Under the Australian Government’s Crisis Management Framework, we are the lead agency for any spills involving an offshore petroleum facility in Commonwealth waters. To evaluate how prepared we are for an offshore oil spill, we regularly participate in exercises that simulate one of these unlikely incidents.
The evaluation report for the latest exercise – Exercise Zephyr – is now available.
We undertook this exercise in partnership with the Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre (AMOSC) and Western Australia Department of Transport. Its aims were to:
- test government and industry emergency response to an offshore oil spill
- further develop our crisis management response framework
- highlight areas of the response framework that could be improved.
Exercise Zephyr demonstrated that we have appropriate and effective arrangements to lead the Australian Government’s strategic response to a significant oil spill.