Over the last two weeks, the maritime world has watched with horror as a tragedy has unfolded in the East China Sea. A massive Iranian tanker, the Sanchi, collided with a Chinese freighter carrying grain. Damaged and adrift, the tanker caught on fire, burned for more than a week, and sank. All 32 crew members are presumed dead.
过去两周，海洋世界恐惧地注视着中国东海发生的悲剧。一艘大型伊朗油轮桑吉号同装有粮食的中国货船相撞。油轮受损着火，在海上漂浮着燃烧了一周多后沉没了。所有32名海员预计死亡。
Meanwhile, Chinese authorities and environmental groups have been trying to understand the environmental threat posed by the million barrels of hydrocarbons that the tanker was carrying. Because the Sanchi was not carrying crude oil, but rather condensate, a liquid by-product of natural gas and some kinds of oil production. According to Alex Hunt, a technical manager at the London-based International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation, which assists with oil spills across the world, there has never been a condensate spill like this.
同时，中国当局和环保组织试图了解油轮上数百万桶碳氢化合物带来的环境威胁。因为桑吉运载的并非原油，而是凝析油，这是天然气和某些原油生产的液态副产品。伦敦国际油轮所有者污染联合会技术经理艾利克斯·亨特说，以前从未发生过凝析油泄露。亨特协助处理全世界各处的漏油。
“It’s typical for us to attend approximately 20 shipping incidents a year and we’ve been doing this for 50 years,” Hunt says. “There have been other condensate spills, but this is the first condensate spill of this magnitude that we’ve dealt with, which gives you an impression of how rare cases like this are.”
“我们每年要处理约20起航运事故，做了有五十年，”亨特说。“也见过凝析油泄露发生，但这种规模的我们还是第一次见到，给你的印象是，这种事实在罕见。”
While it might seem that all oil spills would at least be similar, in this case that is not true. Underground, crude is a liquid you can pump. Condensate, on the other hand, is a gas amid the heat and pressure down there. Bring it up to the surface and it condenses into liquid. This liquid is made of hydrocarbons like crude—and is sometimes classed as a form of it—but contains a different mix of molecules than other crude oils.
看起来好像漏油都差不多，这次却不一样。地下的原油是液体，你必须抽上来。受热的凝析油却是气体，被压在下面。将其带到地面上后凝析成液体。这种液体由类似原油的碳氢化合物组成，有时被称为原油的一种，但和其他原油的分子构成不同。
That mix is substantially lighter, containing more small, simple molecules and fewer large, complex molecules. This composition—and the composition of any form of petroleum—is highly significant for the refiners who turn raw petroleum products into refined fuels and chemicals that they sell. But, in this case, the properties are salient to the disaster and the environmental aftermath.
那种混合物更轻，含有更小、更简单的分子，较少有大的、复杂的分子。这种组分以及各种成品油的组分对于要把原油产品制成精炼油和化学品出售的炼油商而言非常重要。但在这次事件中，那显然成了灾难，将对环境造成恶果。
In technical terms, condensate is primarily made up of alkanes, which you’ve probably encountered a few of in the past when you’re looking for something to burn: methane, propane, butane, and the octane of high-octane gasoline.
Condensate, as you might expect, is highly flammable, which explains the towering flames that are visible in some photographs and video of the incident. It’s also very low-density. It has a specific gravity that is much, much lower than water, which means that it almost certainly is going to rise to the surface after it is leaked, Hunt says.
从技术上讲，凝练油主要由烷烃构成，你在烧东西的时候可能会用到一些：甲烷、丙烷、丁烷以及高辛烷汽油中的辛烷。正如你所料，凝析油高度易燃，这就解释了有些照片和视频中熊熊烈火的原因。它的密度也非常低，其比重比水低很多，这意味着泄露后肯定会浮在水面上，亨特说。
“[There is] the classic image of a spill at sea—black oil floating on the water, people attempting to use booms and skimmers or to use dispersants,” he says. “In a case like this, a product like this, those techniques would not be recommended. It’s flammable so you wouldn’t want to contain it, or use a skimmer to recover it, because then you are risking a fire.” There have also been some reports that the condensate might dissolve in water and travel vast distances. Hunt does not think that is likely, saying the substance’s water solubility is very low.
“传统海上原油泄露的样子是黑黢黢的油漂在水上，人们用防油栅和撇油器，或使用化油剂，”他说。“这种情形，这种油品，都不会推荐使用这种技术。因为易燃，所以你不能围住它，也不能用撇油器回收，有可能会着火。”也有报道称，凝析油可能会溶于水，散播到很远的地方。亨特认为这不可能，表示其水溶性很差。
While studies of condensate’s environmental effects are limited, one lab study found that its toxicity to corals, for example, was greater than expected based on its molecular components.
凝析油的环境影响的相关研究很少，但一个实验室研究发现，就其分子构成而言，对珊瑚的影响会比预想得大。
In the best-case scenario, the fuel will come to the surface in a slick that is massive but thousandths-of-millimeters thin. From there, it would evaporate into the atmosphere. However, as Richard Steiner, an Alaska-based environmental consultant, told BuzzFeed News, “there’s a lot we don’t know about a major condensate spill since we’ve never seen one.” He described a scenario where there was an “invisible, subsurface toxic plume that is spreading outward from the site.”
最好的情形，燃料会浮在表面，遍布面积广，但只有几毫米厚，然后蒸发到空气中。然而阿拉斯加州一位环境咨询师对BuzzFeed新闻说，“重大凝析油泄露，我们所知甚少，毕竟从来没见过。”他描述了一种情形，“表面下有看不到的毒流散播开来”。
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