A decision by a British oil company to start drilling wells in “iceberg alley” off Greenland has been described as “completely irresponsible” by environmental groups in the light of BP’s problems in the Gulf of Mexico.
Cairn Energy said it had begun the first of four exploration wells on the Alpha prospect in Arctic waters of up to 500m after receiving permission from the Greenland government.
Greenpeace said the move was wrong, not least because Cairn was a relatively small company with no harsh-conditions drilling experience that had made its name discovering oil onshore in India.
“We think it is completely irresponsible for Cairn to proceed with these operations when the US, Canada and Norway have imposed tough new restrictions on deepwater drilling until lessons can be learned about what exactly went wrong in the Gulf,” said Mads Flarup Christensen, secretary general of Greenpeace Nordic.
“Drilling in these kinds of waters is very sad. It shows the way the oil industry is being forced into the last frontiers by trying to exploit tar sands and deep water,” he said.
Greenpeace has written to Greenland’s Prime Minister Kuupik Kleist, urging him to call a halt to the Cairn drilling program, but admits there is little sign of its request being granted. The green group believes the country is overlooking the risks because it is desperate to find new income sources, having recently won political independence from Denmark.
The wildlife charity WWF is also concerned about the Arctic drilling.
“The Gulf of Mexico is the world’s center of drilling technology with thousands of engineers and immense resources in terms of boats, planes, control equipment and manufacturing facilities — and even here it is proving immensely difficult to handle the tragic events of the Gulf of Mexico blowout,” said Dan Barlow, WWF’s head of policy.
“It is time for countries to recognize that offshore drilling with current technology and response capability poses unacceptable risks in the Arctic, where conditions are far more extreme. The consequences of such an event in the cold climate would lead to a persistence of ecological damage over many decades.”
Cairn management recently visited the Greenland capital of Nuuk to reassure the public that it would stick to the highest possible safety standards in line with an agreement signed with the government.
“Security has always been the most important in everything we do and so we want it to continue,” commercial director Simon Thomson said.
The company said last night that it had put in place a very wide-ranging plan for dealing with all kinds of emergencies — including the use of two drilling units so a second could drill a relief well instantly if needed. A spokesman said the company had worked in depths of water twice as deep when it was in the Bay of Bengal and was employing staff with plenty of hard-weather experience.
Jorn Skov Nielsen, director of the bureau of minerals and petroleum in Greenland, said Cairn would be working to the highest possible standards — considerably higher than was required of BP in the Gulf:
“These are standard wells, not deepwater ones, but they will still be drilled to the strongest Norwegian rules and under plans we have developed over the last 10 years,” Nielsen said.
Concerns about offshore work have been high since the Deepwater Horizon rig working for BP blew up, leaving the US with its worst ever oil spill. BP and Washington are waiting to hear from a series of investigation teams exactly what went wrong and who, if anyone, was to blame. The incident caused US President Barack Obama to block any new deepwater wells being drilled, though this ruling has been challenged in the US courts.
The new EU commissioner for energy, Gunther Oettinger, said this week that there should be no deepwater drilling in the North Sea, a move that has infuriated the UK oil industry.
The commission has no direct jurisdiction over British offshore waters and the UK government is unlikely to listen to this advice. Energy secretary Chris Huhne has already doubled the number of oil industry inspectors and said many more safety checks will take place in the future.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
BORDER SERVICES: With the US-funded International Rescue Committee telling clinics to shut by tomorrow, Burmese refugees face sudden discharge from Thai hospitals Healthcare centers serving tens of thousands of refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border have been ordered shut after US President Donald Trump froze most foreign aid last week, forcing Thai officials to transport the sickest patients to other facilities. The International Rescue Committee (IRC), which funds the clinics with US support, told the facilities to shut by tomorrow, a local official and two camp committee members said. The IRC did not respond to a request for comment. Trump last week paused development assistance from the US Agency for International Development for 90 days to assess compatibility with his “America First” policy. The freeze has thrown
TESTING BAN: Satellite photos show a facility in the Chinese city of Mianyang that could aid nuclear weapons design and power generation, a US researcher said China appears to be building a large laser-ignited fusion research center in the southwestern city of Mianyang, experts at two analytical organizations said, a development that could aid nuclear weapons design and work exploring power generation. Satellite photos show four outlying “arms” that would house laser bays, and a central experiment bay that would hold a target chamber containing hydrogen isotopes the powerful lasers would fuse together, producing energy, said Decker Eveleth, a researcher at US-based independent research organization CNA Corp. It is a similar layout to the US$3.5 billion US National Ignition Facility (NIF) in northern California, which in 2022 generated
RSS