Risk Management Literature review Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3250 words

Risk Management - Literature review Example The nature of oil spillage risk in oil exploration program The oil industry is concerned with a long history of spills on the North Slope and the probability of future spills is high. Indeed, there has been an oil spillage once a day, on average, from the time when gas and oil development began on the North Slope. Many of the tragedy involved pipelines, and improvement in the Chukchi and Beaufort would result in setting a connection of pipelines from wells to shore, till 75 miles away. In order to make the subject worse, ocean currents move the chemicals and oil hundreds of miles. Further, in the Arctic Ocean, cleaning up oil spills would lead to enormous challenges. Suppression and recovery at sea hardly ever leads to the removal of more than a comparatively small fraction of a large oil spill, i.e. only 10-15% and often significantly less. Till date, no technology subsists in order to clean up oil in the sea ice circumstances and late-season spills would stay behind until the following year. Furthermore, cold water splits down oil much more slowly than the warm water. Another impediment is the lack of infrastructure for quick reaction to a spillage. Climate change has considerably weakened the basis on which Arctic ecosystems function. Most important industrialization would add to the challenges faced by phytoplankton, at the bottom of the food chain and would generate a series of other problems. Species mainly at risk include polar bear, walruses, ringed seals, beluga and bowhead whales and coastal birds.