BP vessel of opportunity program ending for near future

BP’s vessel of opportunity program will be scaled back substantially in our area now that the forecast is that the oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill will not move into our area in the near future.

The vessel of opportunity program provided basic training to boat owners along the Gulf Coast so that they might be able to help place oil boom or combat the oil spill in other ways. Hundreds of local boat owners took part in the training.

BP reps told county commissioners last Friday during an emergency meeting that the company is now making some major changes to the program and scaling it back. The company said it had signed contracts with nearly 3000 vessels from Louisiana to Florida over the past month, but only activated about 800 of them. Many of those were on call and were being paid but only about 200 were ever used to place boom.

Now BP says it is going to be more selective if it needs to hire local boats and will only hire the boats if it knows it needs them. BP says it is also ending its local vessel of opportunity training classes for the near future – the final class was held Monday in Wakulla County.


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