A new emergency response hub for the oil and gas industry is being built in Aberdeen by Altor Risk Group by an entrepreneur who set up the city’s first privately-owned offshore emergency centre under the Rubicon brand some years ago.
The person behind the original facility and the new one is former soldier Jim Walker, who established Rubicon after a spell with BP looking after BP’s North Sea emergency response and crisis management function. Rubicon was inspired by the massive cost-cutting and contracting-out drive by various oil majors as a result of the late 1997 through early 1999 oil price slump.
“We grew Rubicon a UK-centric company focused purely on emergency response and crisis management,” Walker told Energy.
The company was sold to Petrofac in 2005 after which event he became operations director for Petrofac Training, an umbrella that absorbed various related enterprises including RGIT Montrose and Chrysalis.
In 2007, he stepped back from the offshore industry to broaden his experience but, in 2009, Walker started planning a successor to Rubicon, including tapping into the network of relevant, highly experienced people that he already knew.
“My view was that, with what was happening in the energy industry, this warranted another player capable of delivering modern crisis management facilities for exploration and production operators, service and support companies; national oil companies overseas seeking to internationalise; also downstream.”
Walker added that small and mid-cap explorers like Apache and Cairn were of particular interest and all needed the kind of experience that could be offered through the putative new venture, Altor.
“We started planning Altor in 2009 and formalised it in July 2010. The difference this time is that Altor has been an international company from the word go and Aberdeen is our global HQ.
Now he is investing £250,000 in raising the company to its next level by developing new facilities at Lord Cullen House, Fraser Place, on the site adjacent to the Health & Safety Executive’s regional base. It will initially create around 10 jobs.
The incident management centre includes a high specification emergency response control room facility, using the latest communications and management technologies, and associated support services for companies operating in challenging environments on and offshore in the North Sea and beyond.
The centre will provide 24/7 support to companies in the event of an emergency situation, including a pool of specialist responders, effective practical training exercises and simulations, advice and consultancy.
Global asset tracking and Command, Control and Information management software systems will allow responders to make decisions based on real-time information, and log every step of an incident to ensure lessons can be learned at every stage.
Crisis management and logistics specialist Andrew Couper, a former British Army staff officer who has more than 25 years’ experience in emergency planning and managing emergency response control rooms, has been appointed to manage the centre.
Previously co-ordinator of the multi-agency emergency risk assessment, planning and response group for the Grampian Police force area, Couper will oversee the development, management and promotion of the centre.
Altor has offices in Aberdeen, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Perth – Western Australia.