—SAFEGUARDING AUSTRALIA’S COASTLINE—EMERGENCY OIL SPILLRESPONSE EQUIPMENT
TRANSPORTATIOND J Blackmore
Manager

Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre Pty Ltd
PO Box 305
North Shore
Victoria 3214

Tel:Fax:
Email:
Internet:+61 3 5272 1555
+61 3 5272 1839
amosc@amosc.com.au
www.aip.com.au/amosc

EMERGENCY OIL SPILL RESPONSE EQUIPMENT TRANSPORTATIOND J Blackmore
Manager
Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre Pty Ltd
This address covers those issues which are required to be in place in order for thetransportation phase of a response to fully contribute to the overall success of cleaning up theoil. Once oil has been spilt it spreads quickly and weathers. Therefore a most importantsuccess factor is the speed in moving resources to where they are needed.
In order to be able to respond to minor spills, ports and terminals have relatively small
amounts of readily accessible equipment on-site or even pre-deployed in the water as well as
trained staff available to rapidly deploy this equipment. However for larger spills, large
amounts of equipment permanently stored in each port cannot be justified and equipment isthen stored in a central location to be transported to wherever it is needed. There are anumber of very important steps in this transport and each must occur successfully in order forthe equipment to reach the spill and serve its purpose.
This address draws on the experience of four of the oil industry international Tier 3 responsecentres, that is Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL) in the UK, East Asia Response Pte Ltd(EARL) in Singapore, Clean Caribbean Corporation (CCC) based in Florida and theAustralian Marine Oil Spill Centre (AMOSC) in Australia. These centres are required tomove their equipment at short notice to a number of countries and in some cases world-wide.
The steps referred to above form the links of a supply chain; each link of which must be inplace for the chain to work.
These links are typically:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.

Call out and mobilisation of personnel;
Sourcing of trucks and aircraft;
Loading of trucks;
Transport of equipment to airport or spill site by truck;Execution of departure formalities;
Loading of aircraft;
Aircraft flight;
Execution of arrival formalities;
Unloading of aircraft;
Transport of equipment to spill site by truck;
Deployment of equipment.

The key links in this supply chain are discussed in more detail below.

Emergency Oil Spill Response Equipment TransportationD J Blackmore, Manager AMOSC

Equipment Preparation
Equipment has to be prepared in a way that allows convenient transport by any means, ieroad, air or sea. This paper focuses on transport by road and air.
Large stand alone items of equipment such as offshore booms and skimming barges are able
to be handled as separate units. However, other equipment is typically transported in box orcage containers. These containers hold either a number of similar items such as booms or aparticular piece of equipment which is packed into one or more containers, including all theaccessories and spares required. This overall packaging gives confidence that the response
team will arrive with a complete unit and will also be able to carry out running maintenanceduring a response. For example motorised equipment is packed with spare parts, booms havetowing bridles attached together with deployment kits holding anchors, buoys and stakes as
required.
Containers can be made of wood, mild steel or aluminium. Wooden containers are lessexpensive than metal alternatives. However international transport with wooden containers
can result in quarantine problems and potential delays. AMOSC does not use wooden
containers, in order to prevent potential problems with agricultural authorities particularly in the
return of equipment to Australia.
Where cost and strength aspects permit, aluminium containers are preferred, due to their lightweight.
The containers are typically stacked on each other or stored in racks in the Centre’s
warehouse, with access carefully considered within the limitations of the warehouse. Fork lift
handling pockets on the containers means rapid and safe handling, preferably with fork accessto any side of the package where this is practicable.
Road Transport
Road transport is used both to deliver equipment to an airport and to transport equipment
directly to the spill site. In some cases where water separates the warehouse and spill site, air
may be the only feasible means of transport. In Australia, AMOSC evaluates each particularsituation, comparing road versus air transport to establish whether the time saved justifies theextra expense of air transport. Air transport may, for example, deliver the equipment to thespill site in the evening, ready for deployment next morning. A less expensive overnight haulby truck may achieve the same deployment next morning.
For road transport, issues such as container weight and size are less critical than transport byair.

Emergency Oil Spill Response Equipment TransportationD J Blackmore, Manager AMOSC

To minimise the time taken before equipment leaves the warehouse, some Centres have aselection of containers already loaded onto trailers and also equipment stored in standard
shipping containers which are positioned on trailers.
Some Centres have their own prime movers. Others rely on arrangements with a local
trucking company for this service, which must of course be in place and exercised before thetrucking service is required during a real incident.
Air Transport
Most constraints to the design of containers and the fixing of the contents are determined by
the requirements for air transport. All equipment must be firmly secured inside the containers
in order to cope with potential forces while in the air, including being able to resist up to twotimes the force of gravity in an upward direction.
Fuel tanks of motorised equipment must be drained and batteries should be sealed or solid
type.
Some of the Centres have dedicated aircraft on stand-by and therefore can plan loading ofequipment around specific aircraft. However all the Centres can be required to use aircraftfrom the spot charter market and recognise that packaging arrangements should be flexible
enough to allow the use of whatever charter aircraft may be available on the particular day.
All typical commercial aircraft use the standard 125” x 88” (3175mm x 2235mm) aircraft
pallet station, so any container system must be compatible with this.
Overall, an example of the break down of the inventory of a response Centre into containers isshown in the AMOSC equipment transport details table, included as Figure 1.
The variation of sizes of containers can cause inefficiencies in the amount of equipment able tobe loaded on to the standard aircraft pallet tray and can also slow down the loading process.
To help overcome this, Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL) has developed a modularised systemof containers, four of which are positioned on each standard aircraft pallet tray, ie two on thebottom and two on the top as shown in Figure 2. The top containers are shaped to allow
them to fit within the profile of the aircraft while maximising the volume available. Aircraft
pallet tray load limitations are crucial and by keeping the total load for each pallet tray under
3000kg it is possible to position any set of pallets in almost any available pallet position in anaircraft, no matter which aircraft is being used. The containers are constructed from aluminium
to minimise weight.

Emergency Oil Spill Response Equipment TransportationD J Blackmore, Manager AMOSCThe OSRL system currently comprises fifty containers, divided equally between bottom and
top types. Each container is able to be handled by fork lift from all sides. The containers are
pre-packed with a variety of equipment covering containment, recovery, storage and transfer
systems for both shoreline and offshore scenarios, as well as personnel and decontamination
requirements. For example, inshore booms are packed along with anchors, chains, buoys,stakes, air-fans, water pumps and other ancillaries.
Overall, aircraft loading times are reduced dramatically by the use of these conveniently sized
and shaped containers, designed to fit into the aircraft, containing all the components required
to carry out a task and able to be efficiently transported from the warehouse to the spill site.
Requirements for correct paper work are very strict for air transport of potentially hazardousequipment. Some Centres with dedicated aircraft act as their own air-cargo agents and areformally authorised to declare equipment as “known” cargo, thus allowing direct loading onto
an aircraft without further security inspection or holding requirements.
In the case of non-dedicated aircraft, standing arrangements with an aircraft broker who has
24 hour access to the aircraft charter market are essential. This broker is also typically able toact as air-cargo agent and can facilitate customs clearance and transport arrangements on
arrival. Once again, exercises involving the use of this broker are important before theservices are required in earnest.
When equipment from one of the international Tier 3 Centres is moved between countries, it isimportant that there be no delay in arrival formalities. Resolution of these formalities is theresponsibility of the hirer of the equipment as typically the hirer has the contacts and theunderstanding of the exact requirements.
As discussed earlier, some of the Centres, ie OSRL and EARL, have dedicated transport
aircraft on standby. AMOSC and CCC rely on the charter market. In Australia, defence
force aircraft are also available to the National Plan authorities and Hercules aircraft have beenused very effectively in recent spills to move Marco type skimming craft quickly to the spillsite.

Emergency Oil Spill Response Equipment TransportationD J Blackmore, Manager AMOSC

Air Transport of Dispersants
The use of dispersants is widely accepted as an extremely effective oil spill response strategy.
All of the four referenced oil industry response Centres have equipment in place for applicationof dispersants from ship and helicopter. In addition, all of these Centres have arrangements inplace to apply dispersants using fixed wing aircraft. Three of the Centres, ie OSRL, EARLand CCC, have airborne dispersant delivery systems that fit into dedicated L-382 Hercules
aircraft. AMOSC co-funds a national, Australia wide stand-by aircraft arrangement using
turbine driven air tractor type agricultural spraying aircraft. The Australian approach is a verypractical and cost effective alternative, but few parts of the world have these agriculturalaircraft readily and reliably available.
Each of these fixed wing aerial systems are able to apply dispersants to a spill at a high rateand empty their tanks in a few minutes - certainly less than an hour. Therefore resupply ofdispersant is fundamental to the success of the overall dispersant response strategy.
Clean Caribbean Corporation (CCC) have studied the efficiency of the storage and supply ofthis dispersant and concluded that the most efficient system was to hold dispersant incentralised stockpiles and to have the dispersant stockpiles properly configured for airtransport. A normal transport pallet holds four drums of dispersant and two of these pallets fit
onto a standard aircraft pallet station. Typically the amount of dispersant able to be carried in
an aircraft is limited by the floor space taken up by the pallets rather than the weight of thedispersant cargo. Accordingly CCC have redesigned their pallets to take six drums ofdispersant, as shown in Figure 3. Two of these special CCC pallets fit on to a standard
aircraft pallet and therefore the payload of an aircraft is increased by fifty percent. Typicallytherefore an aircraft such as a Boeing 707 is able to carry 27 tonnes of dispersant on 13
aircraft pallets.
Off-Loading of Equipment
Total response times can depend as much on the transport time from the delivery airport to thespill site as it does on the aircraft flight time. The nearest airport with suitable cargo off-loading
facilities may be several hours drive from the operational area and may even be in anothercountry. Adequate cargo handling facilities are not as common as often believed, as many
airports are based solely around passengers and may only have a small fork lift truck to handle
cargo. This factor can greatly reduce the options available for air transport of equipment
during a response.
For these situations Oil Spill Response Ltd (OSRL) have developed a self build off-loading
system called the Rapid Equipment Delivery and Deployment System (REDDS).
The REDDS system, shown in Figure 4 is designed to travel in the same aircraft as the loaded
equipment and to fit onto a standard aircraft pallet station. At the destination, the system isEmergency Oil Spill Response Equipment TransportationD J Blackmore, Manager AMOSC

manually removed from the aircraft, then quickly and easily erected to remove the load. The
REDDS is totally self contained and requires no power from the aircraft for its operation. It is
designed to be suitable for use with any side loading aircraft with a maximum cargo door sillheight of 4 metres from the ground.
The system comprises a scissor-lift powered by a diesel generator, which is used to lower
equipment on pallet trays from the aircraft to ground level, together with an aluminium tower
which is erected on a steel box frame and extends above the cargo door. The tower is used
to offload the scissor-lift into its position within the base frame and to act as a support for thewinches that winch the equipment out from aircraft onto the scissor-lift. The complexity of thesystem requires trained personnel to operate.
Conclusion
This paper has discussed the key links in the supply chain. However it is essential that all ofthese links through mobilisation, dispatch, transport and arrival at site are in place so that ouraim of successful response to an spill can be achieved.

Figure 1

AMOSC EQUIPMENT : SHIPPING AND TRANSPORT DETAILSFigure 2
MODULARISED AIR TRANSPORT CONTAINERSOIL SPILL RESPONSE LIMITEDFigure 3
REDESIGNED AIR TRANSPORT PALLETS
CLEAN CARIBBEAN CORPORATION

Figure 4
RAPID EQUIPMENT DELIVERY AND DEPLOYMENT SYSTEMOIL SPILL RESPONSE LIMITED