Port congestion could be the cause of an oil spill in California

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A relentless maritime standoff in waters outside Los Angeles has already contributed to higher costs, delays and intermittent shortages of goods in the United States.

While the official cause of a ruptured pipeline that spilled up to 3,000 barrels of crude oil into the ocean off Orange County is not confirmed, preliminary reports indicate that an anchor may have hang the pipeline, tearing the metal. About 4,000 feet of the pipeline had been moved 105 feet from its original position and divers found a 13-inch crack in the line that is likely the source of the release, the Coast Guard said.

The pipeline has been pulled like a rope, Martyn Willsher, CEO of line operator Amplify Energy Corp., said in a briefing this week. This is a 16 inch steel pipeline that is half an inch thick and covered with an inch of concrete, and it is not common to move it 105 feet.

The volume of oil that has flowed from the leak is subject to downward revision, Willsher said on Oct. 6. About 5,000 gallons have already been recovered, according to the US Coast Guard.

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The spill discovered over the weekend, which has tainted nearby wetlands and closed popular beaches along the Orange County coast, came at a time when there is a near-record save of ships waiting off Southern California ports. Huge ships line up to unload containers of cargo to meet burgeoning American demand for everything from building materials to bicycles. The lack of truck drivers and the lack of available warehouse space are slowing down deliveries.

The more ships you have at anchor, the greater the chance of something happening, said Paul Blomerus, executive director of the Clear Seas Center for Responsible Marine Shipping, based in Vancouver, B.C. There are a few examples of anchors that have hooked up critical infrastructure in the past, including power cables, he said.

Such accidents are rare, according to the Clear Seas research group. In 2017, in two separate incidents in January and April, ship anchors hung power cables in Vancouver, the organization said.

On October 4, as workers rushed to contain the southward drift of crude oil from the pipeline incident, 146 ships, nearly two-thirds of which were container ships, were anchored or berthed in ports. of Los Angeles and Long Beach, near the record set at the end of last month, according to the Marine Exchange of Southern California, which monitors maritime traffic off the coast. Nine of the 10 so-called emergency anchorages off Huntington Beach, near where the pipeline breach occurred, were occupied and 33 vessels were drifting in waters deeper in the ocean.

READ MORE: California offshore industry under fire after oil spill

Critical infrastructure such as submarine pipelines are carefully marked on nautical charts so that ships can steer clear. But ships can sometimes drag their anchors when moving for a number of reasons, said James Kipling Louttit, executive director of Marine Exchanges, Oct.6. with maritime traffic. Spokesmen for the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports also said the spill had no impact on their operations.

The oil spill was first discovered on October 2 after a low pressure alarm on the pipeline sounded around 2:30 a.m.

Satellite imagery shows what appeared to be an oil slick forming at 10:58 p.m. on October 1, according to John Amos, president of SkyTruth, an environmental watch group that tracks incidents in the oil and gas industry .

What could be causing this kind of sudden high volume output? Amos said in a Zoom interview. An anchor strike.

With assistance from John Gittelsohn and Sarah McGregor.

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