Organisational and Technical Developments following recent spills
Nick Quinn
General Manager

Tel:+61 3 5272 1555
Fax:
+61 3 5272 1839
E-mail: amosc@amosc.com.au
Internet: www.amosc.com.au

The Australian petroleum industry has been facing the greatest amount of changeover the last 4 years due principally to the Montara offshore loss of well control
incident in 2009 and then again with the Macondo spill in 2010. These 2 incidents
have affected industry in the same way that the Valdez spill affected the governmentand shipping industry in 1989 primarily through the entry into force of the OPRC 90in 1995. From major reform in the Australian regulatory sector through to culturalchange within each company the industry reactions to these spills have heightenedawareness and expenditure in an effort to provide greater barrier protection in theprevention sector of offshore petroleum exploration and production.
The major organisational changes to the key agencies within the oil and gas sector
have occurred within the regulatory areas. There has been a clearer defining ofresponsibilities within the regulatory bodies with post-Montara, a ‘one stop shop’ forthe regulation of the environmental aspects for the offshore exploration & production
sector being created and invested in the safety authority. Australia now clearlydelineates the shipping industry and the offshore oil & gas industry into 2 separate
statutory agencies. The maritime authority is solely designated as the shipping
regulator (Australian Maritime Safety Agency) and the offshore petroleum safety
regulator now has the jurisdictional responsibility for environmental protection(National Offshore Petroleum Safety Environmental Management Authority). This
separation has created duplication in some areas of preparedness and response but
was always designed to create efficiencies in regulatory processes and increase thegovernments and petroleum industry’s awareness of risk in the offshore areas.
Another direct result of this change has been a far greater degree of cooperation
between individual companies in data, resource and knowledge exchange. This has
been a key industry initiative in response to the greater level of compliance requiredby the offshore regulator.

The other consequence of the Montara spill for Australian industry has been anincreased emphasis on equitable funding of the preparedness aspects of oil spill
response between government and industry. This focus on equitable funding has
created efficiencies in response areas including aerial dispersant contracts,
trajectory modelling contracts and interoperability of response teams.
Organisationally, the industry oil spill response organisation AMOSC has been
growing to meet the needs of its 28 oil&gas members in the areas of preparedness
and response compliance. Greater reliance on wider industry resources such as theAustralian industry Core Group where 100 oil spill response skilled industry
personnel are immediately available to AMOSC for mutual aid to a responsible partyhas also resulted from the 2 recent industry spills.
Coincidental to the Montara spill has been the review of risk around Australia (in2011) and the changes to the National Plan to account for sectoral changes and thenewly perceived areas of risk. By using an algorithmic projection to 2020, the risk ofspills moves substantially from the offshore E&P sector into shipping andport/harbour operations. This occurs concurrently to the estimated decrease of
crude production and the increase of gas production mainly on the Northwest Shelfof Australia. In turn, this has enabled Australian industry to look ahead ontechnological issues and place increased emphasis on source control. The offshore
E&P operators have combined to procure a subsea debris clearance and dispersant
injection toolkit for Australia – this complements the 2 OSRL toolkits and allows theAustralian companies to put first strike steps into source control before accessing
cap or containment systems.
Further technical developments in Australia by industry have included;
developing an oiled wildlife capacity with plans, equipment trained personnel
and importantly, international linkages;

developing ‘just-in-time’ dispersant manufacture of around 70m³ per day for
subsea use in lieu of stockpiling dispersant. The ability to decrease solvent
ratios in the formula is also better served through JIT dispersant

research into in-situ burning

better understanding on using dispersant including subsea applications

research into scientific monitoring plans around bio-remediation and watercolumn sampling & measurements

The quantum of change over the last 4 years and since the 2 spill incidents ofMontara and Macondo has been a re-invigorated energy around response andpreparedness issues to marine oil spills. The familiar question arises; how long will
this motivation and energy last?