Contigency planning requires service providers: Alaska private oil spill response companies show capabilities.

• Author: Anderson, Tom
• Position: OIL & GAS

The narrative to the evolution of private oil spill response begins with the contingency plan. Before a company's response team and equipment are deployed to counter a spill, the instrumental playbook on how to handle such a complex undertaking comes in the form of a contingency plan.

"Disasters always seem to get the headlines, but why aren't the billions of barrels of oil processed and handled safely, efficiently, and without incident making headlines?" wonders ARCTOS LLC's Kirsten Ballard. "It's far more cost-effective from the standpoint of safety, environmental protection, and public image to 'keep the oil in the container.' If this made headlines, then budgets would reflect proactive prevention instead of reactive emergency response." ARCTOS specializes in spill prevention and response planning. The company focuses on helping clients avoid any kind of emergency spill response by providing services for emergency response planning such as the preparation of Oil Discharge Prevention and Contingency Plans, or "spill drills" (discharge exercises), along with Incident Management Team Training and Support to help clients maintain compliance with the preparedness aspects of state and federal requirements.

Ballard and husband Randy Pysher founded ARCTOS in 2007 and have a full staff to complement their expertise. The company specializes in staying current to changes in regulation to ensure that clients are aware of the stringent standards. Contingency plans are voluminous, complicated, technically challenging documents to compile and write but facilitate an oil spill being remediated expeditiously and with success. ARCTOS and a few other firms specialize in this niche market.

Their clients include companies like Brooks Range Petroleum Corporation, Cook Inlet Energy LLC, Bluecrest Alaska Operating LLC, NordAq, CardnoEntrix, MagTec, Peak Alaska Oilfield Services, and Weatherford. Everybody in the industry needs contingency plans, and when policymakers, administrations, and regulators rotate, the interpretation of the rules becomes an arduous task in contingency plan compliance, according to Ballard. She says Alaska's statutes and regulations are the most stringent in the world when it comes to spill prevention and response preparedness.

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