Oil Tanker Sludges and Slops
Despite international agreements, economic interests, and increasing environmental protection awareness, oil transportation in the third millennium is a dangerous business causing many cases of pollution. It is a paradigm for the negative effects of globa
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K. N. Timmis (ed.), Handbook of Hydrocarbon and Lipid Microbiology, DOI 10.1007/978-3-540-77587-4_17, # Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg, 2010
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Oil Tanker Sludges and Slops
Abstract: Despite international agreements, economic interests, and increasing environmental protection awareness, oil transportation in the third millennium is a dangerous business causing many cases of pollution. It is a paradigm for the negative effects of globalization, as has been proven by a product tanker in 2006. Following an odyssey, which took her from Europe to Africa, a gasoline tanker entered the port of Abidjian, Ivory Coast on 19 August 2006. Her presence and activities in the port of Abidjian claimed 16 lives and caused more than 40,000 cases of poisoning.
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Introduction
The voyage of the Panama-registered tanker vessel began from Gibraltar on 26 June 2006. While visiting the port of Amsterdam 1 week later, the tanker was chartered by a Dutch trading company, which attempted to process waste and tanker slops by the port reception facilities. During the inspection of the tanker slops, an immense smell was reported by the waste disposal company’s staff. As a result, the port-based company refused to dispose the waste (Bernard et al., 2006; Franoz and Gesret, 2008). An analysis of the tanker slops in the aftermath of the Abidjan catastrophe showed that the gasoline tanker indeed was used as a ‘‘swimming refinery’’ (Persson, 2006). On her last voyage prior to the visit in Amsterdam, the vessel was transporting naphtha, a gasoline precursor containing significant amounts of mercaptans – sulfur-containing hydrocarbons. As these sulfur-containing hydrocarbons should be removed to meet the specifications for gasoline in certain European countries, a chemical process called ‘‘Merox’’ was conducted. By adding specific catalysts, water, and sodium hydroxide to the gasoline, mercaptans are oxidized to disulfides. The products of Merox are upgraded gasoline and sludge containing sulfuric components (Wikipedia, 2006). In the case of the tanker vessel, this chemical process failed due to the addition of too much sodium hydroxide and resulted in a highly toxic sludge containing mercaptans and hydrogen sulfide (> Fig. 1). After failing to dispose this toxic waste, the charterer attempted to arrange the disposal of the toxic slops using a Dutch waste disposal company, which quoted 500,000€ for this service (Bernard et al., 2006; Persson, 2006). Unwilling to pay this fee, the gasoline tank was ordered to continue its voyage to the Estonian port of Paldiski, where it was bunkering gasoline bound for Lagos, Nigeria. The gasoline was loaded on top of the toxic sludge. After unloading the gasoline in Lagos, the charterer attempted once again to dispose the toxic waste, but decided to keep the slops in the ship because the Nigerian company seemed to intend to refine it and sell it as fuel. As a result, the tanker vessel was called to the port of Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Although Abidjan was a modern port with
. Figure 1 Chemical reactions o
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