The primary questions emergency teams should pose when assessing oil spill scenarios are: buy AZD0530 (1) who will suffer the impact if an oil spill reaches

the shore? (2) will the oil spill, when reaching the shore, impact on areas of significant demographic pressure (e.g., major cities), environmental importance, or both?, and (3) if so, what can be done to mitigate (i.e., reduce) the impact on shoreline ecosystems and populations? A key factor when addressing Question 1 is oil spill distance to the shoreline (Fig. 9). Previous accidents such as the MV Prestige oil spill in 2002 showed that towing operations can be hindered by poor weather conditions, particularly when of remote oil spills that occur far from the shoreline ( Balseiro et al., 2003). In the case of the MV Prestige, the option taken in November 2002 was to tow the tanker to a distant offshore area where prevailing currents

would keep the spill away from the shoreline, allowing for the natural degradation of oil in the Atlantic Ocean ( Wirtz and Liu, 2006). The option was taken due to the precarious state of the tanker, which showed substantial hull damage and was in the imminence of sinking. Otherwise, ships should be towed to shoreline areas in which the spill can be contained and oil can be pumped out of containers by mechanical means, if the volume of oil is not overwhelmingly large. National and international environmental laws may apply to specific cases, such as in the USA with the oil pollution Act of selleck chemical 1990 ( United States Congress, 1990), but a good example of this latter procedure is the oil spill of 1999 in the Sydney Bay, Australia ( MacFarlane and Burchett, 2003). The readily availability of equipment

in this harbour allowed the Laura D’Amato tanker to remain inside the Shell oil terminal in Gore Cove, with the oil spill being confined to a small area ( Sydney Morning Herald, 1999 and MacFarlane and Burchett, 2003). Crude Erastin research buy oil spilt totalled some 296,000 l during unloading at the terminal of the Shell Co of Australia, but this volume was contained within a small portion of Sydney Bay. Question 2 depends mainly on the volume and type(s) of oil released to the water and, secondarily, on the volumes reaching the shoreline when of an oil spill (Fig. 9). In this case, two classes of oil spills can be defined: (a) oil spills derived from maritime accidents and (b) oil spills derived from production platforms. The main properties which affect the fate of spilled oil at sea are specific gravity, or its density relative to pure water (often expressed as API* or API gravity); the distillation characteristics of oil slicks (volatility); the viscosity of oil, and the pour point (i.e., the temperature below which the oil slick will not flow). In addition, high wax and asphaltene contents will influence the likelihood of oil mixing with water to form a water-in-oil emulsion (ITOPF, 2013). Oils forming stable oil-in-water emulsions persist longer at the water surface.