OILMAP “Spot-On” in Australia Oil Spill

On March 11, Cyclone Hamish whipped up seas off the Queensland coast as the cargo ship Pacific Adventurer lost 250 tons of oil as 31 shipping containers packed with ammonium nitrate fertilizer slipped from its decks in the rough weather.  Some of the 20 foot metal shipping containers punched holes in the cargo ship's hull, allowing its bunker fuel oil to spill into the sea and eventually wash up on beaches nearby onshore.

 

Asia-Pacific ASA’s response was immediate, delivering an oil spill prediction to AMSA (Australian Maritime Safety Authority) within 74 minutes of notification (deadline was 90 minutes).  Using OILMAP™, ASA’s first prediction was spot on.  Oil came ashore very close to where OILMAP predicted.  Brain king from Asia-Pacific ASA’s Gold Coast office continued to provide advice using both OILMAP and CHEMMAP™ over 3 days.  CHEMMAP was used to model the potential release of the ammonium nitrate fertilizer from the sunken containers.  Marine experts have said the fertilizer, if it does leak from the containers in deep water before they are located by AMSA and Navy searchers, will do only minimal environmental damage such as causing small algal blooms.

ASA was also able to demonstrate the use of consensus modeling for the incident, where multiple datasets (NCOM and BLUELINK) were used and fed via ASA’s EDS: Environmental Data Server to run multiple simulations.  Brain King and Asia-Pacific ASA staff working on this has said that they could never have achieved the rapid and accurate results without the fully integrated OILMAP and EDS aggregate environmental data.

For more details on the Pacific Adventurer incident visit the Maritime Safety Queensland site: http://www.msq.qld.gov.au/Home/About_us/Msq_headlines/Questions_answers_pacific_adventurer

or

Queensland Environmental Protection Agency site:

http://www.epa.qld.gov.au/parks_and_forests/park_alerts/pacific_adventurer__oil_spill_incident_off_moreton_island/

A photo gallery of the major oil spill incident is at:

http://tools.goldcoast.com.au/photo-gallery/photo_gallery_popup.php?category_id=4385

 

ASA will soon release more information about the successful consensus modeling techniques applied in this incident.  Other inquiries contact ASA communications director Lee Dooley, ldooley@asascience.com.