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Oil in the Sea III: Inputs, Fates, and Effects (2003)
Ocean Studies Board (OSB)
 Marine Board (MB)
 Transportation Research Board (TRB)

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Oil in the Sea III: Inputs, Fates, and Effects

3
Input of Oil to the Sea

HIGHLIGHTS

This chapter points out that:

  • Chronic release from natural and anthropogenic sources (e.g., natural seeps and run-off from land-based sources) are responsible for the majority of petroleum hydrocarbon input to both North American waters and the world’s oceans.

  • The inputs from land-based sources are poorly understood, and therefore estimates of these inputs have a high degree of uncertainty.

  • Spillage from vessels in U.S. waters during the 1990s declined significantly as compared to the prior decade, and now represents less than 2 percent of the petroleum discharges into U.S. waters.

  • Operational discharges from vessels in general and tankers in particular have substantially declined over the last 25 years.

  • Only 1 percent of the oil discharges in North American waters is related to the extraction of petroleum.

  • Although large quantities of VOC (volatile organic compounds) are emitted from tankers and production platforms, these consist of mostly lighter compounds and only small amounts deposit to the sea surface.

  • Older two-stroke engines utilized in a significant number of recreational marine vessels have high operational discharges due to inherent design inefficiencies, and are responsible for about 2 percent of the petroleum hydrocarbons introduced into North American waters each year.

Petroleum hydrocarbons enter the marine environment from numerous sources. The 1985 National Research Council report Oil in the Sea: Inputs, Fates, and Effects (National Research Council, 1985) was a benchmark report and basically updated the original 1975 National Research Council report Petroleum in the Marine Environment. Inputs from maritime transportation activities were once again updated in 1990 in a study conducted by the U.S. Coast Guard in cooperation with the National Academy of Sciences (International Maritime Organization, 1990). Increased petroleum production and consumption by industry and the public in the past 15 years warrants an updated analysis of the quantity and varied inputs of petroleum hydrocarbons into the marine environment.

Significant differences in a variety of conditions exist between those in 1985 and the present. The major differences include:

Petroleum production. In 1970, the world oil production was 7.0 million tonnes per day and by 1985, it had increased to 8.5 million tonnes per day (www.eia.doe.gov, 2001). By the end of 2000 the production had increased to 11.0 million tonnes per day, an increase of about 30 percent over the 16 years. The average annual rate of growth in production has been approximately 1.6 percent and a rate of growth of 1.9 percent has been forecast for the first decade of the 21st century. In 1985, there were only a few thousand offshore oil and gas platforms and by 1999 there were about 8,300 fixed/ floating offshore platforms (DeLuca and LeBlanc, 1997). Worldwide offshore production has grown by 45 percent from 1985 to 1995, the latest year of record (API, 2001).

Volume of petroleum products transported. Since 1985, significantly higher volumes of petroleum hydrocarbons are being transported by various methods on the world’s oceans.

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