Press Notice No: 155-08
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Posted 16:11 GMT

Exercise Unicorn, a major maritime exercise to be conducted by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) with BP PLC is scheduled to take place in Aberdeen on Tuesday 10th June 2008.

Exercise Unicorn will test the interaction between the MCA, BERR and the BP oil company and other organisations that provide emergency services around Scotland and in the North Sea. It will test national emergency services preparedness and response measures for a major maritime incident and oil spill in the area, although the incident will be simulated over 125 miles out to sea.
The Exercise will include long distance search and rescue operations and counter pollution activities. The exercise will be conducted in real time throughout the 10th, with only the initial key incidents pre-planned. A series of de-briefings for players, exercise evaluators and exercise directing staff will take place on the 11th in Aberdeen.
The search and rescue phase will be co-ordinated from Her Majestys Coastguard Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre at Aberdeen. An Operations Control Unit and a Marine Response Centre will be set up locally in order to deal with the planning for the pseudo oil recovery at sea in order to interact with the oil company.
Officers from the Central Office of Information will join pseudo media from a commercial company who will be role-playing the pressures, albeit in a very much smaller role than the players will be subjected to during a real incident. They will be based at a media centre at the Excel Sports Club at Dyce near Aberdeen and will replicate the pressures of reporting on such a large incident.

Colin Mulvana, MCA Exercise Co-Director, said:
Exercise Unicorn will be one of the largest maritime emergency and counter pollution exercises to be held in the UK. The Exercise will look closely at our procedures for working with both other Government Departments and oil companies. Local, offshore and national oil spill contingency plans of the participating authorities will be exercised to test the alerting, mobilisation and management of resources for search and rescue and the welfare of survivors; counter pollution at sea and marine emergency containment operations.

Wendy Kennedy, BERR Exercise Co-Director said:

Exercises of this kind are invaluable in testing the BERR procedures during a major oil incident in the North Sea affecting an offshore installation. This is a full multi-agency response exercise that will be as close to real conditions as possible. Some elements will be simulated for safety reasons. However, to the players this exercise will seem very real. We are particularly interested in exploring the interaction between ourselves and other organizations.

Posted By: Fred Caygill

For further details contact:
The Maritime & Coastguard Agency Press Office
023 8032 9401