Oil spill IRIS - Biomiljø

Oil Spills / Cold Water ( Arctic and Deep sea)

Spill remediation ( 2008 – 2009)
IRIS Biomiljø and Biologge AS started in 2008 a 2-year project.The project is part of oil companies’ work to improve coastal and shoreline oil spill response, with particular focus on cold waters and arctic areas. The project goal is to develop products for increased microbial degradation of petroleum oil spills across open-water surfaces.

Arctic Effects ( 2007 – 2008)
Study of the long term effects on the Arctic ecosystem from accidental discharges. The project aims at investigating the possible long term effects of oil drifting in the arctic ice fauna. Biomarkers have been used to document the effects.
Financing: The Research Council of Norway

NDP - Norwegian Deep Water Programme ( 2003-2007)
The project was financed by an oil company consortium. The objective was to develop knowledge and capacity to assess environmental risk of e&p operations in deep sea areas, in order to provide decision support. Important focus was put on deep sea specific factors like low temperature and high pressure, and risk aspects were compared at shallow and deep sea conditions. The key question was if existing principles/tools for environmental risk assessment can be used for deep sea oil activities and what would be additional needs?
The project was divided into activities studying:

Physical/chemical fate: Plume behaviour from deep water blowouts.
Bioavailability: Uptake of PAH
Biodegradation: Biodegradation data of oil at different pressures
Valuable ecological components & target resources: Identification and pre-test of animals for effect studies.
Biological uptake and effects: Effect studies. Exposure of animals at high pressure in a continuous flow system in order to determine uptake and effect.

NDP Deep water degradation
The objective of the project has been to establish knowledge and the importance of pressure and low temperature on the biodegradation potential of microorganisms in the marine environment.

Offshore environmental monitoring in West-Africa ( 1999-2004)
Special focus has been on fundamental understanding of the deep-sea ecosystem, including cold seep communities, of the West African continental margin. IRIS has in addition established baseline level of biomarkers in native fish and megafauna both in areas with oil production activity and in pristine areas offshore Gabon, Congo and Angola in collaboration with IFREMER for Total. During the period 1999-2004 IRIS participated with biomarker investigations in 6 different environmental surveys in the area.

Coldwater programme ( 1999-2001)
Development of methods for monitoring biological effects of oil related activities in cold waters, either in deep water or in the Arctic. Since marine species in cold water can be particularly vulnerable to pollution, and in addition little is known about deep water ecosystems, a biological effect monitoring approach has been chosen to develop sensitive methods to monitor these areas.

Eureka Project BIOREN ( 1992 – 1998)
The objective of this 6 year programme was to develop new formulations for enhanced oil biodegradation (bioremediation) of oil spills in shorelines, at environmental conditions ranging from temperate to arctic. The project involved experimental studies in various systems including laboratory tests and field experiments.

ECOPEL ( 2002-2003)
The Erika oil spill affected a large area along the western coastline of France. Following this, the – French Ministry of Research initiated RITMER, a network for research and technological innovation on accidental marine pollution events and their ecological consequences. Within this context IRIS Biomiljø participated in a 2-year project, ECOPEL, managed by CEDRE in France. The main objective of ECOPEL was to contribute to the revision of the GESAMP-Marpol and European classifications, mostly from a physico-chemical point of view, through an experimental approach, consisting of tests with several chemicals using realistic conditions and partly carried out at a pilot scale (floating mesocosm unit deployed at sea). IRIS conducted laboratory experiments in continuous flow conditions with marine organisms (mussels and fish) exposed to styrene. Several biomarkers were measured and their suitability as biomonitoring tools for chemical spill was evaluated.

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