National exercise, UK contingency plan

Oil rig North Sea

UK

Petrofac Training Services assisted with a two-day National Contingency Plan (NCP) exercise, in 2011. Exercise SULA was conducted in association with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).

Exercise SULA aimed to test the UK’s ability to react to a major incident threatening our offshore and shoreline environment. Our Emergency Response and Crisis Management (ERCM) team was integral to the industry–agency exercise, overseeing and observing its development and delivery.

Exercise Sula initially simulated a realistic major oil spill, resulting from an offshore deep water drilling incident, to allow the UK’s existing NCP to be tested in real time. The exercise also introduced for the first time, a second day which was designed to determine the long term response to an incident. In Shetland, industry and local authority counter pollution response equipment was demonstrated.

Over two days, the exercise tested:

  • command and control functions
  • multi-agency interface arrangements
  • counter pollution response
  • technical containment activities associated with controlling an ongoing oil spill

The role of our ERCM team was to:

  • work with Exercise Sula directors from DECC, MCA and Oil & Gas UK to ensure successful delivery of the exercise
  • compile all documentation associated with the exercise
  • develop the scenario on which the exercise was based
  • provide exercise controllers and directory staff to monitor the delivery and co-ordinate exercise flow
  • brief exercise stakeholders and assist in the facilitation of pre-exercise preparatory workshops
  • de-brief participants at the end of the exercise

Among the organisations involved in the live exercise were Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the Secretary of State Representative, Northern Constabulary Police, Oil Spill Response, Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, Chevron Upstream Europe Coastguard, Hess, Briggs Environmental and BP (Sullom Voe terminal).

A full report has now been completed on the exercise. The report highlights key effective elements relevant to our role, including the quality of the participants and their engagement, the scenario developments, the assessment of performance and exercise direction, the quality of the documentation and the leadership qualities of the planning team.