Bangkok Post March 7 1999


ENVIRONMENT

Warning of mercury contamination in sea
Oil rigs the culprit, says marine scientist

Kanittha Inchukul

A marine scientist has warned of transboundary mercury contamination from petroleum drilling in neighbouring waters that would affect marine life in the Gulf of Thailand.

Aquatic Resources Research Institute director Piamsak Menasveta raised the alarm to a hundred participants at a seminar on pollution organised by Environmental Research and Training Center and Earth, Water and Green Foundation of Japan.

Mercury substance was first found in petroleum drilled from the Gulf many years ago and the offshore gas production units have discharged mercury-contaminated produced water into the sea resulting in the increase of this heavy metal in fish around platforms.

Such an incident could occur with other gas production units in Cambodian and Vietnamese waters unless preventive measures are implemented, he said. He urged the government to keep watch on this problem, citing the detection by Chulalongkorn University scientists of high level of mercury in seawater suspected to come from neighbouring waters.

Prof Piamsak said that some fish species such as mackarel inhabits Vietnamese waters but has to migrate to the Gulf to lay eggs. The fish, he added, were caught and eaten by Thai people.

The latest report of ARRI shows less contamination in fish around the platforms after the largest petroleum concessionaire in the Gulf implemented measures to curb the pollution.

"The trend of the contamination in fish around platforms has been decreased from 0.28 microgrammes/gramme of fish wet weight in 1997 to 0.18 mcg/g in 1998. However, the monitoring programme has to be continued for several years in order to confirm the result," Prof Piamsak said.

This contamination level is lower than the standard of the World Health Organisation at 0.5 mcg/g.

The decrease confirmed that the main source of mercury offshore is from the petroleum industry, the professor said.

According to Unocal's senior production engineer Sutus Tussaneyakul, the company has injected water contaminated with mercury into the depleted gas wells of Erawan platform while implementing the mercury removal process at three platforms including Satun, Funan and Platong.

Eight Unocal platforms generate 7.2 million litres of water daily in 1998 and it is expected that the volume of water will be increased to 11.9 million litres per day in the next two years.



Comments to: Webmaster

Return to
SAANTI DHARMA
Current Issue
Return to
SAANTI DHARMA
Archive