At 20:07 on the evening of February 15^th 1996, the Liberian registered Sea Empress ran aground at St Annes Head at the entrance to Milford Haven, Wales. The M/T Sea Empress was a 147,273 DWT tonnes tanker with a single hull construction built in 1993. She was laden with a cargo of 131,000 tonnes of Forties Blend crude oil, on passage from the Firth of Forth, Scotland to Milford Haven, Wales.

The Sea Empress lost an estimated 72,000 tonnes of crude oil and 364 tonnes of fuel oil, although only between 2,000 and 6,000 tonnes was suggested as lost during the initial grounding.

Hi-Bar’s first notification of the spill was received by the duty engineer at 21:40. The information was immediately passed on to the Hi-Bar IPR Unit duty manager and the decision to launch a response was made at 22:00 on the evening of February 15^th 1996.

The first phase in the response was to develop a line of communications with the key parties involved in the incident. Faxed communications were sent to Texaco, Oil Spill Response Limited (OSRL), MPCU (Marine Pollution Control Unit) and DV Howells (MPSC) at Milford Haven Docks Company.

Monitoring of the situation at the Hi-Bar incident room made it apparent from the early information that the incident was minor with new information suggesting a cargo loss estimated at only 1,000 tonnes and not 6,000 tonnes as originally reported. From this early information discussions were underway to stand down Hi-Bar’s response, when new estimates of the cargo loss re-confirmed the original 6,000 tonne figure and the vessel casualty was at risk of re-grounding. Hi-Bar’s management group made the decision to mobilise a team to the spill site.

Hi-Bar’s initial on-scene response arrived on site mid-morning on day one of the incident. Oil Spill Response Ltd’s operations were underway and oil recovery operations were being carried out on the south side of the entrance to Milford Haven.

The initial Hi-Bar response team reported to the Texaco oil refinery and was immediately recognised by the on-scene commander from Texaco’s SORTIE (Spilled Oil Response Team, International, Europe) and recommended for deployment via their existing response contract with OSRL.

Immediately on commencement of the contracted deployment back-up resources were deployed from Hi-Bar and the on-scene team joined OSRL’s front line response.

In the early phases of the spill response, Hi-Bar personnel assisted OSRL teams in deploying specialised equipment and activating parts of the regional and national contingency plans for the UK Coastguard Agency and the municipal authorities of Pembrokeshire.

The Hi-Bar team provided technician skills as part of the Texaco SORTIE and OSRL response group. This stage of the operations resulted in long working hours on the rugged Welsh coastline in highly unpredictable weather conditions. This continued for almost two weeks as marine and civil authorities were debating the fate of the tanker and continual salvage attempts were being made.

As the early stages of the response stabilised, personnel from Hi-Bar were re-deployed by Texaco to function as Beachmasters, controlling response operations on individual sections of the impacted coastline. This re-deployment allowed the Hi-Bar response to operate under its autonomy while remaining part of the front line Texaco response.

When the Sea Empress was pulled free of the rocks and moved to the Milford Haven oil terminal, The Hi-Bar team was called to assist in a night time deployment of RoBoom® ocean boom to form a barrier around the casualty vessel. A small "short stand by" team remained on duty throughout the night while the tanker was made safe alongside the Milford Haven oil terminal pier.

As the Sea Empress was made secure in Milford Haven and the removal of oil was underway, the status of the incident moved from an emergency response to a clean-up project. Hi-Bar’s team was redeployed to manage lager areas of the incident response and undertake specialist roles within the operation.

Operating directly under authority of the JRC and the new unified council offices Hi-Bar personnel were deployed to control significant areas of the operational front line (specifically the area between Tenby South Beach and Pendine Ranges).

Hi-Bar operatives successfully deployed the first bioremediation response to an area of the incident affected coastline. Using Hi-Bar branded kelp products for the removal and breakdown of oil at the Angle Lifeboat Station.

The task of broad operations control was regularly interrupted to provide liaison between the Civil Authorities and the local communities of the Welsh coast. Negotiating access and community support was a regular task for the duty Hi-Bar team; this included support for and discussions with local residents, land owners and wild life supporters.

Deployed as part of the OSRL team Hi-Bar personnel were used to monitor equipment use and condition. Their role involved the removal and re-stockpiling of non-essential, redundant and damaged equipment. The asset management tasks also involved the maintenance of location records for equipment; essential for the continual financial records maintained throughout the incident.

As the incident became stable and manageable as projects for local council and community groups all oil spill response organisations were stood down. While personnel reductions were taking place in all areas the Hi-Bar team was kept on until the Texaco based response team was closed down.

After standing down from the incident, the response team remained in touch with the activities in Wales and maintained a dialogue with AEA and MPCU personnel.

Hi-Bar took part in the incident debrief and JRC "wash-up".

As a follow on to the Sea Empress operations, Hi-Bar undertook consultancy work for the Environment Agency through Robin Perry and Associates and is now a major part of the Emergency Response team based at Milford Docks MPSC (Maine Pollution Salvage Centre).