, frictional wall forces and other factors; the daily production volume from an uncontrolled blowout of the highest capacity well associated with the facility. In determining the daily discharge rate, you must consider reservoir characteristics, casing/production tubing sizes, and historical production and reservoir pressure data.", one can see that lot of technical details are to be taken into consideration.