Haroon Khan

Satyaki Roy

Dr. Priya C. Sande

Oil spills have become a common and widespread occurrence, ever since oil became the most essential fuel worldwide. Analysts for the Oil Spill Intelligence Report have reported that spills have occurred in the waters of 112 nations since 1960. Here are some of the top areas of oil spills:

Despite this, whenever oil spills have occurred, we have struggled to handle such catastrophes. There has been no structured approach to it; in most cases whatever available technology had been present during the incident had been used without a thorough analysis of the situation. For example, in the case of the oil spill in Gulf of Mexico a lot of methods were used to deal with the crisis. Some methods were dispersion techniques and use of skimmers. But skimmers are more effective in removing oil as a layer whereas dispersion techniques break oil layers into droplets. Also, no sampling of the crude was done. This is a common problem. In 2017, when an oil spill occurred on the coast of Tamil Nadu, attempts were made to clean it manually, and using super suckers and submersible pumps. Those responsible, were criticized for their failure to efficiently handle the spill. These days, a lot of methods are being developed to maximize the recovery of oil. Some are entirely new methods while others are improvements to existing methods. However, no technique is effective for all situations. Different methods may be suitable in different scenarios. So, the objective is to identify the best method to use in a particular situation.