On the advice of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India, Indian Oil’s R&D Centre is taking action in the containment of the oil spill that occurred near Ennore Port at Chennai recently, where two ships had collided.
The R&D Centre has deployed an effective and non-hazardous bio-remediation process named Oilivorous-STM which was developed by the Centre to deal with such onshore oil spills. The technology involves use of identified microbes, which when administered to the oil spills with specific nutrients, eat away the oil and sludge, leaving the soil completely oil-free and harmless. In the past, this technology was successfully employed to remediate oil spills that occurred on Mumbai coast in the year 2010 due to collision between two ships.
On advice from the Ministry, two expert scientists from Indian Oil’s R&D Centre were sent to coordinate with the local agencies ie Ennore Port Trust and Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board to effectively deal with the spillage through the bio-remediation process. The requisite quantity of identified microbes and nutrients prepared at the R&D Centre have already been air-lifted and positioned at the treatment site.
A pit of size 15 metres x 200 metres x 1 foot is under preparation at an identified location at Kamarajar port. Work is underway to treat the recovered oil and sludge from the spill. It is expected that, with this treatment, the recovered oil sludge will be completely bio-remediated within a span of 6 to 10 weeks.