How quickly do we need to apply dispersants to an oil spill ?
As quickly as possible! There is only a limited “window of opportunity” to use chemical dispersant in an oil spill incident. This is primarily due to the changing properties of the spilt oil due to weathering of the oil, but is also governed by the location and speed of movement of the slick onto the foreshores or into estuarine environments. This window of opportunity may be as little as only a few hours. Sometimes if the conditions are favourable, a day or two. Therefore it is essential that the capability exists to quickly activate and deploy resources anywhere across Australia to deliver and apply oil spill dispersants at sea. The National Plan, with the assistance of the oil industry, has in place a fixed wing aerial dispersant capability along with significant stocks of Oil Spill Dispersants around the Australian coast. This aerial dispersant capability provides “at call”, commercially operated, large agricultural spray aircraft to provide the delivery of Oil Spill Dispersants du
