right|thumb|280px|The Brent Spar oil storage buoy
Brent Spar, known as Brent "E", was a North Sea oil storage and tanker loading buoy in the Brent oilfield, operated by Shell UK. With the completion of a pipeline connection to the oil terminal at Sullom Voe in Shetland, the storage facility had continued in use, but by 1991, was considered to be of no further value. Brent Spar became an issue of public concern in 1995, when the British government announced its support for Shell's application for its disposal in deep Atlantic waters at North Feni Ridge (approximately from the west coast of Scotland, at a depth of around ).
Greenpeace organized a worldwide, high-profile media campaign against this plan occupying Brent Spar for more than three weeks. In the face of public and political opposition in northern Europe (including a widespread boycott of Shell service stations, some physical attacks and an arson attack on a service station in Germany), Shell abandoned its plans to dispose of Brent Spar at sea — whilst continuing to stand by its claim that this was the safest option, both from an environmental and an industrial health and safety perspective. Greenpeace's own reputation also suffered during the campaign, when it had to acknowledge that its assessment of the oil remaining in Brent Spar's storage tanks had been grossly overestimated. Following Shell's decision to pursue only on-shore disposal options, as favoured by Greenpeace and its supporters, Brent Spar was given temporary moorings in a Norwegian fjord. In January 1998, Shell announced its decision to re-use much of the main structure in the construction of new harbour facilities near Stavanger, Norway.
Technical information
Brent "E" was a floating oil storage facility constructed in 1976 and moored approximately from the Brent "A" oil rig. It was jointly owned by Shell and Esso, and operated wholly by Shell, which gave them responsibility for decommissioning the structure. Brent Spar was high and in diameter, and displaced 66,000 tonnes. The draft of the platform was such that manoeuvring in the North Sea south of Orkney was not possible. The storage tank section had a capacity of 300,000 barrels of crude oil. This section was built from thick steel plate, reinforced by ribs and cross-braces. It was known that this section had been stressed and damaged on installation. This led to doubts on whether the facility would retain its structural integrity if it was re-floated into a horizontal position.
Greenpeace objected to the plan to dispose of the Brent Spar at sea on a number of issues:
- That there was a lack of understanding of the deep sea environment, and therefore no way to predict the effects of the proposed dumping on deep sea ecosystems.
- The documents which supported Shell's licence application were "highly conjectural in nature", containing unsubstantiated assumptions, minimal data and extrapolations from unnamed studies.
- That dumping the Brent Spar at sea would create a precedent for dumping other contaminated structures in the sea and would undermine current international agreements. The environmental effects of further dumping would be cumulative.
- Dismantling of the Brent Spar was technically feasible and offshore engineering firms believed they could do it safely and effectively. The necessary facilities were already routinely in use and decommissioning of many other oil installations had already been carried out elsewhere in the world.
- To protect the environment, the principle of minimizing the generation of wastes should be upheld and harmful materials always recycled, treated or contained.
Greenpeace claimed that the scientific arguments for ocean dumping were being used as a way of disguising Shell's primary aim, which was to cut costs.
The "battle" of Brent Spar
thumb|Greenpeace activists occupy the Brent Spar oil rig in the North Sea while Shell ships attack them with water canons
Four Greenpeace activists first occupied Brent Spar on 30 April 1995. In total, 25 activists, photographers and journalists were involved in this stage of occupation. They decided to cover up the Exxon logos on the platform. At this time, activists collected a sample of the contents of the Spar and sent it for testing, to determine the nature of the pollutants which the platform contained. This sample was collected incorrectly, leading to a large overestimate in the contents of the facility. Although Greenpeace quoted Shell's own estimate of the amount of heavy metals and other chemicals on board, they also claimed there were more than 5,500 tonnes of oil on the Spar – while Shell's estimate was 50 tonnes. For context, the Exxon Valdez oil spill involved around 42,000 tonnes.
Greenpeace mounted an energetic media campaign that influenced public opinion against Shell's preferred option. It disputed Shell's estimates of the contaminants on the Brent Spar, saying that these were much more than initially estimated. On 9 May, the German government issued a formal objection to the British government, with respect to the dumping plan. On 23 May, after several attempts, Shell obtained legal permission to evict the Greenpeace protesters from the Brent Spar, and they were eventually taken by helicopter to Aberdeen, Scotland, where they held a press conference.
Towing of the platform to its final position began on 11 June. By this time, the call for a boycott of Shell products was being heeded across much of continental northern Europe, damaging Shell's profitability as well as brand image. German Chancellor Helmut Kohl protested to the British Prime Minister, John Major at a G7 conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Support from within the oil industry was not unanimous. Although oil production companies supported Shell's position, influential companies in the offshore construction sector stood to make money from onshore dismantling if a precedent could be set, and consequently supported the Greenpeace point of view.
On 20 June, Shell had decided that their position was no longer tenable, and withdrew their plan to sink the Brent Spar. They released the following statement:
"Shell's position as a major European enterprise has become untenable. The Spar had gained a symbolic significance out of all proportion to its environmental effect. In consequence, Shell companies were faced with increasingly intense public criticism, mostly in Continental northern Europe. Many politicians and ministers were openly hostile and several called for consumer boycotts. There was violence against Shell service stations, accompanied by threats to Shell staff."
<!--"Firstly, the disposal plan was based on scrupulous compliance with established national and international regulatory principles and standards. Yet most of the Continental northern European governments which are parties to the Oslo and Paris Conventions, and had originally raised no objection to the plan, were now openly opposing it – not on its technical merits, but because of its symbolic significance in the light of the Greenpeace campaign. This became clear in an urgent round of further Shell consultations with European governments in mid-June.
"Secondly, an important consideration which had underpinned the choice of deep water disposal was the much greater risk to the health and safety of employees who would have carried out the alternative disposal plan. Yet actions on the Continent, and by Greenpeace activists attempting to interfere with the Spar deep water disposal, now represented a serious safety threat."-->
In early July, the Norwegian government gave Shell permission to mothball the Brent Spar in the Erfjorden. It remained there for several years while other options for disposal were considered.
Aftermath
{| class="wikitable" style="margin-right:0.5em; margin-left:0.5em; float:right;"
|+ Inventory of the Brent Spar
|-
! style="background:#ffdead;" | Contaminant
! style="background:#ffdead;" | Shell Co est. (kg)
! style="background:#ffdead;" | DNV audit est. (kg)
|-
|PCBs
|trace
|6.5 – 8.0
|-
|Hydrocarbons
|50,700
|75,000 – 100,000
|-
|Aluminium
|28,677
|24,000 – 40,000
|-
|Arsenic
|0.3
|0.0
|-
|Bismuth
|29.0
|0.0
|-
|Cadmium
|16.4
|1.0–3.8
|-
|Copper
|13,542.9
|7,500 – 13,200
|-
|Indium
|10.2
|5.0 – 21.0
|-
|Lead
|9.5
|0.11
|-
|Mercury
|0.3
|0.4
|-
|Nickel
|7.4
|0.9 – 1.5
|-
|Silicon
|48.0
|0.0
|-
|Titanium
|8.8
|0.0
|-
|Zinc
|13,811.4
|5,200 – 8,300
|-
|Scale (oil production residue)
|30,000
|7800–9400
|}
Having moored the Brent Spar in Erfjord, Shell commissioned the independent Norwegian consultancy Det Norske Veritas (DNV) to conduct an audit of Spar's contents and investigate Greenpeace's allegations. Greenpeace admitted that its claims that the Spar contained 5500 tonnes of oil were inaccurate and apologized to Shell on 5 September. This preempted the publication of DNV's report, which endorsed Shell's initial estimates for many pollutants.
Helicopter crash
- On 25 July 1990, a British International Helicopters Sikorsky S-61 registration 'G-BEWL' coming in from Sumburgh Airport crashed onto the platform as the pilots were attempting to land. The Sikorsky fell into the North Sea, where six of the 13 passengers and crew on board died.
Sources
Further reading
External links
- Greenpeace History of the Brent Spar
- Media relating to Brent Spar at BBC Online
- Planetfilm Documentary film about Brent Spar
- Image: The Greenpeace activists celebrating in Aberdeen