Slight oil spill safely contained |27 July 2017

A slight oil spill incident occurred on Tuesday when a gasket along one of Seypec’s (Seychelles Petroleum Company) new pipeline in the port area burst during a test operation by the company.

The company however said that the incident was safely contained with no environmental impact reported.

According to a press release from Seypec, the pipeline affected is one that is expected to be launched soon to facilitate the new bunkering services at the IPHS and net repair quay.

“The Seypec response team was immediately on site for a containment operation at 10.50am, that is minutes after the incident, responding to emergency procedures to manage the situation with a strict protocol governed by the ISO certification Environmental Management Systems (ISO 14001:2015),” the press release says.

The Operations and Safety Department of Seypec was assisted by other emergency response teams from the Seychelles Ports Authority and the Ministry of Environment.

“While nearly all the volume of oil was contained in a manhole designed for such purpose, a small quantity however over-spilled in the sea. On-site technical teams made a fast use of a multi-purpose water-based cleaner degreaser, a product containing biodegradable wetting and surface active agents and detergents. This powerful oil and grease remover has a deep penetration and action which leaves a grease-free surface with very low toxicity,” explains the press release.

The entire containment process of this incident managed by Seypec lasted under three hours which included a clean-up exercise with no environmental impact reported.

“We have initiated our contingency plan minutes after the alert,” said Ray Hoareau, Seypec’s operation and technical general manager.

“We are always prepared for such incidents as per our regular drills and all services are determined to do everything in our power to contain any incident and resolve the situation as rapidly, safely and effectively as possible. We can assemble and deploy facilities, resources and expertise of international standards at any time. Our resolve is always to prevent such incidents and to limit its effect to the least in case they happen,” added Mr Hoareau.