National Academies Press: OpenBook
« Previous: Front Matter
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×

Summary

More than a decade after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Gulf Research Program (GRP) convened a diverse group of 60 experts in a virtual event to inform its efforts to enhance resilience to future offshore oil disasters in the Gulf of Mexico region. The event, Offshore Situation Room (OSR), took place over 3 half-days during June 15–17, 2021, and had four main objectives:

  • Develop a concise, prioritized list of questions that need to be addressed to support successful prevention, response, and recovery that would minimize the impacts of an offshore oil disaster.
  • Provide a collaborative atmosphere where participants can share ideas, capabilities, and information, and build a community dedicated to the successful prevention of, response to, and recovery from an offshore oil spill disaster.
  • Explore capabilities for and impediments to prevention, response, recovery, and understanding impacts of an offshore oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
  • Highlight how changes in policy, response, resilience, and restoration efforts may affect outcomes of a major offshore incident.

The key output of the event was a prioritized list of actions—generated in real time by OSR participants based on their expertise and insights gained

Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×

during the event—to enhance resilience to future offshore oil disasters in the Gulf of Mexico region. The development of this list was a time-constrained activity in which participants were invited to be creative, forward looking, and collaborative. The list of actions that OSR participants created during this event is shared in this workshop proceedings as a demonstration of one of the outputs of a “serious” games activity. The list is not intended to be comprehensive, and it is also not a consensus set of recommendations from the National Academies.

To fulfill OSR’s objectives, the GRP relied on the ambitious use and sequencing of four “serious” games throughout the 3 days. As opposed to games designed for recreation, the “serious” games of OSR served as a foundation for thoughtful discussion by prompting players to consider key facets and issues surrounding a major offshore oil disaster. Toward this end, three of the games—the Prevention and Preparedness Game; the Response Game; and the Impacts, Recovery, and Restoration Game—aligned to different phases of a major offshore oil disaster.

These three incident-phase games were not intended as simulations of real events and were subject to artificialities and constraints of game rules. However, the games balanced capturing some of the complexities related to operations in these incident phases while enabling gameplay over 2.5 hours. One prominent takeaway from playing these games was the value of working together. Coordination and cooperation among different stakeholder groups led to effective use of limited resources and greater success. Additionally, after playing the games, participants were able to link them back to discussion points and comments about real-world challenges and considerations.

In the fourth and final game of OSR, participants used their subject-matter expertise and insights from the incident-phase games to develop (and later revise) the prioritized list of actions. The focus of this game was for participants to generate ideas about potentially helpful actions to take and to provide a sense of their priorities among these ideas. Participants were free to identify actions, irrespective of who would be responsible for implementing them, and were not tasked with determining who would be responsible for implementing each action.

To participate in OSR, GRP invited experts from a variety of stakeholder communities, including industry, academia, various levels of government, and community and nongovernmental organizations. The representatives from these different stakeholder communities were in some cases coming together for the first time (or for the first time in a long while)

Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×

to sit together virtually and engage in thoughtful discussion and sharing of knowledge and perspectives. The event grouped participants in two ways to facilitate mixing and foster a shared sense of community among all participants. Specifically, each participant was assigned to both an incident-phase group (Prevention and Preparedness; Response; or Impacts, Recovery, and Restoration) and a stakeholder community group (Science in Action, Engineering and Technology, Community Engagement, or Regulation and Best Practices) based on his or her background. Participants played in the incident-phase game corresponding to their incident-phase group and in a Needs and Planning Game corresponding to their stakeholder community group.

In addition to the gaming sessions, OSR also included opening and closing plenary remarks by Admiral Thad Allen (U.S. Coast Guard, retired). Admiral Allen provided insights about not only his experiences as the National Incident Commander for the Deepwater Horizon incident response but also how the operational environment has changed since then. In keeping with OSR’s desire to be forward looking, Admiral Allen also encouraged OSR participants to be proactive in preparing for the range of possible things that could happen—not just another Deepwater Horizon.

Admiral Allen’s remarks are captured in the main body of this proceedings. Two key insights that he conveyed in his opening and closing remarks are as follows:

  • Complexity serves as a risk aggravator. The uncertainty and insufficiency of existing resources, procedures, and authorities require the flexibility to adapt, adjust thinking, and challenge presumptions about how things are supposed to work.
  • The antidote to complexity is co-production. Complex problems are not solved by individual entities; the solutions need to be coproduced through a unity of effort across all stakeholders.

After the conclusion of Day 3’s Needs and Planning Game, OSR participants identified a total of 114 actions across the four stakeholder community groups, which can be found in Appendix A of this proceedings. Of these, the Needs and Planning Game format allowed participants in each stakeholder community group to prioritize the top 12 (or fewer) actions from among those they identified. These high-priority actions (44 in total) are listed in the main body of the proceedings (see Needs and Planning

Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×

TABLE S-1 Recurring Topics That Arose During Needs and Planning Sessions

Stakeholder Community Group Recurring Topics Highest-Priority Action
Science in Action Adaptive policy and revising existing policies, science and innovation, collaboration, inclusion of the human dimension, collaboration about communication, planning Look at ways to mitigate the risk from abandoned and legacy infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico: abandoned pipelines, abandoned wells, decommissioned or abandoned rigs and platforms, etc.
Engineering and Technology Integrating technologies Incentivize the use of best available proven technology and encourage funding of other, emerging technologies
Community Engagement Education, networking, and engagement opportunities Create funding opportunities to encourage translation of science and empowerment of community-based organizations, with the community as the lead
Regulation and Best Practices Strategic analysis and joint planning, communication and collaboration, modernizing and upgrading regulations, better communication progress Develop a strategic analysis of threats (e.g., cybersecurity, foreign and domestic threats) for issues ranging from nuisance incidents to “black swan”–type events, then prepare recommended practices and a roadmap of activities for mitigation; identify and engage cybersecurity experts during preparedness and response to crises

Game Actions section), organized by stakeholder community group. Table S-1 lists recurring topics that arose during the deliberations of each group, as well as their highest-priority action.

Common themes also arose across all four stakeholder community groups, including the following:

  • Updating outdated legal and regulatory structures
  • Improving data collection
  • Supporting communication, collaboration, and joint efforts, particularly across stakeholder community groups
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×
  • Incentivizing behavior and progress
  • Providing strategic-level analysis and thinking

In summary, OSR aligns and contributes to the GRP’s broader vision of “a more safe, resilient, and sustainable future for the Gulf and all those who call the region home” or rely on its abundant resources. As documented in this proceedings, OSR generated a wealth of ideas. Across 3 half-days and through innovative gameplay, a diverse group of participants was able to put forth, discuss, and prioritize ideas to inform the work of GRP moving forward. In doing so, OSR will initiate a rich community of interest that will facilitate co-production of solutions to the remaining challenges facing future offshore oil disasters, whatever form they might take.

Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×

This page intentionally left blank.

Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×
Page 1
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×
Page 2
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×
Page 3
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×
Page 4
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×
Page 5
Suggested Citation:"Summary." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2021. Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26347.
×
Page 6
Next: 1 Introduction »
Offshore Situation Room: Enhancing Resilience to Offshore Oil Disasters in the Gulf of Mexico: Proceedings of a Workshop Get This Book
×
Buy Paperback | $41.00 Buy Ebook | $32.99
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

More than a decade after the Deepwater Horizon disaster, the Gulf Research Program convened a diverse group of 60 experts in a virtual event to inform its efforts to enhance resilience to future offshore oil disasters in the Gulf of Mexico region. The event, Offshore Situation Room, took place over three half-days during June 15-17, 2021, and had four main objectives: 1) develop a concise, prioritized list of questions that need to be addressed to support successful prevention, response, and recovery that would minimize the impacts of an offshore oil disaster; 2) provide a collaborative atmosphere where participants can share ideas, capabilities, and information, and build a community dedicated to the successful prevention of, response to, and recovery from an offshore oil spill disaster; 3) explore capabilities for and impediments to prevention, response, recovery, and understanding impacts of an offshore oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico; and 4) highlight how changes in policy, response, resilience, and restoration efforts may affect outcomes of a major offshore incident. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussion of the event.

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!