Here's how you can navigate crisis communication in the oil and gas industry.

Esta actividad siempre se ha realizado en la industria del petróleo al inicio de manera basada en la experiencia de otras plantas y en la propia planta pero actualmente se cuentan con herramientas y sistemas de gestión que nos permiten una evaluación integral y muy detallada de todos los riesgos en las plantas y definir los planes de contingencia para hacer frente a posibles incidentes.

Estos aspectos son muy importantes y considero que debemos hacer énfasis en el entrenamiento del personal en general, realización de simulacros y difusión permanente de los planes de contingencias

Wellsite communication between the different vendors is crucial. Have concise plans as to whose responsibility coincides with the emergency response actions. My experience has been to cover this during a pre-startup or a pre-shift meeting and then have the contractors/vendors communicate in a separate, brief meeting should their work areas or duties overlap. Establishing contact and rapport with state and local emergency response is a preventative measure that will pay benefits when an emergency happens. They need to know who you are and how your employees and their responders will work together. Emergency Responders were always invited to our safety training series, specifically for hazmat training classes.

Since major oil and gas incidents often attract significant interest from the media and public, establishing an external communications plan that clearly address media and public information management is essential to alleviate the spread of misinformation, which can severely damage the organization's reputation. Thus, a robust social media strategy integrated into the overall external communications plan will help relieve pressure on decision makers, leading to more timely and effective response preparation to recover from the crisis. In addition, since the resources needed to monitor and engage with social media during a major incident can be significant, the potential to expand staffing within the response team should recognize this.

La emisión de información es muy crucial en el caso de incidentes . Debe ser clara y oportuna según a qué partes interesadas va dirigida. Las empresas deben tener definidas los voceros y los medios de difusión a usar para efectuar las comunicaciones en caso de incidentes.

Effective cooperation among all involved stakeholders is of paramount importance as major incidents often rapidly escalate, leading to devastating consequences. This entails ensuring the flow of factual and consistent information to stakeholders, availability of pre-authorized techniques in the response toolkit, and ability to mobilize and deploy response capabilities without unnecessary barriers. Pre-determination of contact points for each stakeholder is a pre-requisite for successful incident response. Finally, a shared view of the situation (i.e. situational awareness) using surveillance, modeling, and visualization tools will ensure that all stakeholders operate from the same perspective, and their concerns are taken into account.

The organization is always equipped with the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) for crisis communication. Crisis communication teams are to be made operational immediately. They are also encouraged to use similar feedback and understanding the crisis. New and nascent comments are to be given weightage after scrutiny.