Oil Spill Combat Strategy & Lesson Learnt of Balikpapan Spill

Indonesia is a largest archipelagic nation in world, Indonesia encompasses 17,508 islands, five main islands, two major archipelagos, and about 60 smaller archipelagos. 21,579 kilometres of navigable rivers, canals, and inland waterways. Extensive interisland and coastal maritime routes. Total 379 ports and harbors: deep-sea ports at Tanjung Priok (Jakarta), Tanjung Perak (Surabaya, Jawa Timur Province), Belawan (Medan, Sumatera Utara Province), and Makassar (Sulawesi Selatan Province); other major ports at Cilacap, Cirebon and Semarang (all on Java), Dumai (Riau), Balikpapan (Kalimantan Timur), Kupang (Nusa Tenggara Timur Province), and Palembang (Sumatera Selatan Province); 127 ports capable of handling international shipping. In 2010 Indonesia had pipelines as follows: 12 kilometres oil/gas/water, 44 kilometre water, 73 kilometres condensate/gas. 812 kilometres condensate, 1,370 kilometres refined products, 5,984 kilometres oil, and 7,165 kilometres gas (Frederick and Worden, 2011). The impacted area of oil spill accidents is also the main concern especially many tourism and World Heritage sites in Indonesia that is extremely sensitive and need to be protected from any oil spill pollution that can harm the environment and wildlife. Because of the risks of oil spill threatening the Indonesia natural environment, the government has established national resources under the Directorate General of Sea Transportation, Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business (SKK MIGAS)¹, Pertamina², Private Companies along with private oil spill response organization such as OSCT (Oil Spill Combat Team) Indonesia³.

According to Presidential Regulation No. 109/2006 regarding Prevention of Oil Spill in the Sea, tiered response concept in Indonesia are divided into 3 (three) categories. Tier 1 is category of prevention of oil spill that occurs inside or outside port, or oil and gas operating unit, or other activity units that can be handled by means, facilities, and personnel available in the port or oil and gas operating unit, or other activity units. Tier 2 category of prevention of oil spill that occurs inside or outside port, or oil and gas operating unit, or other activity units that cannot be handled by means, facilities, and personnel available in port or oil and gas operating unit, or other activity units based on Tier 1. Tier 3 is category of prevention of oil spill that occurs inside or outside port or oil and gas operating unit, or other activity unit that cannot be handled by means, facilities, and personnel available in a territory based on Tier 1, or that spreads outside Indonesian territory (Presidential Regulation No. 109, 2006).

Balikpapan Bay⁴ has many activities, for instance port, terminal, oil and gas company, subsea pipeline, refinery and Single Buoy Mooring. Shoreline of Balikpapan bay consist of several sensitive areas such as settlement, mangrove, industry, fisherman area, tourism. Oil spill accident in Balikpapan Bay has become one of major environmental accident in Indonesian Oil and Gas Industry. The accident spread widely, affecting economy, social, environment, law, company reputation, safety and refinery operation. On the other hand, the accident also involved many parties, internally and externally for example, ship owner and port operator, government and stakeholder.

On Saturday, March 31^st 2018 at around 02.00 AM, spill accident occurred due to pipeline ruptures by MC Ever Judger Vessel anchor. Pipeline diameter is 20 inch and the depth of subsea pipeline is 20 m. The pipeline was displaced up to 100 meters from its location. Estimated spill volumes is 40.000 bbls and widely spread to over 12.987 hectare of Balikpapan Bay waters and impacting to 60 km of shoreline. At 11.05 AM, fire accident occurred for an hour and completely extinguished an hour later by fire-fighting vessel from nearby accident location. As the Government of Indonesia prohibit in-situ burning operation, the burnt spilled oil allegedly caused by fisherman activities and causing five casualties.

At the same day, OSCT received an oil spill accident notification from refinery company operated in Balikpapan. To determined effective and efficient oil spill combat operation, OSCT acquired radar detection due to the size of oil spreading area and immediately support oil spill combat operation by sending necessary equipment and teams of responder from our West Java Headquarters and West Java Base. The acquired radar detection result then verified by conducting aerial surveillance using helicopter. According to aerial surveillance result, shoreline impacted within 24 hours and widely spread to outside of Balikpapan Bay in 7 days impacting more sensitive areas and towards Makassar Strait.

OSCT Indonesia's field specialist conduct shoreline assessment on Monday, April 2^nd 2018 and recommend oil spill response clean-up operation and shoreline protection along impacted areas. Started on this day, wildlife impact from the oil spill accident started to be seen, such as birds, fish and other marine biota. During the assessment, one carcass of oiled Irrawaddy Dolphin was found at Klandasen Beach and it is one of critically endangered species (Protected on IUCN Red List⁵). In the other place, OSCT also send our team to attend coordination meeting for the oil spill accident held by Balikpapan Port Authority/Coastguard attended by all stakeholders in the area to coordinate unified oil spill response strategy and reporting.

In Indonesia, if the case of an oil spill incident escalate to tier-2, SKK MIGAS has divided oil and gas operations in Indonesia into 11 (eleven) main areas with mutual agreement in each area to release in average 25% of their tier-1 resources to assist tier-2 incident. Balikpapan as part of Kalimantan and there are over 10 companies in the area. Even though tier-2 resources in the bay was activate, most companies were protecting their own ports, hence additional resources from outside the bay (regional resources) and from national OSRO (Oil Spill Response Organization) is also required to respond to major oil spills coordinated by National Coastguard. Learned from many past accidents, each tier level in Indonesia have sources of oil spill response equipment to mitigate the impact of oil spill accident. Tier-1 is the key of rapid response, supported by tier-2 for larger spill.

In terms of response strategy, it should be self-evident that the best approach is to contain and collect the oil while it is in thick mats, before storms can break these up into tar balls (O'Brien, 2002). As mentioned before, OSCT conduct assessment and surveillance immediately after the oil spill incident notification received. In Balikpapan Bay spill, the containment and recovery strategy that is used by OSCT was directing the spilled oil from the bay to collection point and then localized immediately using oil boom and use oil skimmer to recover spilled oil before stored in the temporary storage and lastly transferred into vacuum truck. The spilled oil that spreading in offshore area with depths more than 20 meters, dispersant spraying methodology was used along with fluorimeter monitoring system.

OSCT conduct continuous containment and recovery operation for less than 2 weeks, non-stop 24/7. Supported by over 1000 personnel from companies in the region and local government and 60 OSCT responders. For easier coordination and faster clean-up, impacted areas divided into 3–4 locations. Each area is cleaned within 2–3 days simultaneously with extensive resources covering over 60 km shorelines and 12.987 hectares of impacted area. On the other hand, radar detection result and surveillance report are very useful to ensure no further impact to sensitive areas. Furthermore, radar satellite detection was using four different satellites producing daily detection reports that determined the location of vessel and drone for aerial surveillance to be deployed.

The effectiveness of dispersant usage on the permitted area has to be monitored using fluorimeter to ensure the dispersant is worked effectively and not causing any damage to the environment. Fluorimeter deployed within 0–20 meters depth, and live results were record and witnessed by independent surveyor. The other method that is used to ensure that the sea is not contaminated by spilled oil is by taking water sample from various areas according to radar satellite result. Water sampling must be taken by independent surveyor or government-approved laboratory.

Based on the experiences responding to major oil spill accidents, many lessons that can be taken from the unfortunate accidents and also become one of capability review for the company itself and for national Oil Spill Response Organization. First, coordination and planning. Major oil spill accident involving various stakeholder coordination from private sector and government authorities. It is important to apply unified command system for easier coordination. Second, oil spill detection, surveillance and monitoring. Oil spill monitoring is difficult to be conducted by vessel and will be less efficient by using helicopter. UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) can become an instrument to monitor wide area of waters and can be used 24/7 continuously. Third, tier-2 response capability review. As it was explained before, oil spill response containment and recovery in Balikpapan Bay was conducted rapidly for 2 weeks. Due to different risk across Indonesia, tier-2 capability requirement varies depending on risk assessment and contingency planning. Lastly, tier-2 spill wildlife response and mitigation. Wildlife response plan was difficult to be developed due to diverse wildlife impact and lack of trained experts. Therefore, it is important to evaluate pre-determined wildlife response kits that can be deployed with experts and supporting personnel.