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Oil Spills on the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Seas and the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits
Figure 3: Major Tanker Spills (>700 tonnes) Since 1990
in summer.
22–24
The region is subject to frequent outbreaks of cold
and dry air masses from Anatolia in the north.
Tanker Traffic and Accidents
During the 1990s, the Caspian Sea, Black Sea and Central Eurasia
region emerged as one of the most important new sources of world
oil supply, leading to high oil traffic in the area. The oil traffic in the
area is expected to increase due to these emerging sources of
petroleum, as well as increased local production in the region.
Pipelines currently online from Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and
Azerbaijan supply crude oil to terminals on the Russian, Ukrainian
and Georgian Black Sea coasts.
The International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation
Association (IPIECA) publication ‘Oil Spill Preparedness Regional
Source: Martini and Patruno, 2005.
26
Initiative’ indicates an increasing trend of oil transport in the region.
Kazakstan’s oil production is expected to more than double by 2010.
Figure 4: Tanker Traffic Trends in the Bosphorus (A) and
Russia’s oil production is estimated to grow by almost 50%.
Number of Accidents in the Bosphorus (B)
Azarbaijan’s production is predicted to increase by five-fold. The
A
overall amount of crude oil and products handled and shipped from
10,000
different facilities is expected to double by 2010.
25
About 155
ers 8,000
million metric tonnes of crude oil will be transported through the
6,000
TSS in 2010, compared with 119 million metric tonnes in 2002. The
4,000
2,000
port of Ceyhan, located on the Turkish Mediterranean coast, is
Number of tank
0 another route for transferring Caspian oil through the pipeline from
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Baku. This pipeline was completed in July 2006 and is currently
B
20
operating at 1 million barrels per day, one-tenth of its final expected
15
capacity. Therefore, the expected increase of its operational capacity
10
implies a considerable increase of tanker traffic in the Eastern
5
Mediterranean Sea.
Number of accidents
0
1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
Understanding the history of oil spills from tankers aids in the search
Year
for an appropriate solution to the oil spill problem. The oil spill data
retrieved from the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation
Sources: A: Ece NJ, The Accident Analysis of the Strait of Istanbul from the Points of Safety Navigation and
Environment and Evaluation of Innocent Passage, PhD thesis, Gazi University, Ankara, 2005; B: Korcak M,
(ITOPF) and the Regional Marine Pollution Emergency Response
Experiences of Oil Spill Accidents and New Legislation Studies in Turkey, Satellite Monitoring and Assessment
of Sea-based Oil Pollution in the Black Sea, Istanbul, Turkey, 13–15 June 2005.
Centre for the Mediterranean Sea (REMPEC) databases indicate that
approximately 80,000 tones of oil were spilled in the Mediterranean
wind events with typical speeds of 8–25ms
-1
and durations of about Sea between 1990 and 2005
26
at the locations shown in Figure 3.
16 hours occur in winter, especially near the Bosphorus junction.
18
Three major accidents that took place in the Bosphorus account for
45% of the total quantity spilled in the Mediterranean Sea during
Eastern Mediterranean Sea this period.
Turkey has a long coastline along the northern periphery of the Eastern
Mediterranean Sea, which is a temperate semi-enclosed basin lying to
the east of 26ºE longitude. It comprises two major sub-basins: the
Understanding the history
Aegean and Levantine Seas. Its most important thermohaline
of oil spills from tankers
characteristic is the Levantine intermediate water (LIW) formed by
aids in the search for an
convective mixing of surface waters up to depths of 300–500m due to
winter cooling and excessive evaporation. Surface water temperatures appropriate solution to the
reach 30ºC and salinity reaches 39ppt due to strong solar radiation and
oil spill problem.
high evaporation. Multiple scales of interaction define the general
circulation of the Eastern Mediterranean. The Levantine Basin circulation
consists of sub-basin-scale gyres driven by wind and thermohaline The records suggest a high risk of oil spills in the Bosphorus Straits,
forcing, jets feeding the gyres and a number of embedded coherent which is clearly supported by the increasing number of tanker
eddies.
19,20
The cyclonic Rhodes gyre was recognised as one of the most accidents in parallel with increasing tanker traffic (see Figure 4). The
dominant circulation features between Crete and Cyprus.
21
most drastic tanker accidents were the Independenta (1979),
the Fahire Guneri (1984), the Jambur (1990), the Nassia (1994)
Climatologically, wind fields in the Eastern Mediterranean are and the Volgoneft-248 (1999). Vessel traffic in the 30km-long
dominated by westerlies in winter and north-westerly etesian winds Bosphorus Straits has grown to about 50,000 vessels per year, with
122
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