Thursday, July 16, 2009

A Classic Lesson from the Nigerian Pipeline Disaster


“Effective emergency preparedness is a task that is never done, but requires continuing commitment and leadership because circumstances change and continuing trade-offs because we will never have the funds to do everything we might like to do.” - Statement of William O. Jenkins, Jr., Director Homeland Security and Justice Issues, State of California



The impact of regular terror attacks is too big to be ignored
Aside from natural and accidental calamities, man-made catastrophes have grown to such a scale that they have become almost anticipated disasters. In Nigeria, for example, a total of 1 million barrels’ worth of oil exports are lost every day due to human-induced disasters resulting from intentional acts of terror.

Just barely 3 months ago, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) Limited had to shut down a number of oil installations after suspected sabotage led to explosions on a pipeline. This shutdown has led to a loss of about 70,000 barrels per day for the oil giant.

Two days ago, Nigerian militants admitted to a separate pipeline bombing incident of a Chevron facility delivering crude between Olero and Abiteye. And recently, The Italian gas company, Agip, was forced to shut down its oil facilities, after “heavily armed fighters” bombed the Niger Delta facility.

In an act of intimidation, the insurgent group MEND on July 14 has warned the international football association FIFA that it should "rethink" allowing Nigeria to host the upcoming under-17 World Cup series later this year as the safety of international players and visitors cannot be guaranteed.

Nigeria loses about $1.5 billion yearly to terror attacks, and there is an urgent need for the government to address the situation.


The incomplete agenda
Laudably, the recently concluded Nigeria 2009 Oil and Gas Conference has agreed to reinvest profits to infrastructure to reduce poverty, an answer to terror attacks. Uplifting economic conditions is indeed one way to mitigate the growth and support for militants. The militants themselves admitted that the acts of terror were borne to advocate reinvestment to development projects and campaign for anti-corruption.

Tactically, however, this move alone is not sufficient to address the challenges posed by the destabilizing forces. Building infrastructure will take several years, but direct action is needed now for a more complete and immediate response to the challenges. There is still work to be done in saving lives and securing the physical assets of businesses, the government and the private sector, and in formulating a clear response and recovery plan.

There are multiple facets to disaster preparedness. Are your disaster recovery plans adequate?

Addressing limits to our disaster response capacities
The classic lesson highlights the limitations of our current understanding and capacity to respond effectively to human-induced hazards. Not to mention the severity of catastrophic events which almost immediately overwhelm national, local and organisational response capacities that require response almost immediately.

The acts of terror and natural hazard do not recognize political or organisational boundaries and could impale economies and businesses. Addressing catastrophic events must be well-catered for in every budget, but even beyond that, sometimes addressing them requires unconventional means.


The evolving role of the emergency and risk manager and the need for further collaboration
Your role as an emergency manager is now more important than ever. It goes beyond just coordinating disaster response or crisis management activities, providing disaster preparedness training, and preparing emergency plans and procedures for natural (e.g., hurricanes, floods, earthquakes), wartime, or technological (e.g., nuclear power plant emergencies, hazardous materials spills) disasters or hostage situations.
For example, the US’ 9-11 cataclysmic terror attacks expanded the extent of emergency preparedness to also include public safety, homeland security, emergency medical facilities, the international community and the private sector.

While the private sector must compliment the government, the size of the investment needed usually means that government is the best-equipped agency to do so, as noted by Mr. Mutiu Sunmonu, Managing Director of SPDC.

Effectively dealing with emergency requires a proactive, integrated, multi-hazard, multi-sectoral and full-cycle approach. As the rules of the game get tougher, are you confident that you know everything there is to know about how to mitigate effectively against disaster, manage rescue and response or organise and deliver relief?

EMPRR 2009 Global Summit & Exhibition, 7-8 October 2009, Grand Copthorne Waterfont Hotel Level 2, Singapore — the biggest gathering of emergency managers and business continuity experts in Asia — will provide you the platform to explore what you had to know, and partner with the right people for you to be able to reduce the risk, damage, and loss, shorten the recovery period, and ensure business continuity.

During the occurrence of a major disaster is too late a time to be exchanging business cards
Assessing, developing, attaining and sustaining needed emergency preparedness, response and recovery capabilities is a difficult task that requires sustained leadership, and the coordinated efforts of many stakeholders from a variety of first responder disciplines, levels of government, the community and the business sector at the right time.

Don’t wait for disaster to happen! EMPRR 2009 brings an agenda that:
• provides numerous case studies,
• showcases new technologies and strategies to predict hazards,
• teaches you to assess the risk to human life and property,
• guides you in planning a response to an emergency,
• illlustrates how to discover and recover from damage,
• discusses how to manage ongoing hazardous conditions,
• demonstrates how to plan and mitigate for future hazards, and,
• leads the discussion to impact policy and decision making.


Grab the opportunity of our early bird promotion!
Save your company 30% off the regular price if you confirm and register before 31 July 2009. EMPRR09 provides preferred rates to government and partner organisations and emergency first responders, kindly send me an email for more info.

As for the terror attacks, I hope I could meet you in Singapore to discuss how strategically and tactically, these could best be solved!

Sincerely,

Paul Adams
Marketing Manager
EMPRR 2009

P.S. As an emergency or risk manager, you are also in charge of protecting your organisational assets, ensuring business continuity and forge partnership to help you fulfil your task better. Attend Workshop B to find out more strategies you can employ and claim your complimentary copies of 2 books related to BCP/BCM.

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