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Training

Objectives

The objectives of the integrated National Plan oil spill response training program are:

to provide senior management personnel likely to be involved in a major oil spill with an awareness of those issues which need to be addressed in the overall response;
to provide sufficient trained personnel at middle management level to both manage an oil spill response and act as deputies to response managers;
to provide a sufficient pool of trained personnel at operator level to allow effective response operations to be planned and undertaken; and
to provide personnel with oil spill response skills at senior and middle management and operator levels to enable Australia to meet its obligations as a signatory to the International Convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation 1990.

1995/1996 Training

The National Plan training program during 1995/96 included on scene coordination courses held in Brisbane (October), Fremantle (March) and Geelong (June); an oil spill commander course in Geelong (August); administration support courses in Geelong (July), Fremantle (November), Townsville (December), Brisbane (December), Adelaide (April) and Sydney (May) and equipment operator courses in Port Adelaide (September) and Brisbane (December). AMSA also provided consultancy oil spill response courses for the Newcastle Port Corporation, Newcastle, NSW (November and May), and the Illawarra Ports Authority, Port Kembla, NSW (May).

The Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre (AMOSC) conducted 27 training programs during the year for 355 personnel at all levels, both at the Centre in Geelong and on-site as required. Included were specific workshops for 226 industry personnel from companies in Australia, including ASP Ship Management, Nabalco, BHP and Shell, while workshops were also conducted for 108 personnel from the Japan National Oil Company (at AMOSC) and Command Petroleum (in India).

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Overseas Training

AMSA plays a major role in National Plan oil spill response training. To ensure that the standard of training provided in Australia is the best possible, occasional overseas training and benchmarking visits are undertaken. The AMSA MEPS Operations Coordinator spent three weeks overseas early in 1996. Two days were spent in Hawaii participating in foreshore assessment and an offshore oil response training exercise involving BHP Petroleum Hawaii and elements of other Hawaiian oil spill response organisations.

Qualified Individual and Hazardous Waste Operations (HAZWOPER) courses were completed at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts.

The BHP Petroleum oil spill Exercise Southern Loop involved AMOSC in Geelong, a State National Plan observer in Melbourne and an AMSA observer in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam in October 1995. The exercise tested BHP Petroleum's South China Sea Dai Hung 1 facility's oil spill contingency plan and Emergency Response Division plan and BHP's Melbourne Emergency Management Plan. It also tested the interrelationships between BHP and a number of organisations in Australia (AMOSC), Vietnam (VietSovPetro), Singapore (East Asia Response Limited), and United Kingdom (International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation).

AMSA also plays a proactive role in the development of IMO oil spill courses undertaken internationally. Four days were spent in the UK discussing oil spill training development with IMO. Talks with the Southampton Oil Spill Response Centre and the UK Coastguard regarding training were also undertaken.

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Exercises

Several exercises were held during the reporting period. The Darwin Port Authority and Shell Company of Australia Ltd conducted Exercise Tropics in Darwin in October 1995. A walk-through desktop exercise facilitated by AMSA was conducted in November at Westernport and the Queensland Department of Transport conducted Exercise Sugar Slick in June 1996 in Townsville.

The National Plan to Combat Pollution of the Sea by Oil conducts a major national exercise every two years, the previous exercise being Exercise Capricorn held in Gladstone, Queensland, in March 1994.

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Exercise George Bass

Marco Skimmer deployed at the George Bass exercise
Marco Skimmer is deployed with oil diverters open at the George Bass exercise

Exercise George Bass, the National Plan's 1996 national exercise, was held on 5 and 6 June and was designed to activate and test Australia's oil spill response arrangements under the National Plan to Combat Pollution of the Sea by Oil both within Victoria and nationally. International communication and liaison links were also tested. The exercise was planned and conducted by consultants - QEST Consulting and AGC Woodward-Clyde - and was managed by a steering committee chaired by AMSA in conjunction with the Melbourne Port Authority and, later, the Marine Board of Victoria and relevant Victorian agencies. The exercise combined personnel and equipment deployment and desktop activity over a 36 hour period.

The Marine Board of Victoria, responsible for implementation of the National Plan in Victoria, played a major role in the exercise, with the assistance of a number of Victorian agencies.

Exercise George Bass took over eight months to plan and arrange and was the largest conducted so far in Australia.

The exercise scenario involved a tanker carrying a part cargo of 30,000 tonnes of Gippsland crude oil running aground on Lonsdale Rock at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay shortly after midnight on Tuesday 5 June. The tanker then lost a significant amount of oil over the next 12 hours and was finally refloated on the high tide mid-afternoon the same day.

Six independent umpires were provided by the consultants and Dr Tosh Moller of the International Tanker Owners Pollution Federation (London) acted as the Principal International Umpire. The exercise involved some 300 people from 37 organisations in Victoria and nationally. There was also significant interest from regional neighbours with a mix of government and industry representatives from Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and New Zealand as observers. For the first time, there were official observers of the AMSA activity in Canberra which provided the opportunity for valuable feedback on AMSA's operations and support role to State/NT Governments in a major oil spill in their waters.

Debriefing meetings were conducted in both Melbourne and Canberra immediately following the completion of the exercise. A formal debriefing was held at the end of July, with a report of the exercise being produced following that meeting. It is intended that all lessons learned from the exercise will become the focus of implementation action over the next year.

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National Plan Training Courses conducted during 1995/1996

Course	Location	Date	Number of Participants
On Scene Coordinator	Brisbane	October 1995	23
On Scene Coordinator	Fremantle	March 1996	17
On Scene Coordinator	Geelong	June 1996	16
Administration Support	Geelong	July 1995	15
Administration Support	Fremantle	November 1995	26
Administration Support	Townsville	December 1995	15
Administration Support	Brisbane	December 1995	12
Administration Support	Adelaide	April 1996	13
Administration Support	Sydney	May 1996	19
Equipment Operators	Port Adelaide	September 1995	19
Equipment Operators	Brisbane	December 1995	6
Oil Spill Commander	Geelong	August 1995	12
Oil Spill Response	Newcastle	November 1995	23
Oil Spill Response	Newcastle	May 1996	15
Oil Spill Response	Port Kembla	May 1996	10

* Consultancy courses offered by AMSA to the Newcastle Port Corporation and Illawarra Ports Authority (Port Kembla)

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National Plan Exercises Conducted During 1995/1996

Site	Time	Facilitator(s)
Darwin, NT	October 1995	Darwin Port Authority,Northern Territory Department of Transport and Works,and Shell Company of Australia Ltd
Townsville, QLD	June 1996	Queensland Department of Transport
George Bass, VIC	June 1996	QEST Consulting and AGC Woodward-Clyde
Westernport, VIC	November 1995	AMSA
Port of Melbourne,VIC	August 1995	Port of Melbourne Authority
Gellibrand Pier,Williamstown, VIC	September 1995	Mobil Oil, AMOSC, Port of Melbourne Authority
Melbourne, Geelong, VIC/ Ho Chi Minh City, VIETNAM	October 1995	BHP Petroleum

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Training Programs Conducted by AMOSC

Course	Date	Number of Participants
Management Overview	October 1995	17
Response	October 1995 November 1995 February 1996 April 1996	19 14 20 17
Operators	August 1995 November 1995 April 1996	13 13 16

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last updated:
18 June 2001