OIL SPILL PREPAREDNESS ASSURANCE IN A POST MACONDO WORLD

Abstract

ABSTRACT The increased public awareness of oil spills and their impacts following the 2010 Macondo oil spill incident along with the changing global landscape of regulatory requirements and stakeholder expectations present numerous challenges to operators. Many of these challenges, as well as incorporation of lessons learned from Macondo, can be addressed through robust preparedness. Oil spill preparedness programs generally include a combination of response plans, incident management and response teams, response equipment and personnel (resources), training and exercises. However, what constitutes a robust preparedness program is often open to interpretation. While acknowledging the availability of a few preparedness assessment/audit tools, such as RETOS, it was felt a fit for purpose assurance program that facilitated open communication, free exchange of ideas and sharing of best practices would result in a greater overall improvement to the company’s global level of preparedness. Consequently, ConocoPhillips retained Oil Spill Response Ltd. (OSRL) to assist in developing a process and methodology for evaluating ConocoPhillips’ existing oil spill preparedness programs. The evaluations were conducted at nine business units (BUs) in various countries whose operations ranged from deepwater exploration and production to onshore production to tanker operations. The main objective of this project was to achieve a high and consistent level of global preparedness through the identification of potential gaps in each BU’s preparedness program and implementation of associated improvement plans. The preparedness assurance process consisted of several components including:Detailed review of the oil spill/emergency response plans to evaluate contents and identify improvement opportunities and best practices.Evaluation of each BU’s Incident Management and Emergency Response Team size, structure, competency and lines of communication and coordinationEvaluation and validation of training and exercise programsEvaluation of Tiers 1, 2 and 3 response resource availability including dispersant stockpiles The results of the evaluations were shared with the BU emergency response leads and management and an improvement plan developed to address any identified gaps. Upon completion of the program, a report was prepared summarizing the preparedness evaluation results for each BU, highlighting best practices identified during the evaluations and providing a general assessment of what “good” looks like. This report was then shared with all BUs to, along with the individual improvement plans, enhance consistency and the level of spill preparedness across the company. The primary objective of this paper is to explain the assurance process that was developed, share key lessons learned during the implementation and provide a summary of the general findings such that it can provide a blue-print for use by other companies to inform the development of similar oil spill preparedness assurance programs.