Technicians and professionals of the Office of the Undersecretary of the Environment of La Pampa, the Office of the Undersecretary of Hydrocarbons and Mining of La Pampa, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources of the Province of Neuquén, and Pan American Energy, YPF, Sinopec Argentina, COGA, Oldelval, Raízen and Pluspetrol participated in the fourth edition of the training "Oil Spill Response Planning and Readiness Assessment” using ARPEL Manual and its RETOS tool.

This event, organized by ARPEL and the Argentine Institute of Oil and Gas (AIPG), was held September 4-5, 2019.

RETOS (Readiness Evaluation/Excel Tool for Oil Spills) constitutes a unique assessment tool that provides guidance for operators in the oil and gas sector and in governments to verify their own oil spill preparedness and response management.

The Manual and its tool are intended to encourage users to work on closing the gaps while at the same time working towards a higher level of competition.

The course includes the following subjects: Review of Concepts; Implementation Level Assessment; Opportunities for Improvement and Plans; and Opportunities for Improvement in My Contingency Plan (change of risk to opportunity).

The outcome of the assessment process is a scoring summary, which yields conclusions for the Scope and Level assessed: a quantitative conclusion for each category and for the overall program assessed, and a qualitative conclusion for the overall program.

The course instructor was Darío Miranda, a marine biologist with over 20 years of experience in Ecopetrol as Environmental Control Supervisor of Marine Terminal FSU-Coveñas. He currently works as a private consultant in Colombia, Panama, Ecuador, Peru, Curacao and Venezuela.

RETOS has become an international reference on the subject, and is currently used by companies and governments in the five continents.

The tool is available in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese, and can be downloaded free of charge at the following link: https://arpel.org/library/publication/341/

For more information on ARPEL courses, please contact us through e-mail at cursos@arpel.org.uy or by calling (+ 598) 6993.