Suh Woo-rack, a senior executive at Korea Marine Environment Management has announced that South Korea's oil spill response training framework will be fundamentally overhauled in the wake of the Hebei Spirit spill.

Lloyd's List reports that the official said the spill had brought to light shortcomings between training scenarios and actual events, adding that the group would work to address this.

The group will be opening a new training centre in Pusan in 2011 to give support teams a stronger platform to run through contingency plans and spill scenarios.

Among the failures identified by Mr Suh in the Hebei Spirit incident was a lack of a unified command and control mechanism that had led to an inefficient response operation.

The Hebei Spirit released approximately 3.2 million barrels of oil in December 2007 after it collided with a crane barge around ten kilometres off the coast of Taean county.

Oil and Gas Directory: Training and Development