Offshore staff
LONDON – Britain’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) and Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will stage an oil spill response exercise off the North Wales coast tomorrow and Wednesday.
Exercise Dragon is designed to simulate how the UK would react to a major oil spill incident, implementing sea counter-pollution measures and shoreline protection. The aims are to test capability, command and control functions, and the effectiveness of measures used to control an oil spill.
Also participating are ENI, the North Wales Local Resilience Forum, North Wales Police, Oil Spill Response, Braemar Howells, Natural Resources Wales, and Oil & Gas UK. Exercise Dragon will monitor the coordination of all organizations involved.
Although no actual oil will be spilled, the exercise will test counter pollution equipment such as skimmers and booms in the harbor near Conwy, with aerial surveillance.
Iain Campbell, exercise director, said: “Exercise Dragon will test the participants’ response to an unfolding scenario, involving the release of hydrocarbons into the sea. This exercise will give the UK an opportunity to assess its response capability to a shoreline response because the exercise scenario involves the weather and tides forcing the oil to land onshore.”
09/08/2014
