+
From: Martin Burns <stu249@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
+
Date: Mon, 26 Jun 1995 14:39:01 +0100
I haven't heard about it...
If I do hear anything, you'll be the 1st to know...
> Responding to msg by stu249@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Martin Burns)
> on
>
>
> Martin: is the second story below accurate about the UK?
>
>
> Please note that the US is about to massively increase drilling
> in its off-shore fields, thanks to vastly improved
> computer-guided explorations which promise more reserves than
> the great Alaskan deposits. And, thereby, expect dumping more
> rigs artfully designed with the complicity of
> "environmentalists."
>
>
> So, along with renewal of nuclear testing (after a brief delay
> by the administration for the French to take the hit), the US
> will maintain its leadership in environmental degradation by
> Big Power economic terrorism (oops, nuclear-tipped free
> marketism).
>
>
> (The New York Times notes today a hustler who wants to make the
> Brent Spar into an international casino. Call him up Rick,
> maybe it's The Donald or an MBAmerindian po'boy.)
>
>
>
> The Wall Street Journal, June 22, 1995, p. A12.
>
>
> Offshore Oil-Rig Quandary: Sink or Spend: Shell's New Plan
> for Platform Disposal Has Its Own Hazards
>
>
> [Drawing]
>
> The Brent Spar
>
> [comparable to 45-story cylindrical building, say,
> Bernard
> Goldberg's Chicago apartments]
>
> 91 feet above water containing helipad, equipment and
> crew quarters.
>
> 360 feet below water (vertical cylinder) containing
> buoyancy tanks, oil storage tanks and ballast.
>
> 100 feet above seabed floor with anchors for tether
> cables.
>
>
> By Kyle Pope and Allanna Sullivan
>
>
> London -- In abandoning its plans to dump a massive oil
> platform into the North Sea, the Royal Dutch/Shell Group
> ended a public-relations nightmare. But did it make the
> right choice environmentally?
>
>
> Greenpeace, which led the fight against the scuttling,
> unequivocally says yes. But some oil-industry experts say
> the issue isn't clear-cut.
>
>
> Those experts say the option that now remains for Shell,
> dismantling its 14,500-ton Brent Spar platform and taking
> it apart on land, is just as risky as the earlier plan to
> sink it, and four times as costly.
>
>
> And the change of heart puts Shell in a delicate quandary.
> How does it convince the world its new proposal is the
> right one after spending the past three years arguing that
> the best environmental choice was dumping the rig?
>
>
> British Energy Minister Tim Eggar said it was
> "extraordinary" that Shell would change its mind after
> three years of research. "I am certainly going to insist
> that their case is a persuasive one," Mr. Eggar said.
>
>
> Longstanding Practice
>
>
> Lost amid the fury of the past week is the fact that
> dumping drilling rigs into the drink is hardly a new thing.
> For decades, the U.S. oil industry has routinely dumped
> thousands of rigs into the Gulf of Mexico, nearly always to
> the applause of American environmentalists. As it turns
> out, the rigs' latticework structures make perfect
> artificial reefs, drawing in fish that otherwise wouldn't
> live in the region. "Around here, we just topple them
> over," says David Kent, an offshore expert at Oceandril, a
> Houston-based consultancy.
>
>
> Granted, the Brent Spar is much different, and its unusual
> size and design are at the center of the debate over how it
> should be scrapped.
>
>
> Unlike most drilling rigs, which are little more than
> oversized pulleys, the Brent Spar is actually an oil tank
> that floats. For 20 years, as much as 30,000 barrels of oil
> produced from nearby fields was loaded onto the vessel and
> held there until it could be transferred to supertankers
> for shipment to coastal refineries. In the early 1990s,
> pipeline improvements meant the oil could be sent directly
> to shore, making the Brent Spar obsolete.
>
>
> Greenpeace has argued that the decades of use as an
> oil-holding pen has made the Brent Spar too contaminated to
> sink into the ocean. Though the structure is technically
> empty, it still contains an estimated 100 tons of
> oil-related sludge left over from its working days. While
> most of that is simply sand, about 10% of it is made up of
> toxic heavy metals, including cadmium, arsenic, and
> mercury.
>
>
> Many experts, including some working for the British
> government, have worried that dumping the Brent Spar at sea
> would raise the prospect of toxic contamination.
>
>
> While experts guess that as many as 50 more North Sea rigs
> and platforms are destined for destruction over the next
> decade, none are on the same scale as the Brent Spar.
>
>
> Still, the Brent Spar Controversy already is hanng an
> effect on the industry itself. Experts say the uproar over
> the Shell platform probably will result in prolonging
> production in some North Sea fields that might otherwise
> might have been closed down. Typically, producers stop
> pumping when they can no longer cover their operating
> costs. But with the sharply higher cost of hauling
> platforms to shore rather than just toppling and dumping
> them into the sea, "there is now a new incentive to keep on
> pumping," said Julian Kennedy, analyst for Wood McKenzie
> Consultants, North Sea oil specialists based in Scotland.
>
>
> In the U.K. portion of the North Sea, which contains the
> bulk of that region's oil production, there are about 210
> oil platforms. About 160 of those can be disposed of with
> relative ease because they are located in the shallow areas
> of that body of water. But the approximately 50 remaining
> rigs will pose a problem. Wood MacKenzie Consultants Ltd.,
> an industry consultant, estimates it could cost as much as
> $12 billion to decommission the oil fields, not including
> complicated problems such as the one currently bedeviling
> Shell.
>
>
> So what of Shell's now-favored option, of hauling the
> vessel to land and dismantling it there?
>
>
> An internal feasibility study by the company says the
> operation would carry "significant hazards" and would cost
> as much as 46 million pounds ($73.9 million). The deep-sea
> dumping proposal, by comparison, would have cost about 10
> million pounds.
>
>
> What's more, Britain may refuse to grant Shell favorable
> tax treatment of the disposal costs if it takes the
> more-expensive route.
>
>
> The operation now proposed is vastly more complex. Because
> the Brent Spar is so huge -- it's as high as one and a half
> football fields are long -- simply finding a place to do
> the work is a task. Shell said yesterday it didn't believe
> there was a coastal area in Britain deep enough to do the
> work. Norway has offered a deep fjord, though no agreement
> has been reached.
>
>
> Once it gets to its destination, the structure would have
> to be cut down and turned on its side for towing.
>
>
> Danger of Tipping
>
>
> And that could get tricky. When Norwegian crews first
> installed the Brent Spar in 1970, it took 10 days in
> perfect weather to get it upright. Even then, underwater
> sections were damaged in the process, raising fears that it
> could tear apart as it's being towed in. "A real buoyancy
> problem could result, causing the rig to tip and fall into
> the sea," said one individual familiar with the situation.
>
>
> And if the structure makes it back to shore, it will have
> to be cut up. Its toxic contents will be removed and either
> stored in a deep mine onshore or put back in barrels and
> dropped back into the sea. Industry officials claim
> Greenpeace's fuss has only postponed the disposal issue.
>
>
> [End]
>
>
> -----------
>
>
> [Adjoining article]
>
> Rig Incident Shows Britain Is Paler Shade of Green Than
> Rest of Europe
>
>
> By Kyle Pope
>
>
> London -- To Europe's environmentalists, it was hardly a
> surprise that the ill-fated proposal to sink an oil rig in
> the North Sea originated in Britain. Now more than ever,
> the U.K. is Europe's environmental bogeyman.
>
>
> Whether it comes to big issues like nuclear dumping and
> global warming, or the simpler question of whether to sort
> aluminum cans from household garbage, Britain increasingly
> is finding itself out of sync with a European continent
> that is turning increasingly green.
>
>
> "The U.K. is completely lagging behind everybody else when
> it comes to environmental issues," says Martin Hiller, an
> official at the World-Wide Fund for Nature in Brussels.
> "It's kind of a cultural thing. The British are living on
> their island and they want to do it their way." ...
>
>
> Although environmental leaders and government ministers on
> the continent applauded Shell's turnaround, the decision
> provoked a furious backlash from the British government,
> which had supported the company's original plan. "I think
> they should have kept their nerve and done what they
> believed was right," said Michael Heseltine, a prominent
> member of the Conservative government.
>
>
> To Britain's neighbors, the rig-dumping issue became a
> target too rich to ignore. Ultimately, the proposal came to
> symbolize not only the U.K.'s controversial environmental
> stance, but its stubborn view on European integration in
> general.
>
>
> "Britain has always been a holdout country," said Blair
> Palese, a spokeswoman for the London office of Greenpeace,
> which spearheaded the fight against the sinking of the
> Brent Spar rig. "The other countries felt like they had to
> respond. There was a bit of nationalism involved with the
> rest of Europe." ...
>
>
> Ian Rowlands, a lecturer at the London School of Economics,
> traces the antagonism to Britain's refusal to embrace other
> nations' global-warming proposals in the 1992 Earth Summit.
>
>
> Similarly, the U.K. was left isolated after it protested an
> acid-rain treaty in 1993. Europe wanted Britain to offer
> deeper cuts in pollution, but the U.K. worried how the
> proposals would affect its proposed privatization of
> British Coal. The debate got so nasty that Norwegian
> ministers accused Britain of waging "chemical warfare"
> against them.
>
>
> [End]
>