Environmental Impact

Environmental Impact:

under construction: Phil Poetter

Description:

For many environmetal focused NGOs, such as WWF, Greenpeace etc. the immediate or long-term environmental impact is a highly controversal topic, addressing same to O&G operating companies, governments and the public.

Often, the cause and effect relationship is not obvious - especially when it comes to long-term effects.

The environmental impact as a result of oil production can be rooted in different activities.

- during seismic exploration: impact on surrounding animal life

- during drilling phase: oil spills small or big (blow out), flaring of oil based fluid from drilling, noise, building of industry heavy infrastructure (incl. roads, villages etc.)

- during production: oil spills (leaking pipelines), releasing fumes, subsidence (lowering of the ground due to compaction) pot. leading to mass slides on continental shelfes

- during mining phase (oil sands): open mine pits (implying clearing of previous soil cover, e.g. forests)

- during refining: air pollution and waste water http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_refinery#Safety_and_environmental_concerns , extensive use of chemicals

- during transportation: tanker or pipeline spill

All of these are of utmost concern in the discussion of whether or not to extend exploration/production rights e.g. into ecologically sensitive areas such as the Arctic.

Enablers:

xxxx

Inhibitors:

- NGOs with an environmental agenda

- Governments (passing environmental acts) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Pollution_Act_of_1990

Paradigms:

xxxx

Experts:

- General facts & quantities of oil spills http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/OCEAN_PLANET/HTML/peril_oil_pollution.html

- WWF http://www.panda.org/what_we_do/where_we_work/arctic/what_we_do/oil_gas/

- Greenpeace http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/campaigns/greatbear/threats/offshore-oil-and-gas-developme

Timing:

Various incidents of Oil Spills

- Amoco Cadiz Tanker Spill (1978) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amoco_Cadiz

- Exxon Valdez Tanker Spill (1989): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez

- various others: http://library.thinkquest.org/CR0215471/oil_spills.htm