Fairhaven Chapter 8
Platform
Read Chapter 7 here
4.00 pm, Tuesday, May 11, 2027
Oil Platform – Natuna Sea
Global average temperature: 1.7°C above pre-industrial levels
‘Yes, I’m calling you from an oil platform!’ Adam Park shouted in Korean. His wife’s voice was strong, considering that the signal was coming all the way from their home town in Seoul. It had travelled to a satellite somewhere above before returning to the clunky device he held in his hand. ‘The insurance company called us to inspect it, after a pirate attack.’
‘Did you say pirates?’
‘Yes, pirates.’
He waited a moment for her to react, which she did with shocked silence, before continuing. ‘They hijacked a coaster out of China with a mixed cargo of bagged fertiliser. They needed a crane to move the bags to their own vessel, so they tried to use the one on an idle oil platform. But the crane driver was inexperienced and in a hurry, so they dropped ten tons of bags on the edge of their barge.’
‘Did you see this? Are you safe?’
‘I’m fine. This all happened before we got here. We’re dealing with the aftermath.’
‘What aftermath?’
‘The barge started to sink. And it was attached with a wire hawser to a side bollard on the coaster,’ – he used the English words – ‘and it took the ship down with it. So now a barge and a coaster with 2,000 tons of fertiliser are jammed against the legs of the platform. The cargo was worth almost two million dollars.’
‘This is terrible. If the pirates can be caught, I think they should go to jail for life.’
‘I agree. Darling, do not worry about me. The pirates are already gone. They fled away in their speedboat, once they realised what was happening. No one will see them here for a long time.’
At a sharp glance from the insurance man, he gave a warm goodbye, ended the expensive conversation, and surveyed the situation in front of him.
Oil still spotted the surface of the water.
To the left of the rusty stairs was a designated smoking corner, where three workers were gazing at the moody sea as they puffed. Adam knew that despite the thought of the platform burning with them aboard, nicotine addiction was too powerful for a complete smoking ban.
Cormorants had made the lower deck their home; it stank of fish and guano.
Adam had been on the platform for two days when a government marine biologist arrived by helicopter, wearing her own hard hat and steel-toed boots. She shook her head as she looked down through the gratings at the capsized hulk.
‘Tengku Marina Zainal. I’ll be looking after this one.’
‘Adam Park. Our team runs the Remote Operated Vehicle.’
She nodded. ‘The good news is that only one hatch on the coaster was open, so most of the fertiliser is trapped inside. The bad news is that it’s still dissolving into the sea.’
The fertiliser, combined with the water in the hold, had formed a solution as wet and mushy as a dish of overcooked kangkung belacan. It seeped through the hatch and oozed along the dark seabed.
Tengku Marina brooded as she leaned on the peeling railing. ‘We need to stop the leaking, or we’ll have an algal bloom worse than anything we’ve ever seen.’
She stood upright, in the manner of someone who expected those around her to defer, and spoke to the waiting salvage crew. ‘Get some rest, men. As of tomorrow morning, you all work for me.’
Adam, who preferred to receive his instructions through official channels, wanted to ask whether the insurance company had agreed. But her demeanour brooked no objection.
Indeed, an email from General Oceanic early the following morning confirmed the new assignment. Tengku Marina was already shouting orders to insert a large hose in the ship’s hold, to pump out the seawater and spray it onto the surface of the sea.
‘We want to measure how much nutrient has been added to the ocean, and what it was. There are several types of fertiliser in there, and I estimate that about one ton is dissolving every day.’
Several hours later, Adam’s ROV was easing a long hose, attached to its grabbing clamp, into the hold of the distressed vessel. A magnetic anchor fixed the hose to the far end of the hold. However, on its return to the platform, the ROV became enmeshed in a wad of loose bags and tarpaulins.
‘Ho! Stop that thing!’ shouted Tengku Marina.
Shuffling back and forth, the crew attempted to ease the ROV out of the hold. It was stuck.
‘Can’t we just winch it?’ someone asked.
Adam shook his head. The standing instructions would never permit it. ‘We will lose the ROV!’ he cried. But after a sharp look from Tengku Marina, the crew engaged the winch.
As they pried the mess through the hatch bit by bit, like a plumber unclogging a toilet, a massive, white plume burst out into the sea along with it.
Adam gaped. ‘What is that?’
‘Entrained fertiliser. 100 tons. Maybe twice that,’ commented his flabbergasted crewmate.
Tengku Marina’s face wore a curious expression as she watched the disaster unfold with agonising languor, the enormous plume feathering into the sea.
‘This is bad. This is very bad. But I’m a scientist. I measure things. As long as it’s happening, we should at least record the results.’
Adam approached her with caution. ‘We should report it, right? What shall we do?’
‘Right now, we need satellite data. We need glide drones. And we need information. I’ve got to go make a few calls.’
‘And my crew?’
‘Find out what was in that hold! I need the cargo manifest.’
‘The owner is waiting for approval from their senior management. We must follow the correct procedure. It may take time.’
‘There is no correct procedure for this situation. Just get it done.’
11.00 am, Tuesday, June 1, 2027
Oil Platform – Natuna Sea
Two more lab technicians and an additional oil field crew member came on board within the week. In the meantime, Tengku Marina called in every favour she could – from former students, colleagues, and ex-husbands of ex-girlfriends – to get access to satellites, drones, submarines, remote submersibles, and any other available observation equipment.
The team took hundreds of samples from around the platform and in nearby waters, using discarded water bottles until they ran out. Two days away from the platform, the transmitted images showed long, straight lines of algae, growing thicker as they left the immediate area, before eventually dissipating. The plume was also visible in the satellite images.
‘This and the Great Wall of China,’ commented one of the new lab techs to Adam, resigned. ‘The only man-made structures you can see from space.’
‘First, that’s not true,’ retorted Tengku Marina from behind them. Adam and the lab tech whirled. ‘Chinese astronauts reported back in 2005 that they couldn’t see the Great Wall. But there’s another reason all this activity is going on. This awful plume of fertiliser we’ve created is allowing us to do something unprecedented: we can conduct a large-scale, long-term baseline trial on the effectiveness of ocean nutrification, both for ocean restoration and for carbon sequestration. This is what might take our Sea Orchards program to the next level.’
‘I thought you said the plume will kill everything?’
‘Well, it might. That’s why a trial like this would never be approved if we applied for it, and never with this quantity of fertiliser. But it would be wasteful not to learn from the event, now that it has occurred. And as long as we can get that original manifest to check the details, we can do it properly.’
‘You said “long term”,’ Adam observed with a frown. ‘How long?’
‘I’ve talked to the insurer, General Oceanic. You’ll represent them, since they are now the ship owner. They’ll need your ROV services for most of the coming year. You’ll get two weeks off every four months, plus a bonus for project completion. I’ve secured additional funding from a … family source.’
A full year. Adam nodded as he took in the new information, mentally composing an email to his wife.
Read Chapter 9 here