Asia-Pacific ASA

From 16th to 20th April Nathan Benfer attended the International Coastal Symposium held on the Gold Coast. Nathan gave a presentation outlining field measurements and interpretations he had made in a hypersaline estuarine system on the Gold Coast. The paper Nathan presented forms part of his PhD on “Design Rationale of Gated Canal Estates” of which APASA is the industry partner

Scott Langtry and Marc Zapata delivered the ASA components of a new incident management system to Maritime New Zealand in Late January, installing multiple copies of OILMAP V6, SARMAP V6 and viewer versions of this software ontop a network of workstations located in multiple centers in Wellington and Auckland. Eoin Howlett assisted in configuring ASA's Environmental Data Server to link the multiple stations and bring in external weather data.

During the month of January, Oleg Makarynskyy carried out bathymetric measurements and drogue observations within Koolan Island channel in the remote Kimberly Region of Western Australia, an area that is affected by very large tidal fluctuations. Field measurements will be used to refine hydrodynamic and discharge modelling to investigate the impact of dewatering an open-cut iron-ore mine into the channel. The study, being carried out in collaboration with Oceanica Consulting Pty., will apply ASA's HYDROMAP and MUDMAP models.

Carlos Simao travelede half-way around the world to work with the APASA team in Perth for two months of training and cultural exchange. Carlos found the experience to be a great opportunity to learn new technical skills, a new culture, and improve his English.

During 2006 Nathan Benfer spent 7 months in Far East Russia on Sakhalin Island developing an environmental resources atlas for Sakhalin Energy Investment Company's planned oil and gas operations. Whilst there Nathan also assisted with the production of the onshore and offshore Oil Spill Contingency Plans.

From 20-22 December, Sasha Zigic together with Ito Naganori from Science and Technology Japan, delivered OILMAP and conducted a training course for senior staff of Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC). JOGMEC is a Japanese government agency responsible for maintaining a stable supply of natural resources and energy, as well as supporting Japanese companies engaged in oil and gas exploration. As part of this support, the HSE Evaluation Team purchased ASA's OILMAP to check and evaluate the reliability of an EIA report, which JOGMEC may recieve from private oil companies.

Sasha Zigic visited South Korea, in November 2006, to deliver and instal OILMAPv6.0 and SARMAPv6.0 on BP's FPSO which had been built in South Korea and was due to be towed to Angola.

Sasha Zigic was a participant at the annual ConocoPhillips Indonesia Incident Management Team training held in Jakarta. Sasha presented "Fate and Effects of an Oil Spill on Water" and "Trajectory Modelling (OILMAP)". Sasha also presented "Response Trajectory Modelling" to the Incident Management Assist Team from the ConocoPhillips Asia-Pacific region. The presentations covered data requirements and various software tools that can be used for a range of marine emergencies including oil spills (surface and sub-surface), chemical spills and search and rescue.

Marc Zapata from Asia Pacific ASA's Queensland office is spending the next three months supporting the Perth office of Asia Pacific ASA.

In March, Scott Langtry delivered an OILMAP update and provided training to Woodside Energy Ltd operating within the Australian Bureau of Meterology. This system has now been in place for 4 years. As part of this update, Scott installed tidal data files to support OILMAP operations in Bass Strait, Australia.

Sasha Zigic was invited to present at the National Plan Marine Chemical Spill Response Course held in Glenelg, South Australia, 2 March. The presentation titled "Decision Support Tools for Chemical Spills - Chemical Plume and Spill Modelling" covered ASA's hydrodynamic (HYDROMAP) and chemical (CHEMMAP) models and their use for planning and response. Following the presentation, CHEMMAP was used as part of desktop exercise to examine the potential impacts from a hypothetical styrene spill at the mouth of Bass Strait.

In February, Scott Langtry gave a briefing on the SARMAP model to the Western Australian Water Police, as a follow-up to assistance provided with that model by Asia Pacific ASA to locate an elderly couple lost at sea off metropolitan Perth.

Sasha Zigic, Scott Langtry and Nathan Benfer assisted Western Australian Water Police with their search and rescue efforts, 5-7 January 2005. Numerical modelling was undertaken to locate an elderly couple that went missing after they set off in their small inflatable raft from Rottnest Island, Western Australia, to paddle out to their yacht moored only 60 meters offshore. At 17:30 on the 4th of January a crayfisherman discovered the raft floating empty. The location of the raft was then compared with the model predicted search area and it was found to be contained within its limits. Since the persons were still lost at sea, a number of release sites were added along th dingy track line from the previous simulation. The release sites were run simultaneously and a search area was created to encompass all possible locations of the missing persons. This predicted search area was then used by the Western Australian Water Police as part of their search.

Eoin Howlett visited ASA's office in the Gold Coast, Australia, 4-7 December. Eoin spent a few days working on soem joint projects with Brian King, Sasha Zigic and Marc Zapata, including design of an ArcGIS extension for the Australian Navy.

Scott Langtry traveled through Papua, New Guinea, 15-22 Nov. to review fuel, oil and chemical handling procedures followed by Ok Tedi Mining Limited, who operate the Ok Tedi gold and copper mine in the Western Province of Papua, New Guinea. APASA is applying BF-HYDRO and HYDROMAP to model water circulation along the Fly River and in the Gulf of Papua, respectively. OILMAP, SIMAP and CHEMMAP are being applied in stochastic mode to quantify social and environment risks from defined spill scenarios.

Asia Pacific's premier marine environmental pollution prevention and response conference, Spillcon, was held in Brisbane, Australia, 23 - 27 August. Brian King, Marc Zapata and Sasha Zigic shared a booth with John Leeder, Bill Stavropoulos and Rean Monfils from Leeder Consulting, and provided information about our various services. The conference was considered a great success with approximately 250 delegates from around the globe.

Sasha Zigic presented a paper "Modelling the 3-dimensional flow between the Nerang River Estuary and Burleigh Lakes system, Gold Coast" at the 8th National Conference on Hydraulics in Water Engineering, Gold Coast on the 16th July 2004.

In the first week of July Sasha Zigic provided Greg Terrens, Sarah Sheales and Katrina Kaufman from ESSO Australia with an intensive 1-day OILMAP training course. The training course exercises provided hands on experience for emergency response and contingency planning for their various operations around Victoria.

Kathy Sheridan presented the results of the Port Walcott Oil Spill Risk Assessment study to the Western Australian Department for Planning and Infrastructure (DPI). HYDROMAP and SIMAP were used to estimate the rate of spread of a possible oil spill, and results were added to the WA Oil Spill Response Atlas to help guide spill response.

As part of the technology transfer, 8 senior The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) staff (Trevor Gilbert, Peter Hadrill, Tracey Baxter, Karen Shaw, Shane Wilde, Paul Nelson, Keith Brown & Lisa Holman), underwent a three day intensive HYDROMAP and OILMAP training course from the 28-30 June, carried out by Sasha Zigic and Marc Zapata. See story in Articles for more details on the technology transfer.

Results of modeling for a proposed major port facility in Cockburn Sound, Western Australia, were presented to the Fremantle Port Authority by Scott Langtry on 10th June. The modeling, which was carried out by Scott Langtry, Sasha Zigic and Kathy Sheridan of Asia Pacific ASA using WQMAP, compared local and regional-scale impacts of 5 conceptual designs for an artificial island in terms of circulation and flushing.

At the invitation of ConocoPhillips Indonesia, Scott Langtry of Asia Pacific ASA gave a presentation on 5 May, in Jakarta, to the company's Crisis Management team on the behaviour of oil on the sea, which was followed by a demonstration of how the OILMAP and SARMAP software can greatly assist with forecasting this behavior for effective emergency response. The presentation formed part of a three-day training program that involved response exercises to a range of marine emergencies, which made use of the HYDROMAP, OILMAP and SARMAP models as well as automatic data links to weather forecasts through COASTMAP.

Sasha Zigic participated in the National Environmental and Scientific Coordinators (ESC) workshop in Tasmania, Australia, 10 & 11th March, 2004. ESC's from around Australia attended the workshop along with other environmental personnel from Defense, the oil industry and other government agencies, to address various issues relating to marine incident response, including advances in modelling tools. As part of the workshop Sasha also presented a paper on the various ASA commercial hydrodynamic (HYDROMAP & BFHYDRO) and spill (OILMAP, SIMAP & CHEMMAP) management tools available to an ESC, to address issues relating to marine incident response with a view to minimizing damage to the coastal and marine environments.

Sasha Zigic and Brian King were the keynote speakers at an "Offshore Drilling Workshop" organized by International Environmental Management Co. Ltd in Bangkok, Thailand. The purpose of the workshop was to provide a forum in which personnel from government agencies and the oil industry could raise and address questions about ASA's sediment and solute model, MUDMAP, which has/is used extensively to simulate mud and cuttings discharges into the Gulf of Thailand.

Thailand's Pollution Control Department (PCD) and Chulalongkorn University recently purchased ASA's oil spill model, OILMAP for Arcview, to assist in planning and emergency decision making for the Gulf of Thailand. Ten of the PCD staff underwent an intensive three-day training course carried out by members of the Asia-Pacific office, Sasha Zigic and Brian King. The training course provided a thorough understanding of how the OILMAP for Arcview system in conjunction with PCD's extensive Arcview GIS database can be used for spill exercises, response and as a prosecution tool in the event of a spill. The Gulf of Thailand is a semi-enclosed sea, measuring approximately 400km by 800km, covering an area of about 320,000 square kilometers. Millions of people derive their livelihood from fish and mineral resources produced from the Gulf, and millions more can/are affected by changes in the environment of the Gulf.

East Asia Response Private Limited (EARL) is an international Tier Three Oil Spill Response Centre established in 1993 to provide rapid and efficient response to oil spill incidents in the Asia-Pacific region. EARL responds to oil spills with equipment and specialist staff to combat spills and provide technical support. EARL recently purchased ASA's oil spill model (OILMAP) to assist with tracking the weathering and movement of the spilled oil to assist the on-scene responders. Mr. Sasha Zigic from our Australian office, gave a three day OILMAP training session to 11 of EARL's personnel between the 15-17 October 2002.

Sasha Zigic of Asia Pacific ASA traveled from Australia through ASA's home office in Rhode Island and on to Atyrau, Kazakhstan during the week of 10 June to give OILMAP training to three AGIP Kazakhstan North Caspian Operating Company personnel. Atyrau is on the Ural River at the north end of the Caspian Sea. The trainees for the two day workshop were: Rick McCubbin, Head of Environmental Engineering, Greg Wabanski, Oil Spill project Manager, and Mark Sheppard, Oil spill coordinator. We are now upgrading the model system to include new bathymetry generated by the client, remotely sensed locations of reed beds in the North Caspian, and updated wind-forced hydrodynamics. Sasha will be returning next month to complete the training.

Sasha Zigic traveled to Tokyo in mid-June to give a lecture on water quality modeling to Science & Technology environmental managers. The purpose of the lecture series was to present the theory and typical applications of ASA's WQMAP system within Japan's waters.

As part of ASA’s global expansion, Asia-Pacific Applied Science Associates is pleased to announce a new office on Australia’s west coast. The new office is located in the heart of Perth (capital of Western Australia) and was created to serve our present and potential clients. It is operated by Scott Langtry, Director of Operations, and Kathy Sheridan and will be supported by Brian King, Sasha Zigic and Marc Zapata from the east coast.

Sasha Zigic spent five weeks in Japan during April and the start of May. Sasha worked on various projects, including setting up a hydrodynamic model of Tokyo Bay in collaboration with the staff from Science and Technology (SAT) and Marine Biological Research Institute of Japan (MBRIJ). During this time, Sasha also spent a weekend away with his colleagues from SAT and MBRIJ as part of their staff trip. On this trip, he experienced many interesting and enjoyable facets of Japanese food and culture including a trip to an Onsen (Japanese hot baths) and karaoke.

Sasha Zigic spent the month of January in Rhode Island working with us on various projects. Sasha also performed research for his PhD studies; the integration of culvert and lock structures into a hydrodynamic and water quality model. By incorporating the culvert and lock routines within WQMAP, researchers can examine the influence lock structures have on water quality.

Eoin Howlett, Sasha Zigic and Brian King travelled to Perth, Western Australia in early May for a SIMAP training session with environmental managers Libby Howitt from Apache Energy and Scott Langtry from GEMS (WA). Shown (from left to right) are trainers and intrepid SIMAP trainees: Libby, Sasha, Brian, Eva Stejskal (environmental manager for Apache), Scott and Eoin.

Sasha Zigic of Asia-Pacific ASA presented a paper Mixing in a River System Downstream of a Biodirectional Tidal Exchange System at the 13th ASCE Enginnering Mechanics Conference in June 1999.

Brian King and Scott Langtry of Asia-Pacific ASA presented a paper Computer Simulations of Platform Discharges at the Petroleum Industry Workshop on Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials on 4 August. The workshop was sponsored by the Department of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia.