Petroleum Association of Japan plans to hold their 6th Oil Spill Workshop with the focus to consider future oil spill response management and operations. Statistics clearly show that major oil spill incidents involving large tankers have, for the last few decades been on the decline and whilst we must never become complacent about the level of preparedness for a large incident, we need to look at how we manage the resources we have in the most effective and efficient manner to maximize their effect when called upon. The Incident Command System (ICS) is a prime example of this strategy where a management system designed to manage a crisis can be used for a number of different emergencies thus maximizing the skills of the highly trained teams to cope effectively with the oil spill, fire or major emergency.
Of course major incidents do still happen, as shown in August this year in Kuwait at Ras al-Zour near Khafji, September in Greece where the tanker “Agia Zoni II” sank and October in the Gulf of Mexico close to the site of the “Macondo” Incident, all with devastating consequences. This year our Workshop will bring together professionals and organizations who have not only had experience directing the response to major incidents but have contributed to the development of the management and operations of the present day preparedness and response strategies. Constant monitoring of incident management and the preparedness for them, is the only way we can improve our best practice approach and we hope this workshop will enhance the delegates understanding of the topics discussed.
After all presentations have been given the session will be opened to the audience of this Workshop and we welcome and encourage free discussion with each presenter to deepen and confirm understanding of the issues raised and to answer any questions that they may have.