UK oil spill exercise proves less than slick

A MAJOR exercise to test Britain’s handling of a Deepwater Horizon-style disaster has exposed a catalogue of failures in the way authorities responded to a potentially devastating oil spill in Scottish waters.

Exercise Sula, held off Shetland over two days in May, was the first time the National Contingency Plan and the various response services, including the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), were tested on their ability to respond to a challenging incident on the same scale as the explosion that ripped apart an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico last April.

A report published last week highlighted a series of errors that emerged during the exercise, including confusion over who was in charge, poor team work, communication problems and a failure to relay vital information about the simulated disaster as it unfolded.

Now the group of industry and environmental experts who monitored the exercise are calling for the National Contingency Plan to undergo a “complete review” and the MCA to be re-tested within six months.

Dr Richard Dixon, director of the environmental pressure group WWF Scotland, was astonished by the issues raised in the report. He told Scotland on Sunday: “This is the exercise that the industry pointed to during the Shell oil-spill in August to reassure us that they knew what they were doing. I certainly don’t feel reassured.”

More than 200 participants took part in the staged incident involving a notional release of oil from Chevron’s deep water Cambo well, 86 miles west of Shetland.

Among the organisations working alongside the MCA were the Department of Energy and Climate Change, local councils and the offshore oil and gas industry. The aim of the exercise was to minimise the impact of a huge pollution threat caused by a drilling accident.

However, the report states:

n There did not appear to be a clear command and control structure. Agencies outside the MCA were confused as to the command structure within the Marine Response Centre, established at the Maritime Rescue and Co-ordination Centre in Aberdeen.

n Due to the MCA IT security policy, members found it extremely difficult to share information effectively.

n The MRC sanctioned the use of a dispersant spraying strategy, against the advice of the Environmental Group brought into monitor the spill.

The report concludes: “The most salient learning point from the exercise was the need to ensure that all responders are clear about their overall roles and responsibilities, and that these are clearly defined within the NCP.”

In the foreword to the report, Philip Naylor, director of maritime services at the MCA, and Wendy Kennedy, head of offshore environment at the DECC, claimed Exercise Sula demonstrated that the UK has “highly professional and dedicated personnel who can respond effectively”. But they added: “The exercise highlighted some areas for improvement and identified a number of learning points which can be applied in future.”