The Town of the XXI Century
Series of reports on ecological situation in Central Asia

ECOLOGY OF THE CASPIAN SEA REGION - THE LAST LINE OF DEFENSE BEFORE THE BEGINNING OF THE "BIG" OIL

If there are money, ecology will be …

The main reasons for accidental spills of oil out of pipelines are associated with: metal corrosion (internal - 86%, external - 5,3), production faults, construction defects, mechanical damage.

Moreover, locally built pipelines lack effective system of prevention and localization of the accidents. The system of monitoring of oil losses, while it is extracted, collected, stored, transported and processed does not meet the modern requirements of conservation of resources.

The circumstances mentioned above created the sources of negative technogenosis from the side of oil and gas objects (concentration of harmful substances near the sources of pollution exceeds Maximum Limits of Concentration by 10-100 times).

All these facts, figures and prognosis were mentioned at the Conference in Atyrau. At the same time, there were also attempts to answer the question of how to decrease the negative influence of the oil and gas complex installations on the environment? How? There are various systems and multitudes of approaches. (While, let us mention, that all of them are fine when the funds are available)

Project of the century or the old fairy tale for the New Year

A quite idealized picture of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium's future - the nearest and the most realistic super pipeline - was drawn by Director of "Kaspiimunaigas" institute, Mr. Nysangaliev: "The main condition of the CPC project is to make the pipeline technically and ecologically safe. CTC strictly observes all Federal and regional environmental protection laws. Construction and exploitation of the pipeline will fir all of the strictest international standards. To ensure safety and environmental protection CTC allocates 395 million USD.

The pipeline will be constructed so that its negative influence on farm lands, beaches, bodies of water, forests and other ecological systems situated alongside the pipeline will be minimal or excluded. After construction is finished, quality and fertility of the soil will be completely restored.

CTC will carry out all work in accordance with the carefully designed safety regulations. From the very beginning special service will carry out constant surveillance of technical and ecological safety of the pipeline's operations, while it is built and used.

The probability of spills is very small, nevertheless, the projects has provisions for special systems of detection, localization and liquidation of the accidents. The special dispatch control and data collection system will gather the information about the oil flow and will send it to special control centers located alongside the pipeline. If a spill or a break in the air-proof cover is detected, the system will automatically block the pipeline.

Not only the pipeline will be isolated from the environment: all oil storage tanks will be equipped with "floating" roofs with double layers of isolation on the edges, which will completely exclude the possibility of spills of the accompanying gases.

Before the oil is pumped into the pipeline, it will be cleaned from all corroding and aggressive admixtures and, first of all, from sulphur hydrogen (H2S). All mercaptan sulphur combinations, which cause the unpleasant smell of Tengiz oil, will also be removed or neutralized. As a result of these standardized exploitation measures oil pumped into CTC pipeline will have lower concentration of sulphur and will have lesser corrosion properties than the kind of oil currently shipped to Novorossisk.

All parts of the pipeline and all pipeline-related objects will have special fast action plans and will be equipped with the necessary means to neutralize the consequences of spills. All pipeline's staff will be specially trained and will participate in the appropriate exercises. The sea terminal will constantly working groups ready to act in cases of emergency oil spills and will have special equipment - oil gatherers, protection bones, and special boats…"

All we have left is to believe in this fairy tail and in the common sense of our scientists. Maybe Kazakhstan will reach the world standards.

The oil dollars will fly like "veneer over Paris"

In accordance with the information of UNESCO, at the beginning of 1990s in developed countries of the world investments into environmental protection reached 11,3% of the total investments into oil and gas complex. More than 60% of the amount were spent on air protection, decrease in the amounts of wastes thrown into the atmosphere by steam generators and boiler-houses.

The USA adopted a special law "On clean air", which lists 189 chemical substances, which are thrown into the air by industrial factories and must be controlled. In accordance with this law, a source annually throwing into the air at least 10 tons of one of the listed substances must have special equipment and a system of wastes control preventing the set limits from being exceeded.

Until 1995 the limits were set to stabilize the levels of wastes at the level of 1990, but western ecologists say that by the year 2000 all plants will have to secure an additional 10% decrease in the amount of wastes thrown into the atmosphere, and by the year 2005 - a 20% decrease. The plants, which do not fit the new environmental protection limits, will have to pay significant penalties, which will equal the losses resulting from plants being shut down.

About 25% of investments spent on environmental protection are related to cleaning water pollution - reconstruction and creation of the new sewage cleaning installations.

While the Security Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan adopted the concept of ecological security. There are new ecological laws - on ecological expertise, on environmental protection of the specially protected areas.

But at the same time, citizens of Kazakhstan now that environmntal protection programs annually allocate up to 0,5 USD per person or up to 1,5 USD per square kilometer of territory. 20% of deaths result from poor ecological conditions. (in accordance with the project "Kazakhstan -2030")

Oil dollars must not, as slang puts it< fly like veneer over Paris. Amounts spend on ecology, want it or not, must reach 3-5% of GDP as in the countries, which currently call themselves Kazakhstan's strategic partners.