Re: Boycott Shell

Responding to msg by stu249@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Martin Burns)
on


   The New York Times, June 20, 1995, p. A9.


   Shell Abandons Plans to Sink Oil Platform Off Scottish
   Coast


   London, June 20 (AP) -- In the face of protests from
   environmentalists and several European governments, Royal
   Dutch Shell has abandoned its plan to sink an aging oil
   platform in the North Atlantic, the oil company announced
   today.

   Instead, Shell announced that it would seek a license from
   the British Government to dismantle the platform on shore,
   an approach it had previously rejected as too costly.
   Sinking it would cost $19 million, compared to $70 million
   to dismantle it on land.

   The oil company said it remained convinced that deep-sea
   disposal was "the best practicable environmental option"
   but had taken the "strong objections" of others to heart.

   The company's reversal followed objections by the
   Governments of Germany, Denmark and others and an
   aggressive campaign by Greenpeace, the environmental group
   that dropped four protesters on the platform by helicopter
   to prevent Shell from sinking it to the seabed only 150
   miles northwest of the Outer Hebrides, islands off the
   coast of Scotland.

   The British Government, which had backed Shell's plans to
   sink the 65,000-ton, 450-foot-tall oil platform, reacted
   angrily.

   "They caved-in under pressure," said Michael Heseltine,
   chairman of the Board of Trade. "They should have kept
   their nerve and done what they believed was right."

   Earlier today, Prime Minister John Major was jeered by
   opposition lawmakers in Parliament as he dismissed
   international protests and repeated his support for the
   plan.

   "The proposition that that could have been taken inshore in
   order to be disposed of inshore is, I believe, an
   incredible proposition," Mr. Major said.

   Energy Minister Tim Eggar warned that the Government would
   not automatically grant Shell permission to dismantle the
   rig onshore considering it had already agreed with Shell
   that deep-sea disposal was the best option.

   Other European countries had strongly protested that plan,
   and Chanceller Helmut Kohl of Germany warned Mr. Major last
   week that he was going against world opinion in backing
   Shell.

   Consumers opposed to the plan had boycotted Shell gasoline
   stations in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands and
   Britain, and some stations in Germany were attacked by
   arsonists.

   Nonetheless, prior to today's announcement, two Shell
   tugboats had been towing the platform toward its designated
   burial site. In its statement today, Shell said its
   European companies "find themselves in an untenable
   position and feel that it is not possible to continue
   without wider support."

   Greenpeace asserted that the 19-year-old rig -- used to
   hold oil for tankers until being decommissioned in the late
   1980's and now starting to fall apart -- still has tons of
   pollutants in its rotting core. Shell engineers denied
   this, saying the platform's tanks had been pumped clean of
   oil in 1991.

   "We cannot use the North Sea as a place to dump litter of
   any size, said Lord Melchett, executive director of
   Greenpeace. "People realized that this was wrong. It was
   immoral. It was treating the sea as a dustbin."

   Lord Melchett conceded that onshore dismantling would be
   difficult and dangerous. But he said engineering
   specialists had assured Greenpeace the work could be done
   and that it would create jobs, most likely in Scotland.

   Fuad Hamdan, a Greenpeace spokesman in Germany, said the
   group would press the European Union to require that oil
   platforms in the future be disposed of on land in
   environmentally sound ways.

   There are about 400 oil platforms in the North Sea alone.


   [End]