Oil shipments at risk from rising sea levels, think tank warns

Researchers have established that rising water levels pose a significant risk to the international crude oil commerce threatening the energy security of import-reliant countries like China, South Korea, and Japan. In its report, the China Water Risk (CWR) warned that while rising temperatures melt ice and cause sea levels to rise high, several crucial oil terminals and shore facilities globally will be at the receiving end.

As the CWR report highlighted the risks and impacts on global economy, the current course might lead to an irreversible rise in sea levels threatening oil terminals, international commercial navigation, coastal oil and petrochemical complexes and FEMA’s low-elevation deepwater ports of refuge. In the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s or IPCC’s 2021 report, there are projections that the world average sea level could rise more than a meter by the final year of the current century, and seriously, beyond a two-meter level.

According to the vulnerability assessment carried out by CWR, the ports and bunkering infrastructure are on low grounds and these are strategic in the oil distribution network and will suffer most from the encroaching waters. Furthermore, the growth of crude oil exporters could be in unison with a contraction of as much as 42% of the global crude oil exports including the producers such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates, thereby posing a significant threat to as much as 45% of crude oil shipments to importer nations.

The report also emphasised on the exposure of various countries including the Japan and South Korea most of which depend on the oil through some of the precautionary ports. Thus, with the steady increase in the process of oil production, that continues threatening climate and aggravating the problem of climate change.

This grim outlook stretched further by projecting that any attempt to limit global warming above the critical threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit), the sea-level rise could reach three metres and put even more port infrastructure at risk, the report said.