Australian coastal oil spill under observation

10 November 2009, 9:25pm

2009-11-10 - Satellites with onboard radar and optical multispectral hardware for Earth imaging ensure remote monitoring of the largest oil spill in the history of Australia that took place in the Timor Sea. On August 21 a series of non-controlled oil discharges occurred during drilling operations on West Atlas mobile platform upon reaching 2500 meter mark underneath the ocean bed in Montara oil field located 250 kilometers off north-west coast of Australia.

West Atlas platform is owned by a Norwegian company Seadrill and operated by PTTEP Australasia (Thailand). During two months the operating company undertook several unsuccessful attempts to stop emergency flow of hydrocarbons into the Timor Sea, which included drilling of an intercepting well from a nearby platform and injection of mud-water mixture in the well. It is estimated that since 21.08.09 over 400 barrels of oil per day (up to 2000 barrels/day according to more daring estimations) flow into the water basin and the spillage area have reached several thousand square kilometers. In the beginning of the emergency oilmen were evacuated from the platform, which caught fire on November 1. In accordance with the current estimations the company’s damage totals 170 million dollars.

Remote location of Montara oil field as well as the need for continuous monitoring of the emergency area led to the necessity to use data of Earth remote sensing from space. The process of monitoring engaged radar-equipped satellites - COSMO-SkyMed (Italy), TerraSAR-X (Germany) and ENVISAT (European Space Agency). Space radars with synthesized aperture (SAR) ensure high accuracy in detecting oil slicks on sea surface irrespective of presence of clouds, define their spatial and temporal characteristics and track their motion and transformation in time. Imagery processing is carried out by an Australian company Apogee Imaging Int.

The size of the oil pollution area is so large that the slicks are clearly seen even on optical multispectral images with low spatial resolution produced by MODIS sensors onboard Terra and Aqua satellites (USA).

So far PTTEP Australasia has spent around 5.3 million dollars worth of activities aimed at oil spill containment. As estimated by Australian nature protection agencies the emergency oil spill will severely damage the ecosystems of the Timor Sea. The government of Australia jointly with the operating company has developed a long-term plan for monitoring of the implication of the sea environment pollution, which provides for using a range of observation tools including those onboard satellites and aircraft.

The innovative technologies for operational monitoring of water basin environmental condition with the application of geoportal capabilities being developed by ScanEx Research and Development Center are described in the article “Domestic Technologies for Operational Satellite Monitoring of Water Areas”, which was published in the second issue of the magazine “Earth from Space — the Most Effective Solutions”. In addition, on December 2 the plenary session “Satellite-Based Methods of Maritime Monitoring will take place within the frames of the 4th International Conference “Earth from Space – the Most Effective Solutions. Registration of the conference participants is open.

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Geo: International