Rotarian Phil Thompson’s speech at Narberth and Whitland Rotary, recalling the grounding of the MV Sea Empress was summarised by Rotarian Nick Stretton as follows:

“Seven guests and eight members of N&W Rotary attended Phil’s talk last Wednesday. Phil was the Public Relations Officer at the, then Texaco Pembroke Refinery, on that fateful day in February 1996. Most people living in the area at the time will remember what they were doing when the news first broke and the shock waves that were felt throughout the community. To give an idea of scale, at the time it was Britain's 3rd largest oil spill and the 12th largest in the world, taking place within one of Europe's most important and sensitive wildlife and marine conservation areas.

“Phil shared his experiences of the disaster, from receiving the first call to dealing with TV and press and the many hours spent pulling together as much help from the local community to try to mitigate the damage to wildlife and the beautiful Pembrokeshire beaches. He also had to allay the fears of local businesses, concerned about whether or not the beaches would be open in time for the Easter Holidays and the impact that such a closure would have on them.

“The aspect which struck me the most was the way that Phil and his team was able to include local people, farmers and contractors to pull together to keep the potential impact of the spill to a minimum, including the setting up of Bird Hospitals to wash the oil off nearly 2000 affected birds.

“To top it all, of course, was the fact that Texaco were not responsible for the spill, however, they felt there was a moral obligation to deal with the incident as well as protecting their image in the community. Perhaps a positive byproduct of this incident as Phil told us, was the level of community engagement from the Refinery which was maintained after the oil spill. In later years, under Phil's stewardship, this gradually increased even more and is the foundation of the significant resources that Valero now allocate to community and charitable services today.

“Phil is a great storyteller and his relaxed delivery of the anecdotes and insights into what went on in the hours and days after the incident held everyone's attention and gave us all a personal and very privileged insight into what was a significant event in the history of our beautiful County.

“A big thank you to Phil and to Pat who continues to find us speakers on diverse topics of the highest quality.”