OneX Workshop Explores Alternative Fuel Response in London

Sea Alarm facilitated a groundbreaking two-day OneX serious game event at the IPIECA headquarters in London on January 13-14. The workshop, organised by the UK and Eire Spill Association in collaboration with IPIECA, addressed the challenges posed by shipping incidents involving new and alternative fuels in UK ports and estuarine environments.
The workshop provided a unique opportunity to align stakeholders on emergency preparedness strategies and strengthen collaboration across the maritime sector by using the innovative and versatile OneX serious games. The OneX games enable participants to self-design realistic or future emergency scenarios with vessels in an anonymous yet realistic setting. As such they can explore the risks and effects of incidents involving alternative fuel, such as ammonia, methanol, LNG, very low sulphur fuel oil (VLSFO), or Hazardous Noxious Substances (HNS), and see what the response requirements should be, both in terms of resources and time.
The event brought together 30 participants, including representatives from key authorities such as SOSREP, the Marine and Coastguard Agency, and regional port authorities. Response organisations, including OSRL, Ambipar, Adler and Allan and Blue Tack, were also there, as well as industry leaders from Shell, BP, ITOPF and the P&I Clubs, and some independent experts.
For every scenario, the group was divided into three key perspectives: tactical response, HNS behaviour and response strategy, and overall response management and planning. They were all interconnected during each scenario but rotated between the three tables so that each group had the opportunity to look at the OneX games and the scenarios from each of the three different perspectives.
The HNS table used a mix of cards and posters to familiarise participants with the risk assessment process as advocated by the Marine HNS Manual for scenario-specific responses. This newly developed game has been designed to go systematically through the content of this manual to determine relevant safety concerns, and to find the recommended response strategies and actions for a given scenario.
At the tactical table, participants explored and visualised the behaviour of released substances, discussed the risks and potential effects and determined what the response should look like. They looked at what resources would be needed for an effective response and the logistical limitations (time and location) to acquire those resources from moblilsation points.
The third table was tasked to look at worst case scenarios given the wider social and environmental characteristics and sensitivities that were presented by the scenario. They used dedicated card decks to determine the priorities on which the response should concentrate, from immediate actions to equally important actions that would be needed on a slightly longer timeline.
The three tables were reporting to each other during plenary briefings, which gave more depth to the learnings as they clearly had focused on different issues and related priorities.
In this workshop we discovered that our innovative OneX serious games can be lined up with each other, creating an even more effective tool, that can engage 30 experts to study and learn from their collective knowledge. As such we were able to let the participants run through 3 different scenarios within a limited timeframe of around 8 hours. Participants left with a strong sense of direction and a shared commitment to further strengthen their collective preparedness for alternative fuel incidents.
Are you interested in organising a OneX serious game workshop? Contact: secretariat@sea-alarm.org