Ten years after the disaster of the Agean Sea, the Galician coast is once again threatened by an oil spill. Ten years, during which no effective measures had been put in place to prevent such disasters. “Prestige”, a 26 year old single hull oil tanker carrying 77,000 metrics tons of heavy fuel oil, began to break up in mid-November 2002 near the coast of Spain’s autonomous community of Galicia and towed out to sea, finally sinking 19th November at Cap Finisterre. This place marks the extreme western point of the Iberian Peninsula, where the Prestige has created an oil slick along the coastline of Galicia, and caused one of the major economic and environmental disasters. Fishing is the source of livelihood for an estimated quarter million families in Galicia. In addition to contaminating of the Galician coastline, Europe’s richest in fish and shellfish, the oil has spread to Spain’s northern coasts of the autonomous communities of Asturias, Cantabria and Basque Country, the French and Portuguese coasts. The “Costa da Morte” is the name given to this coastline, which has seen many shipping accidents over years.
Many people from all over the world are cleaning voluntarily the Galician coasts affected by the spill. They have been duped “the white tide” for the protective uniforms they wear and for their work in defence of the environment.1 Since it began spewing toxic fuel oil during a storm off the Galician coast on November 13th, the Prestige has been a major political headache for the Spanish government. The opposition Socialist party and local media have questioned Prime Ministers José María Aznar’s decision to send the tanker back out to the stormy Atlantic, rather than allow it into a harbour where spilling oil could be contained before the tanker broke up. Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy is responsible for the coordination of the government’s crisis team to handle the oil spill. The nature conservation department of the Galician regional department, Xunta, is working systematically towards gearing its activities to manage this crisis. Now the oil slick is threatening the “Costa lucense” (also called “Rias Altas”) will arrive in the near future at two beaches on the northern Galician coast, next to the town Viveiro. [...]
Table of Contents
I. Introduction – Project “Nunca Mais en Viveiro”
II. Theoretical Background of Project Management
2.1 Definition of Project Management
2.2 Process of Project Management
III. Planning of the Project “Nunca Mais en Viveiro”
3.1 Activity Planning
3.2 Time Scheduling
3.2.1 Work Breakdown Structure and Analysis
3.2.2 Precedence Network
3.2.3 PERT – Dealing with uncertainty
3.3 Costing and Resource Scheduling
3.3.1 Costing
3.3.2 Human Resource Scheduling
3.3.3 Cost Scheduling
3.3.4 Simple Cost Crashing
3.4 Risk Management
3.4.1 Theoretical Background
3.4.2 Project “Nunca Mais en Viveiro” – Example of Risk Management
3.4.3 Preventive Strategies
IV. Conclusion
Project Goals and Thematic Focus
This report addresses the challenge of managing an emergency environmental project, specifically the clean-up of beaches affected by the "Prestige" oil spill. The central research objective is to demonstrate how systematic project management techniques—covering time, cost, performance, and risk—can be applied to effectively handle a complex, small-scale environmental disaster operation.
- Application of project management methodologies to environmental crisis scenarios.
- Implementation of time scheduling tools, including WBS, Gantt charts, and PERT for uncertainty management.
- Development of cost and resource allocation strategies, specifically "Ground-up Costing" and "Simple Cost Crashing."
- Strategic risk assessment and identification of preventive measures for maritime disasters.
Excerpt from the Book
3.4.2 Project “Nunca Mais en Viveiro” – Example of Risk Management
The procedure for evaluating risks and risk handling measures can be illustrated with an example of this project:
It assumed that our project receives an important part of the protection clothes from one supplier only (risk type: purchasing / dependency risk). If the supplier fails to deliver, the clean up activities come to a halt one day. If the supplier fails temporarily or permanently, new suppliers have to identified and contracts have to be concluded, which will take around one week. The impact of a one-week stop of cleaning activities is estimated to be 4.000 EUR. The damage caused by supplier failure (impact before risk handling measures) can now estimated by multiplying the project volume with the average margin of e.g. 15%. Thus the impact on EBIT of this risk can be estimated by multiplying the expected loss with the margin:
Sales loss of 1 week 4.000 EUR * 15% = 600 EUR impact on EBIT
According to the above mentioned standard evaluation scales, the impact before risk handling measures would be rated as 2 and is “minor”.
Measures for risk handling are for example setting up a second source with other suppliers. With these risk handling measures, a delivery failure by the main supplier can then be compensated relatively easily by the second. The impact on EBIT taking into account fully implemented measures corresponds to a stop of the cleaning activities of two days.
Thus the approximate impact on EBIT is 1.000 EUR * 15% = 150 EUR.
Summary of Chapters
I. Introduction – Project “Nunca Mais en Viveiro”: Provides context on the Prestige oil spill disaster in Galicia and defines the scope of the clean-up project for the beaches of San Roman and Xilloi.
II. Theoretical Background of Project Management: Defines fundamental project management concepts and the essential "POEM" process (Plan, Organize, Monitor, and Control) required for project success.
III. Planning of the Project “Nunca Mais en Viveiro”: Details the practical application of project planning, including activity breakdowns, time scheduling, cost management, and risk mitigation strategies tailored to the clean-up project.
IV. Conclusion: Summarizes the necessity of early and professional project management in environmental crises and critiques the current regulatory environment regarding maritime transport.
Keywords
Project Management, Prestige oil spill, Galicia, Project Planning, WBS, Time Scheduling, PERT, Costing, Resource Scheduling, Cost Crashing, Risk Management, Crisis Management, Preventive Strategies, Environmental Protection, Maritime Disaster.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the core subject of this project report?
The report focuses on the application of formal project management methods to the urgent, small-scale environmental clean-up operation known as "Nunca Mais en Viveiro" following the "Prestige" oil spill.
What are the central themes covered in the study?
The study covers project planning, time scheduling (using Gantt and network diagrams), budgeting (costing), resource scheduling, and comprehensive risk management in an emergency response context.
What is the primary goal of this research?
The goal is to show that a structured approach to project management—dealing with time, cost, and performance—can successfully fulfill the requirements of environmental and social stakeholders during a crisis.
Which scientific methods are employed?
The author uses standard project management tools, including Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Critical Path Method (CPM), Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) for uncertainty, and cost-crashing analysis.
What content is addressed in the main part of the report?
The main part systematically breaks down the project phases: activity planning, time scheduling including critical path identification, financial cost scheduling, and a detailed risk management framework applied to supplier dependency.
Which keywords characterize this work?
Key terms include Project Management, Prestige oil spill, Risk Management, PERT, Time Scheduling, and Environmental Crisis Response.
How does the project account for uncertainty?
The author applies the PERT (Program Evaluation and Review Technique) to estimate mean values and standard deviations for activity durations, allowing for a statistical calculation of delay probabilities.
How is the concept of "cost crashing" demonstrated in this case?
The report identifies critical path activities and evaluates the potential savings of shortening project duration by investing in specialized equipment, specifically analyzing the impact of crashing activity F (clean-up activities).
- Quote paper
- Fatma Torun (Author), 2003, Project management - The project "Nunca mais en viveiro", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.grin.com/document/32965
