The oil industry has made contingency plans from the earliest operations to clean up any spills due to accidents during exploration and production. The Oil Industry International Exploration and Production Forum (E & P Forum) was established in 1974 to coordinate oil industry opinion with governments and intergovernmental agencies. The United Nations Environment Programme and the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organization are working together to organize regional oil spill clean-up arrangements both on the apparatus and on the financial side. The E & P Forum member companies have formulated a computer program to estimate the cost of clean-up following any hypothetical blow-out in the North Sea. This program is applicable, provided the appropriate meteorological data are available, to other areas of the world such as the Mediterranean, the Persian/Arabian Gulf, the Gulf of Mexico, the Malacca Straits, etc., where U.N.E.P./I.M.C.O. are proposing to set up multi-national conventions. In places such as the North Sea, the oil companies have mutual aid organizations which maintain stocks of dispersant, suitable vessels and spreaders, skimmers and booms to minimize any oil that may be driven to the shore. Looking to the future, there may be some problems associated with harvesting manganese nodules or mining the Red Sea mineral-rich lands. However, conservation is today part of any general planning of an operation and new processes that are developed will take into consideration adequate anti-pollution measures.
Correction: Rural population mixing and childhood leukaemia: effects of the North Sea oil industry in Scotland, including the area near Dounreay nuclear site