Spills

Oil spills¹ Oil spills are defined as hydrocarbon liquid spills that reach the environment. are a critical environmental issue for our industry. Spill management is defined as the prevention of spills in operations and those caused by incidents such as sabotage or natural hazards, and the management and remediation of spills resulting from an incident. Our key commitment is to prevent spills from happening in the first place. If they do occur, we aim to reduce their impact through appropriate and fast oil spill response and clean-up.

Multiple stakeholder groups are affected by our spill management activities. Government authorities are involved through potential breaches of environmental regulations, while employees and contractors are impacted by potential health and safety issues arising from accidents and damage to the environment and society. NGOs/NPOs are interested in potential damage to the environment and society, society may suffer as a result of damage to the surrounding environment, and shareholders may have to deal with direct financial losses due to the costs of remediation measures and reputational damage.

Furthermore, as OMV is diversifying, oil spills are no longer the only spills we need to deal with. For our subsidiary Borealis, preventing pellet spills is also a key issue. Borealis is committed to achieving zero pellet loss in and around its operations, during transportation, and across the entire value chain. The company was therefore an early signatory to Operation Clean Sweep®^® (OCS), an international program initiated by the Plastics Industry Association and the American Chemistry Council and rolled out in Europe by Plastics Europe. Borealis is also a signatory of the Zero Pellet Loss pact in Austria, which is the Austrian equivalent of OCS. Achieving zero pellet loss is an ongoing journey and requires leadership, effort, investment, and targeted and effective work practices. The following section will discuss our management of oil spills. Read more about our efforts on pellet spills in the Borealis Annual Report.

Management and Due Diligence Processes

We aim to prevent and reduce oil spills and leakage in our operations at sea as well as on land. Appropriate spill prevention and control plans that account for specific business conditions have been put in place and are summarized in the Spill Preparedness and Response Planning annex of our Environmental Standard. These include proactive management plans comprising risk assessments, preventive measures, and inspections, as well as reactive management plans comprising control, response, and clean-up procedures. The majority of our oil spills involve OMV Petrom’s Exploration & Production division, where we concentrate our efforts on safeguarding and maintaining our infrastructure and improving the reliability of our facilities.

Hazard Identification and Risk Assessments

We have a Well Integrity Management System (WIMS) in place covering all active wells operated by OMV. WIMS enables a uniform and structured approach for describing, documenting, and reporting the status of the well integrity throughout the production phase of a well in a predefined operating envelope. WIMS therefore ensures that we operate our wells safely for people and the environment. OMV’s Energy division has also developed a Corrosion Management Framework (CMF) to provide a proactive and consistent approach to corrosion monitoring and management across the entire division. Covering the full life cycle of the equipment exposed to the risk of corrosion in both oil and gas facilities, from the well to the sales point, this framework encompasses the entire value chain of our business. A team of dedicated in-house experts with multi­disciplinary and multicultural backgrounds is working to embed CMF principles into everyday operations.

Emergency Response and Contingency Plans

We conduct spill responses according to a plan that identifies appropriate resources (persons in charge and intervention materials) and expertise. This plan assists on-site personnel with dealing with spills by clearly setting out the responsibilities for the actions necessary to stop and contain the spill and to mitigate its effects. This includes techniques for preventing the spill from moving beyond the immediate site and collecting the spilled substance and contaminated material. Clear communication and coordination protocols are set out in the local plans, particularly where national or international response resources may be required. We carry out regular oil spill response drills and training.

Clean-up and Remediation

Oil spills are assessed and cleaned up immediately after their occurrence in accordance with the Spill Preparedness and Response Planning Annex of our Environmental Standard. In particularly difficult cases, we rely on third-party support for capping and containment, surface clean-up, and emergency management. Leaks are repaired immediately or within defined time frames in accordance with the site’s maintenance processes and based on the risk assessment outcome and other factors, such as feasibility of repair during operation. To strengthen our response to and reduce the environmental impact of oil spills, we continue to perform emergency drills, including pollution scenarios. We approach remediation measures in line with the relevant legal requirements, which include clean-up, restoration, rehabilitation, and/or replacement of damaged environmental receptors.

We ensure that the affected land is fit for the intended use by implementing remediation measures, including cleaning up spills (e.g., by excavation and clean earth filling) as well as relying on natural attenuation (recovery) based on the respective decision of the environmental authorities. Provisions are included in our accounts for the liabilities related to spills and cover cleaning and remediation costs.

2023 Actions

Total volume of spills

In m³

In 2023, another significant spill occurred in the Exploration & Production division of OMV Petrom in Romania. Between June 4 and 5, 2023, an oil-water spill occurred downhill from a buried pumping pipeline connecting Park 11 to Tank Farm (TF) Independenta, Asset Moldova E&P. An agricultural area of 500 m² was affected. The Loss of Primary Containment (LOPC) event lasted for around 20 hours, until Monday, June 5 (10 p.m.) when the pumping was stopped. Production measurement at the Tank Farm and calculations indicated an estimated loss of 200 m³ gross oil-water volume (85 t oil and 100 m³ produced water). Lessons learned from 2022 could not prevent this spill because of the specific design and age of the pipeline. The incident was thoroughly investigated in accordance with internal regulations and the root causes were identified. All recommendations raised address the technical upgrade of pipelines with an old design as well as updating the work instructions to prevent major consequences. All measures are in the implementation phase and lessons learned are being shared and discussed within the organization.

The majority of our spills occur at OMV Petrom. In 2023, the Pipeline Integrity Management Program in the Exploration & Production division continued, and the resulting actions were embedded in the Integrated Risk Register. A total of 31 pipeline projects were executed to show our commitment to this program. The Pipeline Inspection Program also witnessed the completion of a number of successful New Technology projects, resulting in the capacity to perform inspections that were not possible in the past. These new technologies are now part of our regular inspection options and will serve to enhance pipeline integrity in the future. In addition, OMV Petrom continues to reduce the number of kilometers of pipelines through several field optimization projects, which will reduce the risk of exposure by removing numerous aging pipelines while maintaining optimal production.

The Corrosion Management Plans developed over the past few years are now fully implemented and the remaining locations are being finalized. This has helped improve the integri­ty and longevity of our pipelines through cleaning, inspection, and introduction of inhibition chemicals, along with new corrosion monitoring techniques. In our offshore asset, a large maintenance optimization project was kicked off in 2023 that will ensure all the right maintenance is being performed at the optimal intervals. This review will conclude in 2024.

Outlook

Every year, we assess any occurrences of spills and use any “lessons learned” as a basis for improving our process safety in the coming years. For the significant spill in Romania in 2023, lessons learned included reviewing the risk ranking of pipelines crossing environmentally sensitive areas, reviewing pipeline testing procedures, and reassessing the methodology for inspecting aging pipelines. In 2024, the OMV Group aims to prevent process safety events at all our sites across the globe, ultimately resulting in the reduction of spills. Read more in Process Safety.