Resourcing the next industry defining spill

Abstract

The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) response was unprecedented in scale and complexity. In addition to testing the limits of Industry's technical knowledge, it required a sustained response of personnel effort over several years. At the peak of the response, some 47,000+ responders were deployed across five states. For any future incident of similar scale the challenges of resourcing must be considered now, to ensure a timely, efficient and effective response can be achieved. Whilst the contribution of every responder is important, it is clear that some command and field roles are more critical than others. For these key roles there are a limited number of individuals with the knowledge, experience, credibility and personality to successfully take them on. Furthermore, accessing these individuals - having up-to-date contact details, maintaining business continuity and assuring their competency - is a challenge. Another common preparedness gap is that most exercises do not test the process for mobilising people past the first few days (thereby not learning lessons about the time it takes) or consider the challenge of putting people in place with the right skill set during a prolonged response. DWH was resourced using the ‘little black book' of contacts from oil spill response organisations (OSROs), Oil and Gas operators, scientific experts and the local communities. Whilst successful, there were lessons to learn from the approach. In the last 10 years the expectations from regulators, public and other stakeholders on the speed, transparency and effectiveness of response have multiplied. To meet these growing expectations a more robust and efficient way of putting the right people, in the right place at the right time is required. This poster discusses the merits and suggests a potential mechanism for a globally aligned mutual response network. Oil spill response cooperatives are ideally positioned to identify key roles, the people who could fill them, assure their capability and readiness, and address the barriers which slow down mobilisation such as agreeing contracting terms and rates. This poster will lay out the challenges that both Industry and OSROs face in resourcing the next industry defining spill. It will set out how an oil spill mutual response network answers these questions. It will also reinforce why collaboration and cooperation, key principles of Tiered Preparedness and Response, will continue to be the most efficient and effective way of accessing capability and maximising Industry's preparedness to respond to the next big incident.