A maritime area three times the size of the city of London holds the highest risk for oil spills in the Gulf which can have devastating consequences locally and globally.
A maritime area three times the size of the city of London holds the highest risk for oil spills in the Gulf which can have devastating consequences locally and globally.
Over the last year, the world’s energy market has been highly volatile. The warmer-than-average winter in Europe helped avoid a gas crisis this year, but the forecast for the next winter is unclear as instabilities persist. More than 20% of global liquefied natural gas exports originate from a single port in Qatar. A new paper in Nature Sustainability by a team of researchers at the University of Louvain, the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering, and the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute, pinpoints the location of what the authors call a “high vulnerability zone,” where an oil spill could cause liquified natural gas export facilities and desalination plants on the coast to be completely shut down for several days. (In the presence of an oil spill, tankers cannot navigate through thick oil slicks. Further, desalination plants, which rely on the intake of seawater, cannot perform normal operations with a heavily polluted water source) This shutdown, the researchers explain, could cause significant disruption in the global gas supply and cause an unprecedented water shortage for inhabitants of the Qatari Peninsula, while simultaneously compromising containment efforts.
Awareness of such a vulnerability is imperative, say the researchers. Qatar’s export capacity is expected to increase by approximately 64% in the next five years. Thus, this key port will continue to be a crucial hotspot for the global energy supply chain. The researchers also note that the increasing number of tanker accidents in the Gulf adds a level of concern, particularly related to how such accidents could impact critical coastal infrastructures that export a vital source of energy for the planet and ensure the safety of desalinated water for one of the world’s most arid climates.
Read more at University of Southern California
Image: GTraschuetz via Pixabay
