Is the Rapid Pace of Development Of E and P Operations Overtaking the Ability to Provide Adequate Spill Response Measures?¹

The past decade has seen a move into new development areas by the international oil industry. Many of the new operating locations are lacking in infrastructure, are politically unstable and have varying degrees of environmental legislation in place to regulate the developments. The industry has responded to the changing world in a number of ways. To minimise individual risk, organisations have entered the new regions working in consortia. Also, in order to accelerate and maximise profitability, the industry has developed fast-track projects to minimise the time to first oil’ and hence gain a quicker return from the significant development costs. Consequently the time between completing the exploration phase and the onset of production is aimed at being as short as possible. This creates interesting challenges for project teams as the risk profile changes from that experienced during exploration activities to those present in production operations. The risks during exploration activities can lead to either a very small or very large spill, the latter thankfully being infrequent. To meet these risks the operators equip themselves with sufficient resources to deal with a Tier 1 spill and utilise the Tier 3 centres to satisfy the blow out scenario. However, when the operation changes to a production facility, usually by the rapid introduction of an FSO or FPSO, the risk profile changes significantly and many operators experience difficulties in modifying the response capability to meet the changing profile. The conventional approach has been to use the tiered response concept to address the increased Tier 2 requirements by developing mutual aid arrangements but in many cases there are no other operators available with whom to share resources. This paper will investigate the changes in the nature of oil industry operations and pose the question as to whether the tiered response concept is still valid in today's environment and what should steps be taken to ensure that the response preparedness and capability is developed in pace with the risk profile.