The 9 biggest oil spills in Thai history

[webfact]

The 9 biggest oil spills in Thai history
By Coconuts Bangkok



BANGKOK: -- The Koh Samet oil spill disaster may seem huge today, but it is only the third biggest oil spill ever recorded in Thai waters, according to the Thai Marine Knowledge Hub (MKH).

The government's Marine Department defines a major oil spill as a disaster that releases over 20,000 liters of oil into the sea. The current spill, caused by an offshore PTT Global Chemical Plc (PTTGC) pipeline leak, is believed to have poured more than 50 tons or 50,000 liters of crude oil into the Gulf of Thailand.

Below are details from the country's nine other biggest spills:

9. December 9, 2007
Around 20,000 liters of crude and fuel oil covered the Songkhla sea, six miles from mainland, after a Worldwide Transport Co vessel overturned.

8. November 20, 2005
A pipeline disjointed from a Thai Oil Pcl vessel while transferring crude oil at a port in Chonburi’s Si Racha district. More than 20,000 liters of oil was leaked out.

7. May 4, 2006
More than 20,000 liters of fuel oil leaked out of the CP34 oil vessel at a port of Alliance Refining Co in Rayong’s Maptaphut district.

6. May 22, 2001
More than 30,000 liters of crude oil gushed out to the Rayong sea after a 16-inch brakeaway coupling of a pipeline near Maptaphut Port disconnected from the Tokachi vessel. The company responsible for the incident was Alliance Refining Co. [read more...]

Full story: http://bangkok.coconuts.co/2013/08/02/9-biggest-oil-spills-thai-history

-- Coconuts Bangkok 2013-08-02

[nong38]

Oh! I say its not the first time then? Not learnt much from the mistakes then, nothing changes.

[jaidam]

There were many huge oil spills during the 2nd WW when Japanese maru's painted with Thai names after Thailand rolled over on its back like a ribboned poodle at the first sniff of danger had the 7 bells bombed out of them by the mighty allied forces. Some of these hulks are still spilling oil to this day more than 60 years later.

Edited August 2, 2013 by jaidam

[GrantSmith]

Well... If anything... It gives Yingluck a reason to give her Big O a call without Michelle getting all jealous

[johnlandy]

Oh! I say its not the first time then? Not learnt much from the mistakes then, nothing changes.

So what does that tell you? Yes, they are very slow learners.....

[rbrooks]

Knowing Thailand credibility I am quite sure they have been many more unreported.

[Soutpeel]

Oh! I say its not the first time then? Not learnt much from the mistakes then, nothing changes.

So what does that tell you? Yes, they are very slow learners.....

So very slow leaners along with the US and various other places then ?...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_spills

[Robby nz]

There are places in every country where oil spills could reasonably be expected and all the spills mentioned seem to be in these danger spots.

That being the case there should be response plans in place at all of these places with immediate first response gear on hand along with people trained to use it.

There should also be a central storage place with bulk gear ready to be quickly moved to the scene of any major spill.

In the case of a big spill the trained personel from several places can also be quickly be moved to the scene where they should set up a chain of command.

If oil reaches shore there needs to be a lot of labor involved such as army and locals and they obviously need direction as to what to do and where to do it.

All these things should be the responsibility of the companies involved in the oil business and not the Govt.

The Govt should now be making sure all the companies that have at risk places set up these sort of plans.

But heck that costs money and it is just possible there could be conflict of interest somewhere along the line.

[Soutpeel]

There are places in every country where oil spills could reasonably be expected and all the spills mentioned seem to be in these danger spots.

That being the case there should be response plans in place at all of these places with immediate first response gear on hand along with people trained to use it.

There should also be a central storage place with bulk gear ready to be quickly moved to the scene of any major spill.

In the case of a big spill the trained personel from several places can also be quickly be moved to the scene where they should set up a chain of command.

If oil reaches shore there needs to be a lot of labor involved such as army and locals and they obviously need direction as to what to do and where to do it.

All these things should be the responsibility of the companies involved in the oil business and not the Govt.

The Govt should now be making sure all the companies that have at risk places set up these sort of plans.

But heck that costs money and it is just possible there could be conflict of interest somewhere along the line.

There should also be a central storage place with bulk gear ready to be quickly moved to the scene of any major spill......There is...its a regional hub and its in Singapore, hence the reason PTT contacted Singapore as part of their ERP.

As to your other words of wisdom, how do you know none of this is already in place ?

It seems to me based on what I have read over the last few days, PTT et al, have responded pretty quickly and appropriately to this spill, heve there been some PR cock ups ? yes...but over all the reseponse seems to have been managed pretty efficently

[Robby nz]

Robby nz, on 02 Aug 2013 - 18:15, said:

There are places in every country where oil spills could reasonably be expected and all the spills mentioned seem to be in these danger spots.

That being the case there should be response plans in place at all of these places with immediate first response gear on hand along with people trained to use it.

There should also be a central storage place with bulk gear ready to be quickly moved to the scene of any major spill.

In the case of a big spill the trained personel from several places can also be quickly be moved to the scene where they should set up a chain of command.

If oil reaches shore there needs to be a lot of labor involved such as army and locals and they obviously need direction as to what to do and where to do it.

All these things should be the responsibility of the companies involved in the oil business and not the Govt.

The Govt should now be making sure all the companies that have at risk places set up these sort of plans.

But heck that costs money and it is just possible there could be conflict of interest somewhere along the line.

There should also be a central storage place with bulk gear ready to be quickly moved to the scene of any major spill......There is...its a regional hub and its in Singapore, hence the reason PTT contacted Singapore as part of their ERP.

As to your other words of wisdom, how do you know none of this is already in place ?

It seems to me based on what I have read over the last few days, PTT et al, have responded pretty quickly and appropriately to this spill, heve there been some PR cock ups ? yes...but over all the reseponse seems to have been managed pretty efficiently

Could it possibly be that Singapore was contacted too late as the company said they only had 200m of boom on hand which was not enough to contain the spill?

I don't know that plans are not in place but you may note that I wrote "making sure"

Whether it was managed pretty efficiently or not could well be a matter of opinion, some would say it should never have got to land.

[Soutpeel]

Robby nz, on 02 Aug 2013 - 18:15, said:

There are places in every country where oil spills could reasonably be expected and all the spills mentioned seem to be in these danger spots.

That being the case there should be response plans in place at all of these places with immediate first response gear on hand along with people trained to use it.

There should also be a central storage place with bulk gear ready to be quickly moved to the scene of any major spill.

In the case of a big spill the trained personel from several places can also be quickly be moved to the scene where they should set up a chain of command.

If oil reaches shore there needs to be a lot of labor involved such as army and locals and they obviously need direction as to what to do and where to do it.

All these things should be the responsibility of the companies involved in the oil business and not the Govt.

The Govt should now be making sure all the companies that have at risk places set up these sort of plans.

But heck that costs money and it is just possible there could be conflict of interest somewhere along the line.

There should also be a central storage place with bulk gear ready to be quickly moved to the scene of any major spill......There is...its a regional hub and its in Singapore, hence the reason PTT contacted Singapore as part of their ERP.

As to your other words of wisdom, how do you know none of this is already in place ?

It seems to me based on what I have read over the last few days, PTT et al, have responded pretty quickly and appropriately to this spill, heve there been some PR cock ups ? yes...but over all the reseponse seems to have been managed pretty efficiently

Could it possibly be that Singapore was contacted too late as the company said they only had 200m of boom on hand which was not enough to contain the spill?

I don't know that plans are not in place but you may note that I wrote "making sure"

Whether it was managed pretty efficiently or not could well be a matter of opinion, some would say it should never have got to land.

Once it had been flagged as a tier 2 incident Singapore would have been put on standby immediately and would have been issued 6 hourly reports and all required logistics/materials lined up to move...so to answer your question most likely not.

As to matter of opinion, in all emergency response situations, there are things which could have been done better and all one can do is learn from them and improve the process...you have to realise an Emergency Response Plan is exactly that ...its a plan

[impulse]

You're right Robby NZ, it should have never gotten to land. But the problem with practicing for a disaster like an oil spill is that nobody really wants to dump 1000 barrels of oil on the sea for a live drill.

So we're limited to practicing with all the equipment and no way of knowing what the combination of winds, tides, current and other factors will be the day the unthinkable happens.

Then, the folks in the war rooms count on the folks on the boats to give them an accurate assessment of the situation, a bad formula in a culture where messengers often get shot (metaphorically).

They're behind the 8 ball on this one. Everyone except the politicians seem to know that. Let's give them some time to get their act together and see how they do. Then it will be interesting how this spill affects drills and preparations going forward.

One thing I noticed on this "Worst 9 Spills in Thailand" thread is that none of them were related to PRODUCING oil in Thai waters. They were all related to SHIPPING oil around Thailand. The current spill was from a tanker of imported oil being offloaded to one of the refineries. Unless you want to shut down all the vehicles in Thailand, there's no way to avoid shipping oil around Thailand and offloading it to refineries. Unless you want to import refined fuel, and that presents even worse downside in the event of a spill.

Edited August 2, 2013 by impulse

[masuk]

The BKK Post reported that a statement from the company responsible for spilling the oil said it was equivalent to one and a half road tankers of oil.

Now pull the other leg!

[Thai at Heart]

Robby nz, on 02 Aug 2013 - 18:15, said:

There are places in every country where oil spills could reasonably be expected and all the spills mentioned seem to be in these danger spots.

That being the case there should be response plans in place at all of these places with immediate first response gear on hand along with people trained to use it.

There should also be a central storage place with bulk gear ready to be quickly moved to the scene of any major spill.

In the case of a big spill the trained personel from several places can also be quickly be moved to the scene where they should set up a chain of command.

If oil reaches shore there needs to be a lot of labor involved such as army and locals and they obviously need direction as to what to do and where to do it.

All these things should be the responsibility of the companies involved in the oil business and not the Govt.

The Govt should now be making sure all the companies that have at risk places set up these sort of plans.

But heck that costs money and it is just possible there could be conflict of interest somewhere along the line.

There should also be a central storage place with bulk gear ready to be quickly moved to the scene of any major spill......There is...its a regional hub and its in Singapore, hence the reason PTT contacted Singapore as part of their ERP.

As to your other words of wisdom, how do you know none of this is already in place ?

It seems to me based on what I have read over the last few days, PTT et al, have responded pretty quickly and appropriately to this spill, heve there been some PR cock ups ? yes...but over all the reseponse seems to have been managed pretty efficiently

Could it possibly be that Singapore was contacted too late as the company said they only had 200m of boom on hand which was not enough to contain the spill?

I don't know that plans are not in place but you may note that I wrote "making sure"

Whether it was managed pretty efficiently or not could well be a matter of opinion, some would say it should never have got to land.

In another article, the main pumping area was boomed with a boom of 1500 m.

[paulward75]

Now that there is nothing to bitch about the oil spill in Samet they start to dig old news to get there kicks or fix! Sad really! Top ten slicks! Sorry top 9 - you couldn't even manage 10. Try reporting the news you sad people!

[paulward75]

Thank god this was caused by a PLC, it's in their best interest to tidy up. If a government was in charge then we'd be waiting for months before they even decide to start!