Proceedings of the workshop on external emergency response planning : first workshop organised under the virtual centre of offshore safety expertise
Ensuring high levels of safety in the European offshore oil and gas industry is of paramount importance to the European Commission and to the Member States. To this purpose, Directive 2013/30/EU (also known as Offshore Safety Directive) introduced new safety requirements, and imposed additional duties on both the offshore industry and EU regulators. In particular, Article 29 of Directive 2013/30/EU requires Member States to prepare, in cooperation with the relevant operators or owners and, as appropriate, licensees and the competent authority, external emergency response plans covering all offshore oil and gas installations or connected infrastructure and potentially affected areas within their jurisdiction. Effective response to emergency situations resulting from major accidents requires immediate action and systematic and planned cooperation between oil and gas operators and the Member States' emergency response organisations, and with neighbouring countries. Effective and efficient cooperation shall be attained through measures for the achievement of high levels of compatibility and interoperability of emergency response assets, i.e. equipment and expertise, and the coordination of additional emergency response resources by Member States' response organisations as the situation evolves. Emergency response and planning should also make use of the existing resources and assistance available from within the Union, in particular through the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA). The workshop on External Emergency Response Planning - supported by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Energy (DG ENER) - was jointly organised by DG Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the Italian Ministry of Economic Development (Directorate General for Safety of Mining and Energy Activities - National Mining Office for Hydrocarbons and Geo-resources) in collaboration with the Italian Coast Guard.
