Industry sets up oil spill response group

London – Oil & Gas UK, which represents the UK’s offshore oil and gas industry, is to establish an advisory group to review oil spill prevention and response practices in the UK. The move is in anticipation of new recommendations from current investigations into the Gulf of Mexico incident.

The Oil Spill Prevention and Response Advisory Group (OSPRAG) includes senior representatives from the Health and Safety Executive, Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). Two trade unions, the RMT and Unite, are also to participate.

OSPRAG will be chaired by Mark McAllister, chief executive of Fairfield Energy Ltd, who said: “The regulatory regime in the UK continental shelf (UKCS) requires companies to put in place robust checks to minimise the risk of oil spills; we have not had a blowout in the last 20 years of operations and the oil spills we do have tend to be on a very small scale.

However, we must always ensure we put the safety of our employees first and minimise any adverse environmental impacts of our operations, so in light of the recent Gulf of Mexico incident, it is only right that we take a fresh look at our practices in the UK for oil spill prevention and response. The review conducted under OSPRAG will be comprehensive and will help ensure that the arrangements in the UK continue to be fit for purpose.”

The new group will provide direction and support to five specialist review groups whose remit will be to focus on:
- Technical issues including first response for protection of personnel
- Oil spill response capability and remediation;
- National emergency response measures;
- Indemnity and insurance requirements;
- Pan-North Sea regulations and response mechanisms.