Transneft Far East says it held an emergency response drill (ERD) in the Jewish Autonomous Region, at location of the UW crossing of the Eastern Siberia – Pacific Ocean oil trunk pipeline over the Tunguska River.
Under the drill scenario, a simulated damage of the oil pipeline running on the river bottom resulted in its “leakage,” and oil got to the water surface. The mission of the units was to contain and eliminate the simulated spill. The event was aggravated by severe weather and hydrology factors.
The drill was complicated by strong wind (some 14 m/s) and low water that made shoals, islands, spits, and trunks of sunken trees occur in the channel, and by a drastic difference in flow velocity in various river sections, said Evgeny Polyakov, Head of the Water Transport Operation Section of Transneft Far East. In implementing the drill scenario, the employees had to account for the cargo and passenger steamboats timetable.
Employees of production facilities from Dalnerechensk Regional Oil Pipeline Directorate (RPD) practiced coordinated actions between units of the enterprise in charge of safe oil pipeline operation, and quick response skills in a potential emergency.
Having received an emergency signal from the dispatcher, a patrol crew immediately moved out to the potential emergency location to find out the simulated oil spill. After a training emergency mode was introduced, the data on the “incident” was sent to the Main Office of the EMERCOM of Russia in Khabarovsk Region, the relevant state supervisory and law enforcement authorities, local healthcare institutions, FBI Amurvodput: Tunguska is a navigable river, and installation of booms for oil “collection” must be time-matched with the timetable of the passenger and cargo steamboats. That very circumstance was an additional restriction for the ERD timing.
The simulated emergency response programme envisaged several phases, including: inspection of the oil pipeline section where a conventional pressure loss was detected; services team arrival at the site; deploying the booms on the water surface. The work on installing the temporary oil storage tanks was led ashore. They were used for simulated pouring of “oil collected from the water surface” that was subsequently “delivered” by dedicated road vehicles to PS No. 34 with a production wastewater treatment system.
The emergency response drill engaged staff members of oil pump station (PS) No. 34, Khabarovsk Central Maintenance Division (CMD), a non-regular emergency rescue team, employees of the environmental analysis laboratory, and other units of Dalnerechensk RPD, plus tactical response teams of Transneft Security.
All events in the drill were performed within the prescribed time. Georgy Koryakin, Head of PS No. 34 who led the drill, emphasised the teamwork and high level of staff training. The emergency response drill brought together 46 persons, and some 20 vehicles, including watercraft.