Posts from ‘August, 2011’

EMAIL RECEIVED

John,

No wonder bits are falling off the Brents.

I’m an ex Shell employee with no axe to grind but I’m also fat and wouldn’t trust those gratings to hold me.

Thanks

(name and email address supplied)

Gratings_-_Destructive_Testing(1)

Related comment by a retired Shell North Sea Platform manager:

John,

This short video demonstrates severe corrosion of a stair tread. They are in a horrendous condition and a disgrace not only to the scheduled maintenance programme but to the respective OIM’s, Safety reps and the HSE Inspectors.    Pay particular attention near the end of the clip where the leading edge of the stair tread is fitted with an anti skid strip to assist in the prevention of workers slipping in the stair treads.  Notice how badly worn it is, should have been replaced a long time ago!

No idea if this is a Shell installation but if it is then a definite legacy from the TFA era of Brinded.  When will action be taken to put an end to this continuing saga of repetitive reactive safety issues and compliance with the safety cases which outline proactivity.  The days of self regulation are rapidly coming to an end, whose to blame?, nobody but the Operators management.  With mega profits being made from Oil Company Global activities then the investment needed to be made to correct these issues would not even be noticed in the bigger picture.  Shell and others are perhaps waking up to the fact that continuing media exposure to the numerous non-compliance with its own Business Principles throughout its Global activities may impact on or influence how Regulators scrutinise applications for future licences.

Society needs Oil & Gas to power our economies but the Companies who provide our Industrial power houses with Energy need to be more responsible and have an Audit department that have respect when audit finding are embarrassing.   Wake up you CEO’s out there, if your not careful worldwide Public opinion will create havoc for you.

Regards

By FRANCES G. BEINECKE

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on August 18, 2011

ABOUT 55,000 gallons of oil have escaped into the North Sea since last week from a leaky pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell, about 100 miles off Scotland.

Last year, Americans watched in mounting fury as the oil industry and the federal government struggled for five disastrous months to contain the much larger BP blowout in the Gulf of Mexico.

Now imagine the increased danger and difficulty of trying to cope with a similar debacle off Alaska’s northern coast, where waters are sealed by pack ice for eight months of each year, gales roil fog-shrouded seas with waves up to 20 feet high and the temperature, combined with the wind chill, feels like 10 degrees below zero by late September.

That’s the nightmare the Obama administration is inviting with its preliminary approval of a plan by Shell to drill four exploratory wells beginning next summer in the harsh and remote frontier of the Beaufort Sea, off the North Slope of Alaska.

The green light to drill now awaits Shell’s receiving the necessary permits from various federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Marine Fisheries Service and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement.

The administration should put on the brakes. This is a reckless gamble we cannot afford. We can’t prevent an Arctic blowout any more than we can avert disaster in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea. We don’t have the infrastructure, the knowledge or the experience to cope with one if it occurs. It’s irresponsible to drill in these waters unless we have those capabilities.

When the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, appointed by President Obama in May 2010, reported our findings and recommendations earlier this year, we specifically cited the need to address these shortcomings before exposing Arctic waters to this kind of risk.

We need comprehensive research on the vibrant yet little understood Arctic ecosystems, which are home to rich fisheries of salmon, cod and char, and habitat for beluga whales, golden eagles and spotted seals.

We need containment and response plans tailored to the demands of marine operations under some of the most unforgiving conditions anywhere on earth.

And we must be realistic about the kind of backup available in a place 1,000 miles from the nearest United States Coast Guard station.

Shell’s latest spill, in the North Sea, reminds us of the peril we court by ignoring these urgent needs.

When BP’s Macondo well blew out last year, killing 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon, Americans believed the damage would be quickly contained.

The Gulf of Mexico, after all, is the epicenter of the global offshore oil industry, home to hundreds of companies that specialize in drilling wells beneath the sea. There were plenty of ships in the region, from the shrimping fleet to the Coast Guard, available to help the efforts to cap the well and contain the spill.

And yet, in the five months it took to kill the runaway well, 170 million gallons of toxic crude oil poured into the gulf.

The systems that we were promised would avert catastrophe by preventing or containing a blowout all failed one by one.

And cleanup operations couldn’t save the marine life and birds that died, the 650 miles of coastline that was oiled or the deep water habitat now carpeted in crude, despite the efforts of nearly 50,000 workers using nearly 7,000 ships and boats.

Now comes Shell, claiming in its drilling application that its blowout preventers will work. If not, Shell asserts, it can quickly seal the well. And, should oil escape, the company insists, it will have booms, skimmers and helicopters at the ready.

Upon those thin hopes the newly constituted Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement recently gave Shell preliminary approval to attempt this high-wire act in the Arctic.

We have yet to embrace the lessons of the BP blowout, the worst oil spill in our history. While the bureau, formerly known as the Minerals Management Service, has improved drilling rules in helpful ways, Congress has yet to pass legislation to protect our waters, workers and wildlife from the dangers of offshore drilling.

Those dangers are only greater in the harsh and remote Arctic waters. Before we go to the ends of the earth in pursuit of oil, we need deeper knowledge, better technology to prevent blowouts and to clean up after accidents, and greater expertise to protect Alaska’s Arctic waters, one of our oceans’ last frontiers, from grave and needless risk.

Shell has been trying to stop a leaking line from its Gannet Alpha platform for the last seven days amid mounting public criticism of its perceived lack of transparency about the spill.

AUGUST 18, 2011

By ALEXIS FLYNN

LONDON—Some 660 tons of oil are still inside a leaking Royal Dutch Shell PLC pipeline in the U.K. North Sea, the Anglo-Dutch energy producer said Wednesday, explaining that efforts to stop the relatively light flow of crude are taking considerable time in order to minimize further leakage.

Shell has been trying to stop a leaking line from its Gannet Alpha platform for the last seven days amid mounting public criticism of its perceived lack of transparency about the spill.

“I cannot stress enough the need to undertake detailed risk assessments and ensure any work considered is undertaken safely,” Glen Cayley, technical director of Shell’s exploration and production activities in Europe, said at a joint press conference with a U.K. government representative.

Shell has estimated that around 216 tons—or 1,300 barrels—of oil have spilled from the Gannet Alpha platform since last week. By Wednesday afternoon, oil was continuing to leak at a rate of less than a barrel a day.

Shell declined to say how long it would take to finally close the leak.

If oil continued to leak from the pipeline, Mr. Cayley said, it was “inevitable” that it would cross the median line into the Norwegian North Sea. He said Shell had informed the Norwegian government of the possibility.

The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority wasn’t available for comment.

The U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change official assigned to monitor Shell’s response to the spill said that, in his view, “the leak is under control and has now been greatly reduced.” Hugh Shaw said the DECC and the Health and Safety Executive will thoroughly investigate the causes of the incident, after which a full report will be sent to Scottish Procurator Fiscal, or public prosecutor.

The leak is located about 110 miles east of Aberdeen, Scotland, in the North Sea.

Scottish Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said Shell had been made aware of the need for better communication about what happened and what it was doing to address the leak.

“I have spoken with both Shell’s senior management and the U.K. government’s offshore-incident representative and I stressed, once again, the importance of clear communication on the current operation and the expectation people have for complete openness and transparency on the situation. I was assured by both that this point had been taken on board, and I’m pleased to see that steps have now been taken to put more information in the public domain. This must continue,” said Mr. Lochhead.

The Gannet platform will be shut down for 30 days beginning Thursday, Mr. Cayley said, although he stressed that this was a long-planned maintenance halt. However, inspections would be carried out on the rest of Gannet’s pipelines in light of this incident, he added. Shell co-owns the Gannet platform with Exxon Mobil Corp., with Shell operating the platform.

SOURCE ARTICLE

By Richard Hall

Thursday, 18 August 2011

Hundreds of tons of oil could still be inside an offshore pipeline which has been leaking for a week off the Scottish coast, raising the possibility that Britain’s worst oil spill for a decade could worsen.

As oil giant Royal Dutch Shell continues to try to stem the flow on the seabed about 112 miles east of Aberdeen, the company said there is still a risk an estimated 660 tons of oil that remain in the pipeline could leak out.

“We are talking about hundreds of tons of additional oil in the pipeline that we need to preserve and keep there,” Shell technical director Glen Cayley said.

“Until we have completely eliminated the leak and secured this pipeline, I would say there is still risk.”

Oil leaked into the sea off the coast of Scotland for a seventh day yesterday as Shell said it was planning extensive activity including the deployment of divers to stop completely the flow of oil.

Richard Lochhead, the Scottish Environment Secretary, urged Shell to be more open with the public yesterday after it emerged that an estimated 218 tons of oil, equal to 1,300 barrels, have already spilt from the pipe.

“I stressed, once again, the importance of clear communication on the current operation and the expectation people have for complete openness and transparency on the situation.”

SOURCE ARTICLE

Royal Dutch Shell may face a criminal investigation and hefty fines in the Scottish courts for its oil leak, which is still trickling into the North Sea.

Shell is currently working to stop 4,500 barrels still in the pipeline from leaking into the sea. Photo: REUTERS

By Rowena Mason: 7:49PM BST 17 Aug 2011

The Government said last night it will make recommendations to the Scottish Procurator Fiscal about whether to prosecute Shell, as its inspectors began to investigate what went wrong on the Gannet Alpha platform’s pipeline.

Hugh Shaw, the Government’s representative for maritime salvage and intervention, said he believed the leak was now “under control”, though it is still leaking around one barrel per day into the sea.

He became involved in the operation on Friday night, three days after the leak started, when it became clear there was “potential for significant pollution”.

Officials have now set up an operations control unit in the North Sea with Government advisers and technical experts, as Shell battles to seal the off the leak once and for all.

Shell’s costs are continuing to mount as it is still working with underwater robots and surveillance flights to monitor the leak, which is thought to have spilt around 1,300 barrels into the sea.

The well was immediately shut in, after the spill was spotted by a helicopter on Wednesday morning. However, there is a hole in the pipeline itself, which contains around 4,500 barrels.

Shell is working to stop this amount from getting into the sea.

It is looking at sending divers down to fix the leak but weather conditions have not been good enough so far.

Mr Shaw said. “My role is to monitor and approve Shell’s response to the spill to ensure that it is dealt with as quickly and as safely as possible, and with minimum impact on the environment.

“Based on the latest intelligence that I have, my view is that the oil leak is under control and has now been greatly reduced as validated by remotely operated vehicle footage and Government aerial surveillance flights.

The priority now and over the coming days is to completely halt any further leakage in what is a complex environment.

“Although the spill was deemed as significant, our information is still that the oil is not expected to reach the shore, and that it will be dispersed naturally.

Inspectors from the Department for Energy and Climate Change and the Health Safety Executive are beginning to look into the causes of the accident. Their report will be submitted to the Scottish Procurator Fiscal who will make a final decision on whether to prosecute Shell.

Milford Haven Port Authority was given a £4m fine for the Sea Empress oil tanker spill, which polluted miles of beaches in west Wales in 1996.

SOURCE ARTICLE

By John Donovan

SHELL NORTH SEA OIL SPILL DEBACLE

In June 2006, The Guardian published an article by Terry Macalister  under the headline “Shell accused over oil rig safety“.

It reported on criticisms leveled at the oil giant by its former HSE Group Auditor Bill Campbell (right) “who worked directly for Shell for 24 years, says he brought his concerns to the attention of directors as far back as 1999 – and again in 2004 – but still feels safety is compromised.”

Mr Campbell was asked by Shell to lead an expert team carrying out a review of Shell’s North Sea platforms in 1999. His subsequent report included allegations of falsification of maintenance records for safety critical equipment, non-compliance with routine maintenance and bodged repairs.

According to The Guardian article:

Shell offshore workers used an acronym TFA – Touch Fuck All – to describe among themselves the need not to meddle with equipment but keep things working. The report by Mr Campbell’s team concluded: “Directives such as TFA encourages a behaviour of non-compliance – the Brent TFA acronym is a potential reputation liability.

In this regard, it is notable how in the flood of articles about the Gannet Alpha oil spill and Shell North Sea Platforms, some mention antiquated infrastructure and “metal fatigue.” The leaking pipeline is said to be some 30 years old.

Bill Campbell was so concerned at what his audit team discovered and the subsequent lack of an adequet response from Shell senior management, that on 24 July 2007 he sent a chilling warning email to every UK MP:

Subject: “This could be the most important whistleblower email you have ever received.”

Some unfortunate Royal Dutch Shell workers have already lost their lives. More lives are at stake.

My name is Bill Campbell. I am a former Group Auditor of Shell International. I am writing to you on a matter of conscience in an effort to avert the inevitability of another major accident in the North Sea. The consequences could potentially impact on families in many constituencies, including your own.

As Royal Dutch Shell and the Health & Safety Executive would acknowledge, I am an expert on safety matters relating to offshore oil and gas platforms. In 1999, I was appointed by Shell to lead a safety audit on the Brent Bravo platform. The audit revealed a platform management culture that basically gave a higher priority to production than the safety of Shell employees. To our astonishment we discovered that a “Touch F*** All” policy was in place. Worse still, safety records were routinely falsified and repairs bodged.

I personally brought the shocking situation to the attention of senior management including Malcolm Brinded, the then Managing Director of Shell Exploration & Production. I revealed that ESDV leak-off tests were purposely falsified, not once but many times and that Brent Bravo platform management had admitted responsibility for the dangerous practices being followed. In response to my team ringing alarm bells, management pledged to rectify the serious problems which had been uncovered.

When I later complained that the pledges were not being kept, I was removed from my oversight function.

Four years later, a massive gas leak occurred on the platform. Two workers lost their lives. I have no doubt at all that the inaction of the relevant Asset Manager, the General Manager, the Oil Director and Malcolm Brinded, contributed in some part to the unlawful killing of two persons on Brent Bravo in September 2003.

Shell subsequently pleaded guilty to breaches of the HSE regulations and a record-breaking £900,000 fine was imposed. I thought this would bring about a real change in policy to put the emphasis on safety.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Although I supplied the evidence related to 1999, and the fact that there had been a collapse in controls of integrity from 1999 to 2003 on all 16 of Shell’s North Sea offshore installations covered in a post fatality integrity review to the HSE for review by the Procurator Fiscal, none of this evidence was presented before the Sheriff at the subsequent Inquiry. The situation is explained in a letter to the Procurator Fiscal and the Sheriff (on 24th February 2007).

Shell management has engaged in spin to try to pretend that it is getting to grips with its safety problem. However, its atrocious safety record – the worst in the North Sea in terms of accidental deaths and absolute number of enforcement actions – tells a different story. This fact has resulted in a number of newspaper articles.

I have had meetings with senior Shell people including its CEO Mr. Jeroen van der Veer. I regret to say that I have found him to be economical with the truth. He prefers to support cover-up and deceit rather than confronting the underlying problems. Brinded is now Executive Director of Shell Exploration & Production. He believes in burying evidence.

My family and friends would probably prefer me to give up on this matter and enjoy my retirement after so many years working for Shell.

However, by writing to every MP in the UK, no one can ever say that I did not do my best to avert an inevitable further major accident event in the North Sea. When it happens (I pray that I am wrong) I will make this warning communication available to the media together with the vast amount of evidence in my possession.

At least my conscience is clear. I have done everything possible to ring the alarm bells about Shell management and its unscrupulous attitude to the safety of its employees.

Yours sincerely

Bill Campbell

ENDS

Mr Campbell has been proven right to a large degree by subsequent events, including enforcement notices served on Shell by the UK Health & Safety Executive and Shell currently being forced to make one admission after another as a result of the uncontrolled oil spill. This is after Shell CEO Peter Voser took a hypocritical cheap shot at BP over the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

Shell was so concerned by the fact that Mr Campbell approached me on the matter that its lawyers wrote to Mr Campbell’s solicitors warning about contact with me. Shell also set up a crisis reaction team to combat our campaigning activities, closed down this website and instigated a global cyber spying operation in an attempt to prevent information reaching me from Shell whistleblowers.

What a shame that it did not instead concentrate on rectifying the horrendous problems uncovered by Bill Campbell and his team in relation to the management, maintenance and safety of Shell North Sea Platforms?

Mr Campbell also accused Shell of a massive cover-up.

In this connection, it is interesting to note some of the current headlines:

Don’t hide facts about oil leak: The Herald

Shell Under Fire Over Silent Tactics: Spiegel Online

Shell Withholds Information On North Sea Oil Spill: UK Progressive Magazine

These events will at least hopefully also ring alarm bells loud and clear with US authorities who have foolishly decided to place their trust in Shell to drill in the Arctic Ocean of Alaska.

If Shell cannot deal openly and competently with a relatively small spill in the North Sea, how can it be trusted to deal with the potential of a major spill in much more difficult conditions?

Ironically, I have just received the following invitation from Shell:

REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE IN THE DISCUSSION

Hundreds of tonnes of oil estimated to still be inside an offshore pipeline that has been leaking for a week

• Press Association
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 August 2011 13.59 BST

ENERGY giant Shell has made a full apology for its response to the North Sea oil spill and admitted it could take weeks to fix the leak. After days of criticism for keeping details of the spill from its Gannet Alpha platform secret, the oil company conceded it had made mistakes.

17 August 2011

The Gannet Alpha spill in the North Sea is a stark reminder of the dangers of ageing rigs and oil company PR

• Adam Ma’anit
• guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 August 2011 08.00 BST