Preparedness Decision Making in Offshore Oil and Gas - How much is enough?

ABSTRACT 2017-125: A key challenge in offshore oil spill contingency planning is determining how much preparedness is enough. In other words, planning what types and quantities of oil spill response equipment, resources, and expertise ought to be held in readiness and with what mobilisation and deployment times, just in case a major oil spill occurs. For the offshore oil and gas sector much of the information required to plan for a response to a major incident, such as the location of the spill source, oil type, potential release rate and volume, local climate and metocean conditions, and environmental sensitivities, is already known or can be predicted. In this paper a process for determining appropriate levels of preparedness for offshore oil spill risk is proposed and analysed outside the realm of specific national regulatory frameworks. It is suggested that the approach has validity across all jurisdictions and is consistent with the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and...