The International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) has released a new pandemic management guidance document, IOGP-IPIECA Report 605—Pandemic Management for the Oil and Gas Industry, documenting learnings from the past year.
The report is designed to provide guidance to plan effective responses to pandemic-scale infectious disease outbreaks in order to aid organizations’ ability to operate and effectively contribute to societal responses. Specific oil and gas related risks and strategies are considered in the context of global, national, and local responses to outbreaks.
The guidance lists its purpose in the following eight points.
- General guidance on business-continuity plans in response to an infectious disease outbreak with pandemic potential
- Health-surveillance practices to quickly incorporate potential outbreaks in business-continuity decision-making
- Recommendations to limit or interrupt workforce infectious-disease transmission and actions to be taken when an outbreak is suspected to have occurred
- Guidance on sharing lessons learned with management and medical personnel
- Awareness of the benefits of response preparation across the organization before an outbreak or pandemic to enhance response effectiveness
- Data needs as the basis for preparedness and response recommendations
- Descriptions of interventions that could be implemented as effective components of a health crisis response
- Defined actions to return to a normal operating state following a health crisis, including recovery actions, lessons learned, and feedback for improvement