A response effort which combines the correct equipment with expertise will be more successful than one with equipment resources and no leadership.

Emphasis needs to be placed on the resource of expertise. This is particularly important in the early stages of an incident when key decisions are made and competence in handling the situation is demonstrated. In getting these decisions right one needs to understand the scope and scale of the issues involved.

From an oil industry perspective, the main goal is prevention of oil spills and not the response to them. The level of spill response expertise and experience in oil companies is low and the downward trend is set to continue.

Accidents do happen. When they do it is vital to access all available expertise at the earliest opportunity to formulate key response strategies. This is where Oil Spill Response is able to assist either through technical advisory support (a Member can call for an experienced responder to attend a potential or actual spill on site at no cost for the first 48 hours) or by joining a Member’s incident management structure.

Our responders are skilled in many disciplines, not just equipment handling and can provide valuable technical and management support both in the emergency phase and in the later project phases of a response, including managing operations projects, post spill monitoring and incident follow up programmes. Oil Spill Response can also identify and integrate other resources into the overall response.