Revise oil spill contingency plan

Page 55 (lead) March 03/2008

Story: Charles Benoni Okine

THE Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has advocated the early revision of Ghana’s oil spill contingency plan as the country prepares for the full production of the ‘black gold’ west of Cape Three Points in the Western Region.
According to the Chief Executive of the EPA, Mr Jonathan Allotey, the current plan was designed for transit cargo oil ships and needed to be revised as Ghana prepared to go into the commercial oil production next year.
The world recorded its worst oil spill in 1980 with the blow out of the Ixtoc-1 well in Mexico which spilled up to 428 million gallons of oil, a calamity which took more than nine months to mop up after the oil had wiped out many sea birds and other creatures in the ocean.
Again, in 1983, Castillo de Bellver in South Africa caught fire and between 50 and 80 million barrels of crude oil were spilled, while the D-103 in Libya also spilled 42 million barrels of oil in 1999.
It was based on these experiences and more that Mr Allotey told the Daily Graphic that preparations against those unfortunate situations must not be toyed with.
On staff preparedness, Mr Allotey said, “They will need to be retrained. We have competent staff but adding on to what they have to make them more solid for the task ahead is not out of place.”
The competence of the EPA to effectively ensure compliance by the oil and other companies to be involved in the production process was raised during the recent National Oil and Gas Forum in Accra.
The forum also noted that the EPA was under-resourced and wondered how it would meet the challenges that would come with the commercial production of oil.
Mr Allotey was, however, confident that the EPA would be able to surmount the challenges as it prepared towards the task ahead.
He said the area where the oil was to be produced needed to be well demarcated and the map given to the EPA to get to know its area of jurisdiction.