Alternative Oil Spill Occurrence Estimators and their Variability for the Chukchi Sea - Fault Tree Method, Volumes 1 and 2 (March 2008); Final task rept

摘要

Oil spill occurrence estimates were generated for high and low case estimated future oil and gas development scenarios (including exploration, production, and abandonment) in the Chukchi Sea Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) lease sale region. Because sufficient historical data on offshore oil spills for this region do not exist, an oil spill occurrence model based on fault tree methodology was developed and applied. Using the fault trees, base data from the Gulf of Mexico including the variability of the data, were modified and augmented to represent expected Arctic offshore oil spillage frequencies. Three principal spill occurrence indicators, as follows, were quantified for each year of each scenario, as well as scenario life of field averages: (1) Spill frequency; (2) Spill frequency per barrel produced: and (3) Spill index, the product of spill size and spill frequency.