Egypt's National Oil Spill Contingency Plan Framework And Its Interaction With Upstream Hydrocarbon Activities

The rapid growth of economic development in Egypt over the last few decades has led to a numerous hydrocarbon offshore projects, expanding maritime facilities and the vast spread of coastal tourist developments. However, such growth was not coupled with adequate capacity building of existing national oil spill response facilities. This has resulted in a loss of balance between the degree of environmental exposure and level of preparedness to respond to potential oil spills that may occur in these high sensitive coastal areas and marine environment in Egypt. It also hinders effective implementation of the newly updated National Oil Spill Contingency Plan (NOSCP) and compliance with international conventions and treaties signed and ratified by Egypt in this respect, where the international convention on Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation, 1990 (OPRC) provide the international legal framework for establishing national and international response systems to oil pollution incidents. Egypt ratified MARPOL73/78 and OPRC1990 and other conventions; meantime Egyptian Law of Environment (4/94) gave Egyptian Environmental Affairs Agency (EEAA) a clear mandate to prepare an Environmental Disasters Contingency Plan. One important component of such an overall plan is the NOSCP. Over the last two years several concerned parties and stakeholders conducted their own investigations and assessment to identify critical areas of concern and high exposure. Many assessment reports addressing the situation and the initiatives proposed to recover from it are now available and efforts are underway to enhance bridging the gap and restore the required balance between exposure and preparedness. This paper reviews present status of imbalance between exposure and preparedness, describes current status of the NOSCP, discusses efforts needed to restore the balance and present a way forward to ensure credible response. It will address the framing of the Egyptian NOSCP and show its effects on hydrocarbon exploration, production and hydrocarbon shipping programs and activities.