Disaster Response Consultancy

Building Robust Resilience and Closing the Implementation Gaps

Gareth McCorkill MNI MSc

Gareth McCorkill is the Founder and Director of Disaster Response Consultancy Ltd (DRCL). DRCL provides independent consultancy on oil spill, hazardous and noxious substance (HNS) and marine pollution work across the Middle East and internationally, from contingency planning and equipment specification to competency-based training and exercises. He has more than 22 years in the oil spill response industry and has worked in more than 50 countries. He began his career at 16 with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA), where he served 4 years as a cadet and then 4 years as a deck officer. He is a Member of the Nautical Institute (MNI) and is completing an MSc in Disaster Management and Resilience at the University of Wolverhampton.

Notable achievements

Helped the National Center for Environmental Compliance (NCEC) draft Saudi Arabia’s minimum oil spill response standards for marine-facing industries
Helped train more than 5,000 Saudi nationals in oil spill preparedness, and managed teams across 3 response bases on the Red Sea coast
Technical lead across 6 international business units at NRC International, and for the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) Equipment Assistance Service in the North Sea
Incident Commander for a shoreline recovery covering circa 250 km between Morecambe Bay and the Solway Firth, leading up to 50 personnel at its peak
Served in Iraq with a mine counter-measures detachment clearing marine mines around Umm Qasr, and as the ship’s Nuclear, Biological, Chemical and Damage Control (NBCD) Officer

Spill and incident response

MV Agia Zoni II, Salamína / Piraeus, Greece
MV Cabrera, Andros, Greece
MSC Napoli
Sunken decommissioned tug, Berth 50, Port of Southampton
Suez, Egypt, and Angola as technical adviser
Pollution cover for the salvage of the fishing vessel Nicola Faith off North Wales
Remediation of a 1,200-litre diesel release above a major aquifer, including removal of circa 80 tonnes of soil
SARS-CoV-2 decontamination of repatriated aircraft and buses for the UK Government

Project experience

Oil spill response plan approval for the Lagansky Block in Russia, agreed with the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Emergencies (EMERCOM)
Emergency Response Team plan for BP’s South Caucasus Pipeline Expansion (SCPX)
Preparedness work for the TaqTaq field in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, offshore fields in Mexico, and a project in Thailand
Technical proposals and in-country commissioning of permanent booms and recovery systems for clients across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region
A cross-company state exercise on Cook Inlet, Alaska, and International Maritime Organization (IMO) Oil Pollution Preparedness, Response and Co-operation (OPRC) training worldwide

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WHAT WE OFFER

Disaster Response Consultancy Ltd (DRCL) is an independent oil spill, hazardous and noxious substance (HNS) and marine pollution advisory. Because DRCL neither manufactures nor supplies response equipment, its advice on tenders, equipment and compliance is vendor-neutral, which lets it sit unambiguously on the client’s side of the table. That independence is paired with authority: DRCL’s principal drafted the National Center for Environmental Compliance (NCEC) minimum standards against which marine-facing facilities in the Kingdom are now assessed.

His technical capability rests on several complementary areas that are rarely combined in a single practitioner. In contingency and tactical planning, he prepares and reviews oil spill contingency plans (OSCPs) and facility response arrangements against the tiered preparedness model that underpins international practice, from Tier 1 facility response through regional Tier 2 cooperation to Tier 3 national and international mobilisation. On the equipment side, he specifies, selects, and mobilises containment, recovery, and storage systems suited to the conditions of a given site, working from a detailed understanding of boom performance, oleophilic skimming rates, anchoring, and temporary storage rather than generic product lists.

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Delivered Directly by DRCL

Independent tender advisory and assessment of submitted tenders

NCEC compliance gap analysis and equipment requirements

ISO 45001 audits; equipment replacement audits

Asset management and maintenance audit and consultancy

Contingency plan (OSCP) assessment and re-write

Desktop environmental risk and resilience assessments

Delivered Directly by DRCL

Capability statements; tactical plans

Best-practice research, academic papers and practical reports

Exercise design, planning and execution (WCS, table-top, drills)

Equipment Commissioning, Maintenance and Training

Deployment training

Boat driving training and assessment

Delivered in Collaboration

OPRC training

HAZWOPER and HNS training

ICS training