2011 Bohai bay oil spill
Encyclopedia
The 2011 Bohai bay oil spill (Chinese:2011年渤海湾油田溢油事故) was a series of oil spills that began on June 4, 2011 at Bohai Bay
Bohai Bay
Bohai Bay is one of the three bays forming the Bohai Gulf, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea, in northeast China. It borders Hebei province and Tianjin Municipality...
. The spill itself however was not publicly disclosed until a month later. There were suspicions of official cover-ups by the State Oceanic Administration
State Oceanic Administration
State Oceanic Administration is an administrative agency subordinate to the Ministry of Land and Resources, responsible for the supervision and management of sea area in the People's Republic of China and coastal environmental protection, protecting national maritime rights and organizing...
(SOA).
Ownership
The oil field is 51% owned by China National Offshore Oil CorporationChina National Offshore Oil Corporation
China National Offshore Oil Corporation is one of the three major national oil companies of China....
, and 49% owned by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
company ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips
ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational energy corporation with its headquarters located in the Energy Corridor district of Houston, Texas in the United States...
.
1st oil spill
On June 4, 2011 the Penglai 19-3 oilfield caused an oil spill from a sea floor leak that lasted until June 7.2nd oil spill
On June 17 a second oil spill that occurred at the Penglai 19-3 oilfield, but was contained within 48 hours. By the second leak, it was reported that a total of 840 square kilometers of first grade clean water in Bohai BayBohai Bay
Bohai Bay is one of the three bays forming the Bohai Gulf, the innermost gulf of the Yellow Sea, in northeast China. It borders Hebei province and Tianjin Municipality...
was polluted.
3rd oil spill
A third leak took place on July 12 with the Suizhong 36-1 oil field. This occurred just one day after the Huizhou refinery explosion incident2011 Huizhou refinery explosion incident
The 2011 Huizhou refinery explosion incident occurred at the Huizhou refinery at the Daya Bay Economic and Technical Development zone in Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. The refinery is owned by China National Offshore Oil Corporation . The blast occurred at 4:30 am on July...
. In total the leaks contaminated a total of 4,250 square kilometers. The media has described the spill to be six times the size of Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
.
Leak disclosure
The oil spill was not publicly reported until 31 days later on July 5, 2011. It was only revealed because of a public microblog tip-off that appeared on June 21. The news of the oil spill was withheld by the State Oceanic AdministrationState Oceanic Administration
State Oceanic Administration is an administrative agency subordinate to the Ministry of Land and Resources, responsible for the supervision and management of sea area in the People's Republic of China and coastal environmental protection, protecting national maritime rights and organizing...
(SOA) for a month. In a statement by the SOA, the US company ConocoPhillips managing the platform was held responsible for the leak, and was fined 200,000 yuan (US$31,000). CNOOC however, said they informed government authorities from the start.
Environment impact
Outside of the spill area, dead seaweed and rotting fish can be seen around Nanhuangcheng island (南隍城島) in Shandong province."The oil, containing toxic substances and heavy metals, will greatly affect the growth of marine lives that live on the seabed, such as clams, scallops and some kinds of crabs," Xinhua reported last week quoting Cui Wenlin, director of the environmental monitoring centre with the North China Sea branch of the SOA.
Bohai is a half-closed sea with comparatively low self-clean ability due to limited water exchange with the outside, he added.
The environmental monitoring centre Cui directs has been monitoring the impacts of the oil spills on the Bohai's water quality, seabed sediments and marine lives.
Though the US firm claims that no oil sheen reached the shoreline after the spills, Xinhua reports that "dead seaweed and rotting fish have been reported in the water around Nanhuangcheng Island, about 74 kilometres south from where the leaks originated".
Responses
Further criticism followed that if the spilled oil flow into the Yellow SeaYellow Sea
The Yellow Sea is the name given to the northern part of the East China Sea, which is a marginal sea of the Pacific Ocean. It is located between mainland China and the Korean Peninsula. Its name comes from the sand particles from Gobi Desert sand storms that turn the surface of the water golden...
, this will damage both North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
and South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
. Korean media have complained about Beijing being as irresponsible as the Japanese's reluctant to share information about its nuclear disasters
2011 Japanese nuclear accidents
This is a list of articles describing aspects of the nuclear shut-downs, failures, and nuclear meltdowns triggered by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami.-Fukushima nuclear power plants:* Fukushima I Nuclear Power Plant...
. ConocoPhillips said the spill was the equivalent of 1,500 barrels of oil.
But many Chinese environmental organisations questioned the credibility of the spill volume released by ConocoPhillips.
Zhong Yu, senior action coordinator of Greenpeace, an international environmental organisation, told Xinhua that “the amount is questionable” because, apart from ConocoPhillips and the SOA, ‘no third party attended the assessment’.
In addition, 11 environmental organisations sent an open letter to ConocoPhillips China and CNOOC Ltd on Thursday, asking the two companies to assist the organisations and other people concerned to visit the scene of the leak to investigate the incident and its aftermath.
Track records
The CNOOC has recently come under scrutiny for several accidents involving its facilities, the third such incident on the Bohai Sea in less than two months. Following an oil spill on Tuesday in its Suizhong 36-1 oilfield, it was to be shut temporarily, SOA announced in a statement. By Wednesday afternoon, CNOOC finished cleaning up an oil slick near the oilfield and gradually resumed production.ConocoPhillips, after being incorporated in 2002, was responsible for the spill in Dalco Passage, 21 miles (33.8 km) of the South Sound beaches, in October 2004 and had to pay $588,000 in compensation for environmental damage.
A gas blow-out occurred on May 3, 2006 approximately 26 kilometres southeast of Edson, Alberta by the US firm's Canada concern.
A ConocoPhillips well caught fire near Groundbirch, 30 km east of Chetwynd or 45 km west of Dawson Creek on Nov 11, 2008.
A rusted pipeline ruptured on Christmas Day in 2008 at ConocoPhillips' Kuparuk oil field in Alaska, causing one of the biggest-ever spills of oil-laced water on the North Slope. Some 95,000 gallon oil was spilled from a corroded water-injection pipeline from the North America's second-biggest field, after Prudhoe Bay.