THE SIGNIFICANCE OF PREPAREDNESS PROGRAMME AND EMERGENCY RESPONSE TOWARDS OIL SPILL PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE: A CASE STUDY OF LUMUT, MALAYSIA

Abstract

This research determines the successful factors of oil spill preparedness and response from the management perspective. An oil spill can be regarded as a release of liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the marine environment that is primarily caused by human activities, resulting as a form of water pollution. Due to high customers’ needs and demands around the globe, shipping activities is increasing and leading to a growing risk of marine pollution. In the shipping industry, the oil spills occur from various sources such as release of crude oil from tanker, drilling rigs and wells; as well as spills of refined petroleum products into the sea. Millions of dollars need to be spent in recovery and it takes several months or even years to recover and clean up the polluted waters. Failure in taking appropriate actions after the occurrence of the oil pollution leads to a serious damage to the environment and human health. This research focuses on two important elements from the management perspective towards the successful factors of oil spill preparedness and response, which are preparedness program and emergency plan. A questionnaire survey was used and distributed to two different companies in Lumut, Perak. In this research, 53 respondents have participated which comprises of 30 respondents from a government agency and 23 respondents from an oil & gas company. Correlation results show that the management perspective of preparedness program and emergency response have a strong correlation towards the oil spill preparedness at 0.764 and response at 0.647.