Greenpeace Welcomes EC Initiative on Offshore Oil Installations

["greenbase" <greenbas@gb.greenpeace.org>]

GREENPEACE WELCOMES EC INITIATIVE ON OFFSHORE OIL INSTALLATIONS 

Study Shows That Brent Spar Oil Installation Should Come Ashore 

London, 26.1.1998 - Greenpeace today welcomes a European
Commission (EC) move to take forward a project on comprehensive
removal of offshore oil installations. The announcement was made
one week before the anticipated final decision by Shell how to
dispose of the Brent Spar oil installation. The decision is
scheduled for January 29th.

Greenpeace which two years ago prevented Shell from dumping the
installation in the North Sea, holds that sea-dumping of the
Brent Spar is environmentally the worst of all the eight options
that Shell is considering. An independent review of a Shell-
sponsored assessment of disposal alternatives comes to the same
conclusion.

The EC move involves the Energy and Environment Directorates and
is designed to pursue "sustainable decommissioning" of redundant
oil and gas installations. It is a project called "Beyond
Sparring" and goes back to a Greenpeace initiative in the wake
of the Brent Spar controversy and the moratorium on dumping oil
and gas  installations adopted by European governments. The EC
will now direct the project, run by London-based consultants
SustainAbility.

Today Greenpeace also releases a review of the Shell-sponsored
Det Norske Veritas (DNV) assessment of options for the disposal
of the Brent Spar, written by engineering consultant Paul
Brindley.   

This finds that DNV itself shows sea-dumping of the Spar is the
cheapest but environmentally the worst of all the eight options
that Shell is considering.  

The Brindley review notes that on energy efficiency,
environmental impacts and other grounds, the seven non-dumping
options currently being assessed by Shell are all better than
dumping at sea. [Technical and safety risks are comparable with
other offshore operations]. 

This is without taking into account job creation, the principle
of protecting the oceans from being used as a rubbish tip, or
the further lowering of costs that would arise if the Brent Spar
was integrated into a removal plan for all North Sea
installations instead of being treated as a one-off.

Greenpeace is submitting the Brindley review to the European
Commission and to the Oslo-Paris Commission (OSPAR) which
regulates marine pollution in the North-East Atlantic.

Chris Rose of Greenpeace UK comments: "Paul Brindley's analysis
of the DNV study clearly demonstrates that Shell's best options
are to bring it onshore. The long running Shell argument that it
is better to sink the Brent Spar to save energy can not be
sustained any longer" 

In a letter to the European Commission, copied to Governments
bordering the North East Atlantic & North Sea, Greenpeace urges
that the weighting given to cost in such studies should be made
transparent, and it should not be used as a criterion in making
the final choice. Greenpeace points out that the actual costs
are  small in relation to the earnings of the oil fields, the
overall decommissioning process and in the case of the UK, are
heavily influenced by tax breaks.

"The Spar must come ashore for recycling or re-use. No other
steel platforms should be dumped. Governments, the EU and oil
industry must opt for a comprehensive approach" says Greenpeace.

Notes for correspondents 

Background information and the report "Decommissioning of
Offshore  Oil and Gas Installations, Towards an Integrated
Removal Strategy: A Sustainable Development Consultation Paper,
SustainAbility, is available from Greenpeace.

See website: www.greenpeace.org/oceandumping.

or directly from SustainAbility on +44(0) 171 937 9996 or e-
mail:  elkington@sustainability.co.uk; 

In its 1997 exercise SustainAbility found that "over the next 10
- 20 years, an average of 15 - 25 installations are expected to
be abandoned annually. This represents 150 - 2000,000 tonnes of
steel per year". 

BEYOND SPARRING - MORE The Beyond Sparring project started by
Greenpeace was designed to build support for an Integrated
Removal Strategy for all oil and gas installations in the North
Sea/North East Atlantic rather than dealing with them as a
series of "one offs" (the so-called case by case approach that
the UK used for the Brent Spar). 

Greenpeace commissioned the business consultancy SustainAbility
to undertake the "Beyond Sparring" process of dialogue with
engineering firms, local authorities and others who could take
part in removing and recycling redundant installations, of which
there will be over 600 in EU and Norwegian waters.  

SustainAbility will now continue the project working for the
Commission.

In its letter to SustainAbility the Commission (Rasmus Kjedahl,
Cabinet of Ritt Bjerregaard ) says: "we fully support this
stakeholder consultation exercise ... there is an important
Community dimension in the idea of elaborating sustainable
disposal options for disused offshore oil installations and
promoting the necessary  capacity building in this context". 

Greenpeace believes the advantages of an Integrated approach
include: 

* reduce equipment down time and hence, reduced costs 
* Energy savings and less pollution caused by towing/handling
etc operations 
* Longer terms planning and investment leading to better job
creation potential in scrapping and onshore reuse 
* Building up expertise and consequent reduction of risks  

Key Points From Brindley Review: 

* "The DNV Assessment indicates that onshore disposal offers
more environmental benefits than DSD [Deep Sea Disposal]. It
also indicates that only on financial costs does the DSD option
offer any clear advantages over the onshore disposal options.
The weighting given to this latter criterion would thus appear
to be a crucial factor in the final selection on the Spar
disposal route"; 

* On "technical risks" it "should be noted that there is still
a level of discrepancy between the level of engineering
performed for DSD, and the onshore disposal options (page 4
Executive Summary DNV) although this is significantly less than
was the case in 1995. If the onshore disposal routes are
developed to a similar level as the DSD option, the technical
risks may be further reduced as risk mitigation strategies are
developed...";  

* Differing levels of development of the proposals mean [DNV]
that safety assessments (PLL - Potential Loss of Life) values
are uncertain by a factor of up to two (page 53) "This could
make some of the onshore disposal PLL values very similar to the
DS PLL, or could double them. Further development work on the
appropriate onshore disposal options would reduce the
uncertainty factors and make the final PLL figures firmer". "The
onshore disposal PLL values are however similar to those
experienced in normal offshore construction operations (page 54)
and thus cannot be deemed as 'intolerable' (They are categorised
as 'small or no safety disadvantage' (page 56))"; 

* Energy balance - "from a 'global' perspective [ie taking all
the energy-pollution created by an option into account] the
onshore options are more 'energy efficient' as they offer
potential energy savings that range from 28,630 to 153,630GJ
(page 70)". Just on a local (Brent Spar handling alone)
perspective Wood Group and Kvaerner Stolt Seaway's options are
both better than DSD, the DNV study shows; 

* On CO2, SO2 and Nox emissions (causing global warming and smog
or acid rain) Deep Sea Disposal is "assessed as being worse than
onshore disposal options". DSD is overall a net producer
of all the three gases considered (Fig 4.7 Page 76), according
to the DNV assessment; 

* Containment: "The DSD option is assessed [by DNV] as the only
option that will result in a major uncontrolled release of
liquids (page 88) as it has no containment measures" while "the
onshore disposal activities have documented containment
measures, thus reducing the chances of uncontrolled spillage of
the Spar inventories"; 

* "the Brown and Root and McAlpine/Doris Able proposals have
been assessed [by DNV] as 'better' options [for ecological
effects than Deep Sea Disposal] with 'minor ecological
severity of consequence' classifications (page 93)"; 

* Price: "It "has never been questioned" that "any onshore
disposal option would cost more than the initially proposed Deep
Sea Disposal option. Indeed the arguments both for and against
the DSD option have frequently implied that the primary reason
for selecting the DSD case in 1994/5 was its low cost". This is
the only criterion clearly favouring Deep Sea Disposal; 

* Conclusion: [from the DNV results] "there would appear to be
no clear technical or safety advantage for any one disposal
option";  

* Conclusion: "environmentally, all of the onshore disposal
options are more 'net' energy efficient [than Deep Sea
Disposal], have advantages in terms of net (global) CO2, SO2,
and NOx emissions and have recycling/reuse rates of more than
96%".