ABSTRACT

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The Development and Test of Techniques for Emergency Transfer of Extreme Viscosity Oil

Two of the most widely used heavy oil spill transfer pumps on the spill response market have previously been tested on refloated bitumen originating from a tank test spill of Orimulsion®. At 14 – 18 °C they both had difficulties transferring the extremely viscous product from pump inlet to pump discharge, meaning that feeding the product into the pump inlet showed difficult and/or the pressure/friction losses inside the pump itself could barely be overcome. It was therefore deemed necessary to test existing and new techniques which might improve the pumps’ ability to transfer bitumen. Unless the problem could be overcome, a large number of otherwise bitumen capable mechanical feeder skimmers could be considered unsuitable in the preparedness for spills of Orimulsion®. This presentation includes the data and summaries from a series of tests at DESMI’s test facility in Aalborg, Denmark, in the period 2001-02-20 to 2001-03-01.

F. Hvidbak - flemingCo environmental aps 

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