Deploying hydrocarbon monitoring technologies in the 2019 NOFO oil-on-water field exercise

The Norwegian Clean Seas Association for Operating Companies (NOFO), conducts an annual oil-on-water exercise (OOW), which allows oil to be released to open waters. This exercise provides a precious opportunity for testing and validation of oil spill response technologies in a real spill situation. CSIRO was invited by the Norwegian Meteorological Institute (MET) to join the 2019 NOFO OOW monitoring campaign and provide in situ measurement of oil in water with our CSIRO-developed monitoring equipment (the Oil Fish and the Water Column Profiler) to validate oil migration models. This is the first time an Australian organisation has participated in this internationally recognised field event. The monitoring campaign involved participation of researchers from eight organisations and the utilisation of over 10 different monitoring technologies. The present paper will present CSIRO field experience about participating in the exercise, the monitoring activities undertaken and results, and discusses the applicability of knowledge obtained to environmental and oil-exploration monitoring surveys in Australian waters.