• Leningrad NPP
• Andreyeva Bay
• Renewable energy

• Reports
• Weblogs
• Jonathan Temple's blog
• Galina Raguzina's blog
• Eivind Hoff's blog
• Your 19th nervous break-down
• Vladimir Slivyak's blog
• From Russia with love?
• News archive
• News
• Articles
• Document archive
• Factsheets
• Position papers
• Casefiles

Navigation

• Chapter 1: Oil and gas resources on the Arctic Con
• 1.1. Russia’s oil and gas industry - a historical
• 1.2. Oil and gas raw material base on the Russia’s
• 1.3. Strategy for developing the oil and gas poten
• 1.4. Oil resources on Russia’s Euro-Arctic shelf
• 1.5. Gas resources on Russia’s Euro-Arctic shelf
• 1.6. Development of offshore oil and gas reserves
• 1.7. Subsoil regulation in Russia
• 1.8. Companies operating on the Arctic shelf
• Appendix I - I
• Appendix I - II
• Appendix I – III
• Appendix I – IV
• Appendix I - V
• Appendix I - VI
• Appendix I - VII
• Chapter 2: Transporting oil and gas in Northwest R
• 2.1. State regulations and strategies
• 2.2. Existing transport systems in Northwest Russi
• 2.3 Navigation
• 2.4. Future plans for oil and gas transport in Nor
• Chapter 3. Environmental risks when extracting an
• 3.1. Environmental risk when carrying out geologic
• 3.2. Environmental risks when exploiting oil and g
• 3.3. The Environmental risk when transporting oil
• 3.4. The state of the environment in the Pechora,
• Appendix III - I
• Appendix III - II
• Chapter 4. Oil and gas accidents – prevention and
• 4.1. Accidents and incidents: causes and consequen
• 4.2. Oil spill classification and responsibilities
• 4.3. Drafting plans for eliminating accidental oil
• 4.4. Eliminating spills
• 4.5 The Barents Sea’s Emergency Rescue Organizatio
• 4.6. Assessing damage and fines
• 4.7. The role of public organisations
• Appendix IV - I
• Appendix IV - II
• Appendix IV - III
• Chapter 5. Environmental impact of oil and gas ac
• 5.1. The Barents Sea
• 5.2. Environmental impact of oil and petroleum pro
• 5.3. The key areas for preserving bioresources in
• Appendix V - I
• Appendix V - II
• Appendix V - III
• Conclusion
• Appendix VI. The future of the northern regions

Chapter 4. Oil and gas accidents – prevention and liquidation.

In this chapter we take a theoretical approach towards accidents and incidents. This reason is twofold: In Soviet times, statistics were often used as political tools, and this makes it difficult to make a completely reliable analysis. To a certain extent, this legacy still applies to Russia today. We are therefore careful not to use too many official statistics. Secondly, there is still little offshore activity in Arctic waters, thus limiting the amount of empiric data available. Nonetheless, in this chapter we examine some accidents which occurred in the Arctic, such as the Usinsk oil spill in 1994. This chapter also describes the emergency rescue routines in Murmansk oblast, together with regulations for emergency preparedness and response for the oil and gas sector.

All the information presented in this chapter is accompanied by reference data, opinions from specialists, legal notes and illustrations. Several situations are examined using Murmansk oblast as an example.