Dispersant Testing Requirements

The UK Government have a legal obligation to respond to pollution events, usually the first port of call is chemical dispersants and therefore it is imperative to ensure the efficacy of this is in line with international standards.

MCA hold approximately 1200 tons of chemical dispersant. This needs to be tested every 5 years to ensure the efficacy is 50% or higher. In the last 5 years less than half of our stockpile has been tested, which means we have 716 tons that still require testing, of which some of this has never been tested since its initial purchase (up to 30 years). MCA have now sorted each lot of dispersant into a batch, so that one from each batch can be tested every 5 years to save cost. This will equate to roughly 120 tests every 5 years.

The quality of the tests must be consistent with the Warren Springs Laboratory method for testing chemical dispersants.