Tuesday’s Congressional hearing made for interesting political theater. In particular, a lot of hay was made of the apparent similarity among various energy companies’ oil-spill response plans. Here are some facts you might not have picked up from the hearing:
The Minerals Management Service, known as the MMS, requires companies operating offshore to submit oil-spill response plans. The structure and much of the content of these plans are prescribed by the MMS requirements.
For example, in a notice from October 26, 2006, the MMS specifies 22 sections and 10 appendices that must be in oil-spill response plans. ExxonMobil followed this guidance from the federal government in developing our Gulf of Mexico regional plan, which has 650 pages focused on how to respond and protect the environment. The MMS approved this plan.
Our regional oil-spill response plan is designed to link with the MMS as well as U.S. Coast Guard regional and local plans. It is also important to understand that federal law requires companies to contract with common regional spill response cooperatives. This makes sense.
So it should not come as a surprise that response plans across the industry are similar. Given the legal requirements, the necessary linkages to government plans, and the use of common cooperatives, you would expect companies’ oil-spill response plans to look alike.
Response plans are important, but they are by their very definition a response to an incident. We believe it’s critical to prevent incidents through proper well design and execution, which can be done by evaluating risks and identifying ways to mitigate them through effective procedures, training and management oversight.
The real issue is not how companies’ response plans are similar, but how the Deepwater Horizon well design and execution was different than the industry norm. As our chairman and CEO, Rex Tillerson, said during the hearing, “We would not have drilled the well the way they did.”
It’s so important to understand what really happened and take appropriate steps to prevent an incident like this one from happening again.
