Key Performance Indicators for Environmental Protection from Oil Spills During Offshore Oil & Gas Operations

Accidental oil spills may cause severe marine pollution, with serious impacts to wildlife and their habitats. The fate of oil spilled at sea depends upon multiple factors, such as the released quantity, the oil properties, the meteo-marine conditions. The identification of the hazard associated to offshore oil spills is thus fundamental in order to reduce or mitigate their impact on the different environmental compartments of the sea. The use of indicators represents a widespread approach in offshore risk management to capture and effectively communicate complex issues, as the hazards due to accidental events. This paper presents a methodology based on Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to assess the environmental hazards caused by oil leakages from offshore oil & gas production facilities. Three different levels of KPIs are defined, based on data and resource availability. The first level of KPIs is associated to the spill features, the second one is based on the inventory of the release and the third type considers the area of the floating oil slick. A case study regarding an offshore oil platform in the Mediterranean Sea is introduced in order to demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach. The results show the potential of KPIs in representing the hazards of different oil spill scenarios, thus offering a tool for hazard screening, as a preliminary step of more detailed oil spill risk assessment studies and contingency planning activities.