Oil spill drill scores high
Posted: 29 December 2004
Saudi Aramco and Vela International Marine Ltd. officials attended an oil-spill drill recently conducted by SUMED (the Suez-Mediterranean Pipeline) at the Red Sea port terminal in Ain Sukhna.
The drill is one of several that SUMED conducts annually to test its readiness to respond to oil spills in its operating areas, said engineer Mousa Abdul Mutagalli, SUMED operations director and acting managing director.
The (SUMED) oil spill response team “showed an impressive level of experience in dealing with the simulated accident,” said Awadh S. Al-Nobi, Saudi Aramco/SUMED coordinator.
SUMED, or Arab Petroleum Pipelines Co., of which Saudi Aramco owns a 15-percent stake, invited company officials to participate in the recent drill as observers and evaluators.
Mohammad A. Al-Gilani, a pollution control and environmental engineer with Vela, a Saudi Aramco subsidiary, said, “All drill participants from incident-command staff to field workers showed that they maintain a great deal of experience in the field of managing and responding to oil spills.
“They also showed an impressive ability to work with regional entities, such as the Coast Guard, Egyptian Petroleum Corp., Egyptian Environmental Agency and the Arab Academy, in resolving potential issues related to the control of the discharge source and response activities.”
Also participating in the drill from Saudi Aramco were the director of the company’s Global Oil Spill Response Team, Ali A. Al-Mohssen; Regional Oil Spill Response coordinator Mohammad A. Saber; and Vela Dubai Operations Department marine superintendent Ahmed A. Al-Babtain.
Drill observers noted that the SUMED team:
* Competently operated within the framework of the Emergency Response System identified in SUMED's Facility Response Plan, with remarkable response performance.
* Successfully assessed the magnitude of the incident in real time, confirming the spill quantity using a state-of-the-art oil-spill trajectory model developed by the Arab Academy, and demonstrating teamwork.
* Efficiently “boomed out” the source of the spill, which means physically containing the spill at its source with floating booms.
* Demonstrated impressive skills in deploying and operating skimmers, vacuum pumps and beach-cleaning trucks.
* Was successful in identifying environmentally sensitive areas likely to be impacted. An action plan was developed to protect sensitive sites.
* Communicated effectively and continuously.
During the drill debriefing, Mutagalli thanked the Saudi Aramco and Vela team for their participation and for their valuable comments and observations, which he said would contribute to improving the level of readiness of SUMED’s oil spill response team.
SUMED is an alternative route to the Suez Canal for transporting oil from the Arabian Gulf region to the Mediterranean. SUMED manages a 320-kilometer, 2.3-million-barrel-per-day dual-pipeline system running from Ain Sukhna on the Gulf of Suez to Sidi Kerir on the Mediterranean. Other partners in pipeline owner Arab Petro-leum Pipelines Co. are Kuwait (15 percent) the U.A.E. (15 percent) and Qatar (5 percent).
Posted by Editor Pipeline Magazine
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