NEW ORLEANS- Dr. Deserié Soliz and Alton Bates of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement's (BSEE) Oil Spill Preparedness Division conducted a Government Initiated Unannounced Exercise (GIUE) on LLOG Exploration Company in Covington, Louisiana last week. As the Exercise Designer and Controller, Dr. Soliz delivered a scenario that required LLOG to respond to a simulated oil spill from a drilling facility located in Mississippi Canyon in the Gulf of Mexico. BSEE planned and executed the exercise in close coordination with oil spill response professionals from BSEE District Operations Support, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office. This exercise provided an opportunity for joint cooperation, partnership and governmental efficiency between federal and state organizations that have mutual responsibilities for regulating the offshore industry.
Government Initiated Unannounced Exercises are designed to give BSEE the opportunity to evaluate, on a no-notice basis, the response preparedness posture of the offshore exploration and production community. In this particular exercise, BSEE and its interagency partners focused on a number of objectives, including the operator’s ability to make timely notifications to emergency officials, mobilize and organize staff to respond to the spill, plan for and implement shoreline protection and oil recovery strategies, and establish effective communications within a Unified Command. The owner or operator of an offshore regulated facility that is directed to participate in a GIUE must do so unless specific conditions exist that could compromise safety.
