INTRODUCTION

The Guff area holds a significant portion of the world's petroleum reserves andproduces a large percentage of its oil. The majority of produced oil is exported to theindustrialized world via sea, making the Arabian Gulf and Red Sea among the world's
busiest tanker traffic waterways. In addition, both seas are a source of food, drinking
water and living for local residents. Therefore, the significance of the area to the global
economy and welfare of the people cannot be overstated.
As one of the world's leading Oil producing and exporting Companies, with operations
spanning the globe, Saudi Aramco has, over its 65 years of existence, stressed theimportance of working in a safe and environmentally friendly manner. This isespecially true with oil spills. Prevention is considered the first line of defense against
oil spills. To that end, Saudi Aramco has instituted a number of oil spill prevention
measures on vessels and terminals. Also, training of oil handling personnel has beenformalized and tailored to ensure the operation is carried out spill free. It is, however,the nature of the business that oil spills are bound to occur.
To prepare for the unlikely event of a spill, both the Saudi Arabian Government andSaudi Aramco have taken precautionary and preparatory measures to ensure timely
and effective response to oil spills. Among those measures were the development ofcontingency plans and the staging of pollution control equipment stockpiles.

CONTINGENCY PLANNING
The Saudi Arabian National Oil Spill Contingency Plan was approved in 1991. The planrequires all agencies with marine and coastal facilities or activities to develop their own
local oil spill contingency plans. The plan also requires these agencies to provide
adequate equipment and manpower to respond to oil spills in their local areas ofoperation.
Since the early 1970's, Saudi Aramco has had in place, a contingency plan covering itsoperations.
It is in line with the Company's position as an environmentally responsible petroleum
producer and exporter. Due to the expansion of Company's operations over the years, aGlobal Oil Spill Contingency Plan was developed covering its worldwide areas ofoperation. The plan establishes an oil spill policy for Saudi Aramco's worldwide
operations and directs Saudi Aramco and its affiliates to join major oil spill1

cooperatives to provide additional resources as deemed necessary.
The plan also assigns regional responsibility for oil spills and requires the development,
implementation and maintenance of regional and owned tanker oil spill response plans.
The regional plans outline formal notification procedures and local high-risk areas. Theplans also include local legislative requirements, define response options and identify
available resources for combating oil spills. Specific for Saudi Aramco's operations inKingdom, two regional plans have been developed for the Arabian Gulf and the RedSea.

RESPONSE PRIORITIESSaudi Aramco's Oil Spill Contingency Plans have specifically defined priorities to befollowed in response to an oil spill. These priorities are:・

Protection of human life.

・Protection of vital Saudi Government and Saudi Aramco facilities.

・ Minimizing disruptions to the safe operation of the Saudi Aramco oil export
terminals and critical production facilities.
・Protection of environmentally sensitive marine areas.

RESPONSE ORGANIZATION
As part of Saudi Aramco's oil spill contingency plans, functional organizations weredesigned to act in case of an oil spill. These functional organizations include thefollowing:・ An Oil Spill Committee composed of company executives. It meets on a regularbasis to review oil spill activities and charts the course of the future that ensures
prevention and preparedness. During a response to a major spill crisis, theCommittee ensures that necessary resources are immediately made available andresponse to is carried out efficiently and effectively. The committee is considered insession on a 24 hour-a-day basis in case of a major oil spill.

2・An Oil Spill Response Team (OSRT) has been set up for each facility. The teammembers are called upon during response to major spills.

・A dedicated Global Oil Spill Coordination function has been established to oversee
the Company's readiness to respond to oil spills and ensure compliance of theCompany's operations with established standards and regulations.

RESPONSE OPTIONSIn responding to oil spills, Saudi Aramco regards the containment and recovery method
as its primary option for dealing with the spilled oil. In cases where mechanicalrecovery is not feasible, the Company revert to the use of dispersants. This option has
the advantage of preventing the incursion of the slick into sensitive areas due to its
speedy nature. As a policy, dispersant is not applied directly over environmental
sensitive areas or over water depth less than 30 feet. The use of dispersant, however, isjudged on a case by case basis considering the net environmental benefits.

EQUIPMENT STOCKPILES
Saudi Aramco has an extensive array of oil spill equipment, ranging from containment
boom to recovery skimmers to dispersant to sorbents. In addition, there are dedicatedvessels for oil spill recovery that are equipped with recovery skimmers and onboardstorage. The company also has two dedicated dispersant spraying aircraft, with acapacity of 800 US gallons each.
There are oil spill equipment staging sites in Ras Tanura and Tanajib, along theArabian Gulf coast. Along the Red Sea coast, oil handling facilities at Jeddah, Rabigh,Yanbu, Duba and Jizan are also equipped with pollution control equipment that iscapable of ~tier 1 oil spills.
Whereas, equipment stocked along the Arabian Gulf coast is capable of handling tier 1and tier 2 spills. Additional resources can be made available as required.
On the national level, Saudi Arabia's Metrology and Environmental Protection
Administration ( MEPA) has its own resources at various ports along the Red Sea andArabian Gulf coasts. In addition, the Petroleum Association of Japan (PM), took theinitiative in placing sizable stockpiles of pollution control equipment. One stockpile is3

staged at Khafji, at the northern Arabian Gulf Coast while the other is staged at Abu
Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. These equipment stockpiles are included in ourcontingency plans as a viable resource.
On the regional level, the Gulf Area Oil Companies Mutual Aid Organization(GAOCMAO) member companies have a mutual aid agreement. Under the terms of thisagreement, any member company can request the assistance of other members tohandle oil spills that are beyond its capabilities or resources.
On the global level, for response to oil spills which are determined beyond thecapability of local and regional resources, Saudi Aramco has invested in membership in
the Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL) of Southampton, UK, the world's largest oil spillresponse cooperative. Saudi Aramco has access to OSRL's stockpiles and expertise incase of a major oil spill.

PERSONNEL TRAINING
In order to effectively deal with oil spill incidents, Saudi Aramco has always believed in
the strength of knowledge. This goes in parallel with its long-standing and highly
acclaimed employees' training programs.
As a minimum, Saudi Aramco conducts two oil spill response courses annually tomembers of its oil spill response teams. These formal courses cover a wide range of oilspill

relatedtopicsthatinclude:contingency

planning;

response

strategy;

environmental considerations; oil slick surveillance & tracking; mechanical recovery;
shoreline cleanup; use of chemical dispersants; waste management; hazards toresponse personnel; dealing with the media; and dealing with the issues of claims andcompensation.
Saudi Aramco regularly conducts oil spill drills and exercises to test the effectiveness of
its oil spill response contingency plans, test communications and notification
procedures, as well as coordination procedures, and fine-tune the skills of Oil Spill
Response Teams. Also, exercises are designed to test the logistics associated withmounting an oil spill response operation. Exercises take the form of either tabletop andor include field deployment of personnel and equipment where hands-on training isperformed. Internationally recognized experts in the field of oil spill response conduct
the courses and facilitate the exercises. Each exercise is thoroughly critiqued with aview to revise and update Contingency plans to reflect lessons learned from drills andexercises.

4

In-Kingdom, the Company conducts two major oil spill exercises annually at different
locations. Local industry and concerned Government agencies are invited to participate
in these exercises with objectives to share knowledge and fine tune coordination among
all involved parties. In addition, Saudi Aramco, in close coordination with its
subsidiaries and affiliates, conducts oil spill drills at various international locations
along its oil tanker routes. As examples of the international exercises are ones
conducted in the United States, Caribbean, Europe and Africa.
The drills usually last between one to three days. The objectives of the international
drills are to better understand available local resources, test coordination between theCompany and local authorities to facilitate the across boundary movements of oil spill
response resources, etc.

SUMMARY
Saudi Aramco as one of the world's leading oil companies, has adopted procedures toensure that its operations are carried out in an environmentally friendly manner.
Prevention has been established to be part of its normal activities. Contingency plans
have been developed and regularly tested to ensure their effectiveness. The Company
has procured sizable amount of necessary oil pollution control equipment and has
staged the equipment at all areas of operations. Specific policies and procedures are put
in place to ensure the availability of additional adequate oil spill response capability. Inaddition, the Company has and continues to invest in the training of its oil spill
response team to ensure the at most preparedness. Oil spill-training courses areconducted on regular basis and oil spill drills and exercises, both on the national andinternational levels, are organized.

5