Vergelijkend onderzoek naar voor vogelsterfte verantwoordelijke typen olie in de zuidelijke Noordzee: resultaten voorjaar 1990

This report reviews the results of chemical analysis of 282 oil samples taken in the course of a joint, EC funded project: ”Comparative investigations on oiled seabirds and oiled beaches in the Netherlands, Denmark and the Federal Republic of Germany”. The samples were taken during the first half of 1990 (Denmark 111, Germany 61, the Netherlands 110 samples), mainly from seabirds (84, 61, and 104 samples respectively). German samples were taken from Helgoland (46), Nieder Sachsen (3), and Schleswig Holstein (12), Dutch samples were taken all over the coastline, but mainly in Noord-Holland (figure 1). Bunker oil predominated in the samples (table 1), while one of the more interesting results were differences consisted in the occurrence of crude oil in the samples (NL 0x, G lx (1.6%) DK 19x (17.2%)). Lybian (5) Nigerian (2), Arabian (3) and North Sea (3) crudes were identified with certainty. The remaining 7 samples were probably North Sea crudes (2x Ekofisk?, 1x Auk?, 1x Ninian? 3x unidentified well). The representativity of the samples is discussed: attention will be focussed on ’less obvious oiled corpses’ in future. Chemical analysis was carried out by Dr G. Dahlmann and D. Timm (BSH). This is only a progress report, meant to keep the people on the beach motivated to do more sampling this winter and next season. Data should not be quoted from this report without permission from the author. More infonnation will be published in due course, when the results of a larger number of samples are available.