How does oil and gas behave when released in deepwater?

Deepwater oil and gas releases have come to greater attention of the scientists as well as general public in the recent past, especially after the Deepwater Horizon spill in Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In this short paper we show the general behavior of an oil and gas spill in deepwater. A model, CDOG, developed by Zheng et al. (2003) and had undergone successive improvements is used for the simulations to illustrate the oil behavior. The impact of the oil droplet sizes are demonstrated. Although cases are not specific to a particular spill, through the use of a state-of-the-art model, we show the key parameters that affect the behavior of oil. In this paper we show oil and gas behavior that has not been clearly explained in previous papers and address newly found concerns brought on by the recent awareness. This paper also shows how the oil behavior changes when additives like dispersants are applied. Results of the simulations reveal that the “underwater plumes” with low concentrations of oil can be formed and stay submerged for long periods of time when very small (less than 0.5 mm in diameter) oil droplets are present.

► Behavior of oil and gas when released in deepwater explained.
► Formation of underwater plumes explained.
► Fate of gas released with oil explained.
► Oil plume behavior due to addition of oil dispersants demonstrated.
► Impact of oil droplet sizes on the plume underwater resident time explained.