Alternative Oil Spill Occurrence Estimators for Determining Rates for the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) uses oil spill occurrence estimates for National Environmental Policy Act environmental analyses of hypothetical offshore development scenarios resulting from the potential lease sales for the Atlantic Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). This study updated historical oil spill rate for the GOM planning area and developed methodology and generated spill statistics to be used in future assessments of the Atlantic OCS planning areas. This included: Assimilation of the most current data for oil spills in the US Gulf of Mexico (GOM) OCS from pipelines, platforms, and wells; analysis of the data to provide spill rates for the Atlantic OCS; and application of the rates in scenario projections of the Atlantic OCS. The study generated statistics for oil spills in the US GOM OCS from 1974 to 2019, quantified spill occurrence rates for an extreme case using the Extreme Value Analysis and Power Law Analysis, and developed a spill rate methodology to compute occurrence rates for the Atlantic OCS region.

USD: $363,259

2019-09-14 → 2022-03-22