Alex Hunt

Alex is a Chartered Biologist (CBiol), a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB) and a Fellow of the Marine Biological Society (FMBA), with a degree in marine biology and an MSc in tropical coastal management. Since joining ITOPF in February 2004 he has attended on site for over 30 ship-sourced spills of various scales in more than 20 different countries and all seven continents. These include major tanker spills such as the SOLAR 1 in the Philippines in 2006, the HEBEI SPIRIT in South Korea in 2007, and the PRINCESS EMPRESS in the Philippines in 2023, along with high profile bunker oil spills such as PACIFIC ADVENTURER in Australia in 2009, GOLDEN RAY in the USA in 2019, and WAKASHIO in Mauritius in 2020. He has also attended spills from offshore installations in the Caspian Sea and Newfoundland.

Alex has provided remote advice and coordinated his colleagues’ attendance at over 200 spills worldwide, including the SANCHI incident in the East China Sea in 2018. Following advice given on site, he has coordinated claims advice to shipowners, P&I insurers and the IOPC Funds on a wide range of cases.

In addition to spill response work he has been involved in courses, seminars and workshops on behalf of ITOPF for government agencies, shipping companies, P&I insurers, the oil and gas industry and NGOs worldwide. He has also participated as a speaker and session chair at international oil spill conferences, and as an adviser on contingency planning and spill response exercises.

As Technical Team Manager for the Asia Pacific Team at ITOPF, Alex has a particular focus on oil and chemical spill preparedness projects and advisory work within this region and is responsible for overseeing ITOPF's operations from its Singapore Office.

Previous Experience

Prior to joining ITOPF in 2004, Alex had a background in coral reef research and habitat damage assessment work. Between 1998 and 2003 he worked as a researcher and project coordinator on marine habitat mapping and coastal management programmes in Indonesia, the Philippines, Nicaragua, and Puerto Rico.

Languages

English (native)

Spanish (basic)

ITOPF Working Groups

Alex is part of the Environmental Damage Working Group and is a focal point within ITOPF for advice relating to ship groundings on coral reefs and other sensitive habitats. He acted as project manager for the production of ITOPF's Response to Marine Oil Spills Series of eight educational films in 2014.