The event is sponsored by Apache North Sea Limited and supported by BP and Endeavour Energy UK.
OSPRAG was set up in May 2010 following the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the group’s focus was to review and further strengthen the industry’s capability to prevent a major well control incident in the UK continental shelf and respond swiftly in the unlikely event that this should occur.
OSPRAG chairman and regional vice president and managing director of Apache North Sea James House said OSPRAG was established a month after the tragic events on the Macondo field.
"It secured an unprecedented level of collaboration across the UK offshore oil and gas industry, its regulators and the trade unions who have achieved much in the last 16 months to strengthen the UK’s preparedness for such an event," House said.
"OSPRAG’s review of the UK’s oil spill prevention and response practices and procedures is believed to be the largest and most thorough ever conducted by the industry globally."
The importance of sharing good practice in helping to prevent a major well control incident is reflected in the creation, on OSPRAG’s recommendation, of the Well Life Cycle Practices Forum.
This permanent new forum has been set up under the governance of Oil & Gas UK and comprises companies responsible for the design, construction and management of wells and intervention operations.
OSPRAG also recommended gearing up the UK’s oil spill response ‘toolkit’ to ensure that in the event of a potentially high impact but low probability incident (such as in the Gulf of Mexico), the UK would have sufficient equipment, materials and people with the necessary skills to deal with response and clean-up operations.
A full-scale test of the UK national contingency plan for responding to a major oil spill, including a demonstration of emergency response equipment, was successfully mounted in May this year and, again on OSPRAG’s recommendation, another new forum, the Oil Spill Response Forum, has been established by Oil & Gas UK.
A visible outcome of the Group’s work is the OSPRAG capping device, which was unveiled at the Offshore Europe exhibition and conference in Aberdeen earlier this month.
This is a significant piece of equipment, designed by the industry for deployment in the unique met-ocean conditions found in the UKCS.
It is being held on standby in the North East of Scotland ready for use should it be needed to swiftly seal off an uncontrolled well.
An exercise which simulated the logistics of transporting such a device, loading it on to a vessel and lowering it over the side before fixing it to a specially-built simulated well on the sea floor was successfully carried out in July, and the OSPRAG cap now forms a key element in the UK offshore oil and gas industry’s oil spill emergency contingency plans.
OSPRAG comprises senior representatives from all sides of the industry, industry regulators, the trade unions, the Maritime & Coastguard Agency and the Secretary of State’s Representative for Maritime Salvage and Intervention, with a representative from the EU Energy Commission attending as an observer.
