Repsol's Country Manager Giancarlo Ariza

With drilling underway at two wells off Guyana’s coast the oil exploration firms operating here on Tuesday presented their emergency response plans as they sought to provide assurance that they are prepared for a drilling incident that could lead to oil pollution.

The event was a forum called by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment to discuss emergency response expectations in light of the offshore drilling. Emergency response has been a topical issue in the oil industry following 2010’s BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico which killed 11 workers and caused extensive damage to marine and wildlife habitats and to the Gulf’s fishing and tourism industries.

CGX Energy Inc. and Repsol both provided three-tiered response plans with the latter’s being more comprehensive it is using the Atwood Beacon Jack-up rig which will be fixed to the ocean floor and carries increased well blowout risks given its high pressure nature. CGX is using the semi-submersible rig the Ocean Saratoga.

Repsol’s plan includes two command centres, one at its Kinsgton headquarters and the other at an undisclosed location; rapid response ships from Trinidad-based entities; redundancy telecoms systems; and evacuation plans including local arrangements with the St Joseph’s Mercy  and Balwant Singh private hospitals.

Natural Resources Minister Robert Persaud said that the government is satisfied with the plans submitted to manage the risks and incidents that could occur.

“We require, too, a level of alertness, we also require and we need in our country a greater level too of competency in this regard and that is why we’ve started a programme of engaging our international partners, not only working with the specific companies,” Persaud said.

“We know our country as a whole we have limited capabilities in dealing with such situations and we’ll have to put a lot of reliance on the companies themselves and also their own linkages but that should not deter us in any way from building the required capability and capacity in this regard.”

 The companies said they have the option of turning to each other to pool resources to tackle any incident should there be a need while Repsol says its operations in Trinidad and Tobago could also be called upon if the local measures are overrun.

Meanwhile, Repsol’s Country Manager Giancarlo Ariza stated that 18M barrels of oil are spilled into the oceans annually but only a small fraction of this comes from oil wells incidents.

“Thirty-seven percent of all of that is generated by our cities, the sewerage of our cities generates 37 percent of that spilled,” he said. Another 33 percent comes from the regular operation of cargo ships around the globe, 12 percent from oil tanker accidents; nine percent from the atmosphere and seven percent from natural leaks at the bottom of the sea Ariza relayed.

“Only two percent are the oil spills generated by drilling rigs, only two percent of that 18M barrels so what we are facing here in case of an emergency is only with the two percent, all the others have nothing to do with the oil operations,” he stated.  

Minister Persaud also sought to allay fears saying that there was no reason for citizens to panic about possible oil spills since the operators were preparing for a worst-case scenario as a necessity.