The oil industry concept of tiered preparedness and response has long been established as a valuable model for developing an appropriate response structure, with capabilities commensurate with oil spill events and their associated consequences. A Tier 1 incident is typically referred to as an operational one occurring at or near a company's own facilities, as a consequence of its own activities. An individual company would typically provide resources to respond to this type of spill. The Tier 1 part is often seen as the smallest and thus the least significant and this Paper asks whether enough planning and training is done at this level.

Different oil industry activities encompassing exploration, production, shipping transportation, oil handling facilities and even pipelines, give rise to a varied and broad range of scenarios that call for different Tier 1 solutions. In any spill event, speed and efficiency of first response, and the awareness of the integrated tiered solution that ensures an appropriate call for additional resources when required, will make a significant difference to the effectiveness of the overall response. Thus we need to spend time and effort planning well and training at the Tier 1 level.

This Paper describes some of the possible Tier 1 scenarios that may be applied to the planning process and the key issues that need to be considered, to ensure Tier 1 capabilities are appropriate, effective and robust, and can be relied upon to support the tiered escalation of response.

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Author notes

1 DISCLAIMER: The opinions and views expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of any other party.