Hibernia Management and Development Company Ltd. (HMDC) on Tuesday it is continuing response efforts regarding a release of oil from the offshore platform on July 17.
“Eight third-party wildlife observers continue to monitor for wildlife, from vessels and overflights,” the update reads. “There have been no new reports of impacted wildlife. HMDC is providing regular updates to mariners. Fishers are reminded of the fisheries claims process and any fishers who believe they have gear impacted can contact us.
“All platform personnel are safe. Production remains shut in. HMDC is continuing its investigation.”
The province’s Minister of Natural Resources Siobhan Coady told reporters outside the House of Assembly at Confederation Building in St. John’s Tuesday that safety and environmental protection is the most important priority.
“So, what’s happening today has been happening every day since the oil spill occurred. The recovery is under way. There were seven vessels offshore Newfoundland and Labrador, many with wildlife observers,” Coady said. “There are mechanical efforts to recover as much oil as possible – booms, buoys, there is other mechanical methods to recover as much as possible. Of course, wildlife observers are to ensure we are recognizing the impacts to wildlife. As you know, several birds – three, I believe – have been discovered so far. One is under treatment right now. Recovery is underway, observation underway and, of course, an investigation is underway as well.”
Production on the Hibernia platform remains shut down as the cleanup response continues.
HMDC has said the discharge — a mix of water and oil — occurred during routine activities related to removing water from one of the storage cells.
Based on aerial surveillance, the estimated volume of oil released from the Hibernia platform was 75 barrels of oil, equivalent to approximately 12,000 litres.
Coady said that even if the province had an independent offshore safety regulator in place — as has been called for — such accidents still can occur.
“In jurisdictions around the world where there are separate safety regulators, this is an industry of risk and there are things that do happen,” she said. “As you know, in 2011, there was a separation of the safety and conservation commissions. This was supported by Judge (Robert) Wells at the time. He supports the way in which it was moved to have kind of a ringed fence around safety and conservation that now report directly to the board.
“We’re continuing to consider as we grow our industry whether or not that needs to be completely separated or not. We’ll continue to analyze that as we move forward. We have four installations and a separate commissioner, a separate system and way in place for safety. It’s working. It’s unfortunate and not acceptable that we’ve had (spills) and any near misses that might occur. We’re going to continue to do everything we need to do to ensure safety. Environmental protection is paramount.”
The vessels Atlantic Merlin and Paul A Sacuta continued use of single-vessel side sweep systems, and the Atlantic Shrike and the Atlantic Kestrel have used mechanical recovery equipment to collect the water and oil mixture.
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