PAJ OIL SPILL SYMPOSIUMTOKYO 10 - 11 LY 1997
EARL'S Involvement in and Lessons Learned from the Nakhodka
Incident.

by
Chew Joo Kim
Manager, Technical Services
East Asia Response Pte. Ltd.

Background.
On 2 January 1997, the 21000dwt, 27 year old Russian tanker "Nakhodka"
broke in two in stormy weather in the sea of Japan. The tanker was en routefrom China to Russia with a cargo of about 5 million gallons of heavy fuel oil
when she took a list and began taking in water during the early hours onthat fateful day.
31 crew members were found adrift in lifeboats and were rescued by the
Maritime Safety Agency of Japan. The captain of the ship was missing andpresumed dead.
By 6th January, an estimated I million gallons of the cargo had leaked fromruptured tanks in the bow section of the vessel. Attempts to contain the oiland efforts to apply dispersants from the air were seriously hampered by thestormy weather in the area. Six metre waves and strong westerly winds
forced a 10 kilometre-wide slick towards the coast. The bow and the oil slick
drifted for 5 days under the influence of wind and current.
On 7 January, the oil washed ashore on a 29 kilometre stretch of beach at
Mikuni. Slicks threatened the rocky coastline of Noto Peninsula. The spilled
oil also beached at scattered locations along a 500km stretch of the western
coast. The shoreline contamination extended as far south as Sakai and as far
north as Kashiwazaki. The heaviest pollution was just north of Mikuni andbetween Wajima and Suzu at the northern tip of the Noto Peninsula, wherean estimated 500,000 gallons of oil-water emulsion stranded.

By 10 January most of the fuel oil released during Nakhodka's breakup had
either dispersed or come ashore. Oily sheens continued to surface above thesunken stern section of the ship but were dispersing naturally and did notpose a threat to coastal resources.
As the spilled oil started coming ashore, response crews deployed booms atseveral strategic locations to protect sensitive shoreline areas, including thewater intakes for 1 5 nuclear power plants in Wakasa Bay. On the shoreline,
a total workforce of about 8000 paid and volunteer workers, using vacuum
trucks, shovels and buckets to remove oil from beaches and near-shore
waters in six affected prefectures, recovered about I .75 million gallons of oilywater, sand and debris by 14 January. The recovered mass was temporarily
stowed in large open pits, and then transported in bags and loaded onto
vessels bound for incineration facilities elsewhere.
The grounded bow section of the ship contained an estimated 740,000 gallons
of fuel oil which had to be removed. The tanker owners contracted Nippon
Salvage and Fukada Salvage to conduct the salvage operation. The plan was
to stabilise the bow while piercing the hull plating in selected locations topump the remaining oil into barges. As a backup plan, a causeway was built
extending from the shore to the bow section. If the attempt to pump the oil
into barges failed due to stormy weather and rough seas, the causeway would
allow vacuum trucks access to the bow to remove the remaining cargo.
As long as the oil remained in the bow of the tanker, it threatened to further
pollute the already heavily polluted shoreline. On 1 3 January, ITOPF acting
in the interest of the tanker owner, contracted East Asia Response Pte.Ltd(EARL) to counter the above mentioned threat and lend support to the oilrecovery operations at sea. At 0125 hours EARL was activated.
EARL' s Involvement.
At about OIOO on the 13th. of January, EARL'S CEO was contacted by the
ITOPF representative at the scene of the incident. A discussion was held on
what would be the most suitable equipment to transport to the scene of thespill. It was agreed, that for the purpose of standing by the up-ended bow
section, a containment boom with an integral viscous oil recovery capability
would be the most suitable. It was agreed that the "Ro-Skim" unit would be
mobilised to the scene.

The Equipment
The "Ro-Skim" Containment and Recovery System consists of a 50 metre
section of inflatable boom with a specially designed weir opening and ahydraulically driven screw pump, which sits behind the weir opening.
Attached to this is a 150 metres section of the standard inflatable boom. The
combination of boom and skimmer section allow the system to be deployed in
an optimum configuration to contain and recover viscous oil in heavy sea
conditions without having to deploy a separate skimmer.
The system is powered by a Desmi Powerpack
Two Ro-skims and two reels containing 200m lengths of Ro-booms wereselected for the task. By 0210 hours staff had begun to arrive at the Centre
and commenced preparations to have the equipment ready for loading onto
trailers.
Documentation.
One of the biggest time consumers during a mobilisation operation is thecompletion of customs documentation. In the past EARL had to withdraw
manually from the filing system the documents which matched up with theitems of equipment chosen for mobilisation. In the event of a major
mobilisation, where most or all of the equipment from the stockpile ismobilised, the manual extraction, matching of documents and making up thecargo manifest, could take up to four hours.
However with EARL'S recently developed computer software the task can be
carried out in a fraction of the time.
The "Nakhodka" incident was the first test of the Response Equipment
Management System or REMS developed by EARL and it proved a blessing.
Put simply each item of equipment in the EARL stockpile has an asset
number. The asset number is fed into the computer and the computer will do
the rest. From just a few prompted entries into the computer, the packing list,
pro-forma invoice and the cargo manifest are printed out within minutes.
These documents were then signed and stamped and handed to theforwarding agent who has the job of ensuring the equipment is quickly
passed through customs.

Forwarding Agent.
EARL has a number of forwarding agents it can use, but its prime agent isJardine International Movers, a subsidiary of the International group
Jardine Pacific. Most people in the region recognise the name of Jardines forinternational transportation. The company has a massive network of sub
agents and contacts across the region, which assists greatly in moving
equipment into countries and providing the infrastructure to get theequipment to the scene of the spill. Reputations and relationships built up
over decades of the movement of goods across countries is important whentrying to get specialised equipment through frontiers during the hours ofdarkness. This network and infrastructure proved invaluable in getting
EARL'S equipment to the "Nakhodka" spill site in Mikuni in the shortest
time possible. Just as important, the company played a significant part in
the speedy and effective return of the equipment back to the EARL centre.
Movement of Equipment and Personnel
Some two hours after the initial activation by ITOPF, two trailers arrived on
EARL'S site at 0330 hours and loading of the prepared equipment
commenced and was completed by 0430 hours. By 0600 hours the trailers
had arrived at Seletar airport.
EARL has on a wet lease a civilian version of the Hercules C-130. The type of
aircraft was chosen because of its versatility of operation. For instance theaircraft can land in places that other aircraft of the same carrying capacity
cannot, and when it does land the aircraft has been designed for easy
offloading with conventional equipment. However the prime reason this typeof aircraft is chosen for EARL'S use, is its ability to deploy an Airborne
Dispersant Delivery System or ADDS Pack. Flying at an altitude of 50 to 100
feet the aircraft fitted with the ADDS Pack system is an unrivaled dispersant
spraying tool and has been used effectively by EARL on a number ofoccasions.
However on this particular occasion the aircraft was to be used to transport
the two Ro-Skim systems to Japan and the equipment was loaded into theC130 by 0730 hours. The C130 took off at 0800 hours, some six and a half
hours after the initial callout and gave an estimated time of arrival at Osaka
Kansai Airport of 2100 Ional time. The equipment actually arrived at thespill site at about 0300 hours, approximately 25 hours after the call fromITOPF.

One EARL supervisor accompanied the equipment on the C130 while a task
force leader with two specialist operators flew on a commercial flight andarrived at Kansai airport at 1745 hours. Contact with ITOPF was made atabout 2330 hours upon arrival at Mikuni, twenty two hours after callout.
Equipment Development
The intention at that stage was that the EARL equipment would be fitted toa support vessel and remain on standby in the event that oil, suspected to bein the stranded bow section was released during the salvage operation.
The next morning on the 14th, of January, the salvage vessel "Koyo Maru"
arrived at Mikuni and presented herself for an inspection prior acceptanceby ITOPF. The inspection was to see if she was suitable for use with EARL
equipment. However, her working deck was found to be cluttered withshipboard machinery and she could not be used as presented. Her owner,
Nippon Salvage then offered to install a temporary steel deck above the deckmachinery and this would create space for the storage, deployment andrecovery of the EARL equipment. By the evening of 16 January, the modified
deck on the "Koyo Maru" was completed the booms, skimmers and ancillaries
were loaded, and the vessel set out to sea with three EARL specialist
operators on board.
On the same day, ITOPF further activated another three specialist operatorsfrom EARL with the intention to operate the second set of booms andskimmer on another vessel. The men arrived in the afternoon of 17 January
and loaded the equipment on the "Shin Kai Maru". As the vessel was not
equipped with storage tanks to .receive recovered oil-water emulsion fromthe sea, the owner Fukada Salvage Company, fabricated an open-top
portable steel tank with a capacity of 20m3 and welded it to the deck of thevessel to overcome the problem. The vessel sailed the next morning with the
EARL team on board.
Between 18 - 29 January, the "Koyo Maru" and "Shin Kai Maru" wereoperated along the coast between Wakasa Bay and Noto Peninsula under theguidance of the Command Centre at Mikuni which received oil slick reports
daily from helicopter overflights. During that time however, their search forthe by now highly emulsified oil were at times interrupted by stormy days
when they had to anchor and take shelter from the elements in quieter
waters .

With the passage of tune, strong winds and high seas, most of the spilled oil
fragmented into small pieces most of which were no bigger than the size oftennis balls or dinner plates. The oil slicks were widely scattered and mostly
driven close to shore by wind and tide. The shallow depth of water and theclose proximity to land prevented the use of the classic contain-and-recovermethod usually employed by vessels in the open sea. As such, the vessels
were reduced to recovering the oil by means of nets and scoops from the deckof the vessels. There were however, two occasions when the scatteredremains of the emulsified oil were found to be of sufficient quantity in deeper
waters away from the shoreline and this permitted the use of the Ro-boomand skimmer resulting in a small measure of success.
Demobilisation
By 30 January the grounded bow section of the vessel was believed to containlittle or no oil at all. The threat of a large release of fuel oil from the bow
section was no longer there and ITOPF therefore commenced to demobilise
EARL. Our equipment was offloaded from the vessel and transported to an
open pit lined with heavy-duty plastic sheets for their cleaning.
It took three days for 6 men with a hot water pressure washer to clean the
two units of Ro-booms and Ro-skims. By the evening of 2 February, theequipment was judged to be sufficiently cleaned to be accepted for loading on
to a commercial cargo plane. Nevertheless, to ensure that the equipment
would not be rejected on the grounds of possible contamination of other cargo
in the plane, they were completely wrapped over with heavy-duty plastic
sheets.
Whilst the cleaning operation was going on arrangements were being madeby EARL staff in Singapore to bring the equipment back to the base in themost cost effective manner. After discussing the various options with ITOPF
it was decided that the equipment should be transported back to Singapore
by scheduled air freight rather than going by sea. Jardines arranged theflight and the necessary documentation for the equipment's return. On 3
February the equipment was loaded on to thre6 trucks and at about 1 600
hours, the EARL team was ferried by bus to the airport bound for home. On
February 4th. at about 2320 hours the equipment was loaded on a Nippon
Cargo Airline aircraft bound for Singapore where it arrived at 0445 hours
the following day, some 23 days after EARL had been first alerted.

Lessons Learned.
No response to oil spills will ever be perfect with everything working like a
dream from start to finish, regardless of the number of times that one may
have gone through it. But a well-trained and determined response team willusually overcome most shortcomings strewn in its path, learn from theexperience and come out the better for it. Thus the Nakhodka incident is inthat respect no different from all of the other incidents that we have attended
to, and the lessons learned are mentioned here to share the experience withyou. The important thing is to recognise the problems for what they were,learn the lessons and avoid the same mistakes the next time around.
1.The Vessels of Opportunity.
"Koyo Maru"
Her main deck as presented was not suitable for our purpose. There was noclear deck space of an area of about 8m x 6m to house the equipment and to
deploy and retrieve them safely without damage. The modified deck gave themeans to house the equipment in an area free of obstruction, which was good.
But what was not realised at the time was that the added height to the new
freeboard deck presented greater difficulties both in deployment andretrieval of the equipment. The greater height meant that additional weightof the boom was suspended between the deck and the waterline which
increased the stress to the fabric and accessories of the boom, causing theweakest part of the boom to tear. Also with a higher freeboard and the roughweather conditions, a greater degree of difficulty was encountered during
deployment and retrieval of the Ro-skim because of its substantial weight,
which is 330kg.
The second problem was that the "Koyo Maru" had only one storage tank forrecovered oil emulsion and it was situated in a remote area not easily
accessible. To reach it, one would have to climb down into a cargo hatch, walkto the very back of it and drop a transfer hose into a small manhole at theback of the hatch. This meant that an extra length of transfer hose had to beconnected to the original 60m hose attached to the skimmer and theincreased length of the hose also meant a decreased effectiveness in theskimming operation. Additionally, determining the ullage from a small
opening in the cargo hatch, and in poor lighting, also added to the difficultyof the operation.

"Shin Kai Maru."
The problem here, which happily remained latent, was the fact that there
was no in-built tank to receive any recovered oil. It had already been
mentioned earlier that a 20m3 portable tank was used to overcome the lackof a storage tank. Because little oil was encountered and less still recovered,this problem did not materialise, but if a large body of oil had indeed beenencountered, given the fact that our skimmer has a rated capacity of
100m3/h, it would in theory have taken only 1 2 minutes to fill the tank after
which we would have had to stop the operation for the day and return to thenearest port to empty the tank. The tank would then prove to be totally
inadequate for the job.
From the above, it would seem that the two vessels were not ideally suitedfor the task at hand, which was to use the equipment that we brought out
with us. One might argue that in almost every oil spill, one would be hard
put to match the equipment in hand to the vessels of opportunity available,
and that would be a perfectly true statement to make. Therein lies the
problem. However if every contingency plan makes a point to identify
suitable vessels for booming and skimming purposes, the problem would beless acute.
It is perhaps worth mentioning here that an Australian shipbuilding
company was recently contracted by a harbour authority in Indonesia tobuild a Search and Rescue vessel with an oil spill response capability which
could deploy oil spill equipment specifically from EARL.
2. Riding Shotgun.
The term 'riding shotgun' has its origin in the old wild west in the days of theAmerican cowboys when an armed guard carrying a shotgun rode on thestagecoach to protect its contents. Even though those days are long gone theterm 'riding shotgun' is still used today to mean more or less the same thingi.e. to guard a valuable cargo to ensure its safe delivery.
EARL has a policy in which any equipment sent out for use anywhere will beaccompanied by at least I supervisor from our Centre. His task is to ensurethat the equipment gets to its destination safely and to assist with customs
formalities.

So it was with the equipment sent out to Osaka. EARL had a supervisor'riding shotgun' on the equipment flown in on our C130 aircraft. At Kansai
Airport he was to accompany the equipment to Mikuni. Alas, it did not workout like that. Whilst he was away from the aircraft clearing immigration on
his arrival in the country, the equipment was unloaded from the plane,
quickly passed through customs and loaded onto trucks, which then left
without the supervisor. However one should applaud the efficiency of theground staff at Kansai and the recognition by the customs authorities of theurgency of the situation.
3. Cold Weather Gear.
Although in EARL we are equipped with some amount of cold weather gear,coming from the heat of the tropics to be suddenly exposed to a severe cold
front blowing in from the Sea of Japan was quite a shock to the task force.
Luckily there was sufficient time before the vessels were ready to sail for theTeam to purchase further cold weather clothing.
4. Dead Batteries.
Although it is common knowledge that battery life is severely shortened incold weather, the Team were nevertheless surprised when they had deadbatteries whilst trying to start the equipment. Difficulty in starting thepower packs due to the cold caused the batteries to go flat and the lesson
learned is the need to bring along not only bigger batteries but to carry spareones and a charging unit.
5. Covers on Power Packs.
The covers were designed to slip with ease over the power packs. The cornersof the covers were cut such that they allowed the lifting lugs to projectthrough the covers. Unfortunately, these lugs were also used to secure thepower packs to prevent them from moving about on the decks of vessels inheavy seas. When it was time to use the power packs, it was found that thecovers could not be removed without untying the lashings on the lifting lugs.
Apart from the time wasted in tying and untying the lashings, safety was
also compromised during the brief period when the lashings were removed.
The covers are presently being modified such that they are able to be
removed without the need to lift them clear of the power packs. Velcro strips
will be used instead.

6. Cleaning of Equipment.
It is common knowledge that sea water is harmful to all things metal. When
the Team requested fresh water to clean the equipment, they were told that
it was not available and that they should use the water from the harbour
instead. Luckily the open pit which they were told to use for cleaning theequipment contained water from melted snow as well as some rain water. It
was fortunate that the pit was newly finished and had not been put to use,consequently the water was relatively clean for our purposes.
7. Equipment Demobilisation
Equipment demobilisation is as important as mobilisation. Once it has been
ascertained that the equipment is no longer required then it must be
returned in the most cost effective manner without compromising the overall
response capability of EARL.
There were three options for returning the equipment to Singapore that wereopen to EARL.
(i) Ship the equipment by sea(ii) Airfreight the equipment back using the EARL aircraft(iii) Airfreight the equipment using scheduled freighter
To ship back by sea on a scheduled freighter would have required a prebooking period of at least a week incurring extended hire charges on theequipment, whereas bringing in the EARL aircraft would have been
expensive as she would have flown into Japan empty. Fortunately throughJardines EARL was able take advantage of a late cancellation on a scheduled
aircraft and the most optimum option was used. EARL need to beginassessing return options very early in the response operation, thus giving theclient more early information to assist in his decision making regarding
demobilisation.
"In Use or on "Standby"
To suit their clients ' specific requirements EARL hire charges have three
categories, "In Use," "On Standby" and "Training" However within thecontract between EARL and its clients the terms are not clearly defined. As aresult, in the "Nakhodka" incident when EARL invoiced the client, there wassome dispute over whether the equipment was on standby or whether it was
actually in use. EARL is now in discussions with the other two internationaloil spill response centres in UK and USA to achieve a consistent definition ofthese terms.

Conclusion.
The foregoing are the main lessons EARL learned from the "Nakhodka"
incident. Even as the Company prepares itself to implement new procedures
as a result of these lessons learned, there will always be other lessons to belearned from other incidents in the future. It is becoming an oil spill cliche
but is absolutely true that no two oil spill incidents are the same. However,
one thing is certain, and it is common to all spills - that all spills should betackled as early as humanly possible. Therefore, it is critical that if there is aneed for assistance from a Tier 3 Centre, than the call to activate should bemade early, in order for the response to be successful.
One of the outstanding positive elements from this response was the level ofcooperation that EARL received from the Japanese authorities andresponders. This unconditional cooperation given in the typical Japanesefashion of friendliness and courtesy enabled EARL to carry out its task to thebest of its ability. EARL'S involvement in this incident, plus the developing
relationship with the PAJ through training has developed a relationshipbetween EARL and Japanese oil spill responders which bodes well for the
future.