Posts under ‘BBC News’

9 February 2012

Nearly 50 workers had to be evacuated from a North Sea oil platform after natural gas began seeping out beneath it, it has emerged.

Shell said staff were taken off the Gannet Alpha installation on Monday as a precaution. Production was shut down.

The oil giant said the incident was not linked to last August’s leak of more than 200 tonnes of oil from a pipeline beneath the Gannet Alpha.

The Health and Safety Executive is investigating.

The Gannet Alpha oil platform is 113 miles (180km) off Aberdeen.

SOURCE ARTICLE

• Gas work at leak pipe completed 04 NOVEMBER 2011
• ‘No more oil’ from leak pipeline 24 AUGUST 2011
• Shell defends safety after leak 22 AUGUST 2011
• Oil leak operation ‘successful’ 20 AUGUST 2011
• Shell’s oil spill: What happened 19 AUGUST 2011

John

Interesting that a Canadian company in Argentina is apparently far more responsive to local pressure than Shell in Canada, Ireland, Nigeria….

If Shell had taken a similar approach to Osisko, development of tar sands, Corrib, and shales would never have occurred. Perhaps Shell could learn something here?

(ARTICLE AND COMMENT SUPPLIED BY A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR)

1 February 2012

Canadian mining company Osisko has suspended a gold mining project in Argentina after protests by locals.

Osisko said it would put its operation in north-western La Rioja province on hold if it did not get the backing of the local population.

Hundreds of people protested at the Canadian embassy in Buenos Aires last week, saying that the Famatina project would pollute the environment.

Osisko says it conducts environmentally responsible exploration.

Local residents, supported by environmental groups such as Greenpeace, had been holding a series of protests against the project.

Vocal opposition

On 2 January they barricaded the main road leading to the site, a blockade which still remains in place.

On Thursday, demonstrators marched on the governor’s office in La Rioja, demanding that Governor Luis Beder Herrera heed their demands to stop the project, or resign.

And on Friday, a delegation travelled to the Canadian embassy in Buenos Aires to make its opposition to the project known.

The protesters say mining of the Famatina mountain would require a million litres of water a day and the use of cyanide to extract precious metals.

Osisko said Famatina was still only an exploration project, with “no current plan, design or intent for any mining operations”.

The company said that the development of the mine was still highly hypothetical, since little was known about the amount, quality and location of its mineral resources.

In a statement published on its website, Osisko said it would prepare an information and consultation programme about the project.

It said that if “there was no social license for exploration and development around the Famatina project area, no work would be conducted”.

SOURCE ARTICLE

5 January 2012 Last updated at 17:18

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is to close its final-salary pension scheme to new employees in the UK.

From early 2013, new staff at Shell will be offered membership of a scheme without a guaranteed level of pension.

Existing members of the Shell scheme can continue contributing and building up their salary-linked pensions.

As employers look to cut costs, 90% of final-salary schemes have been closed to new members, according to the Association of Consulting Actuaries.

It is believed that this is the last of the UK’s top 100 publicly-listed companies to pull out of offering final-salary pensions to new recruits.

A final-salary scheme offers a guaranteed pension based on earnings at the end of your career and length of service.

Instead, new joiners will only be able to join a defined contribution scheme, in which the amount of pension received depends on the success of investments.

“The plan will be designed to ensure that the reward package in the UK for new hires remains strongly competitive,” said a spokesman for Shell.

The company added that the move “reflected market trends” in the UK.

However, the company said that – unlike some others – it would continue to uprate existing members’ pensions in line with the Retail Prices Index measure of inflation, rather than the slower-moving Consumer Prices Index.

The government is consulting on the issue until the end of March.

“We await the conclusion of the consultation but at this stage we are not anticipating that we will need to amend the rules… which give RPI as the basis for the annual review of pensions,” a Shell statement said.

Pension schemes explained

• Final-salary scheme: Guaranteed pension based on earnings at the end of your career and length of service
• Career average scheme: Guaranteed pension based on your average pay over your career
• Defined contribution scheme: Determined by contributions and investment returns. Usually worth less than final-salary pensions

SOURCE ARTICLE

4 January 2012

An Ecuadorean appeals court has upheld a ruling that Chevron should pay damages totalling $18.2bn (£11.5bn) over Amazon oil pollution.

Chevron said the judgement was “illegitimate” and “a fraud”.

Texaco, which merged with Chevron in 2001, was accused of dumping toxic materials in the Ecuadorean Amazon.

The original ruling ordered Chevron to pay $8.6bn in damages, which was more than doubled after the company failed to make a public apology.

“We ratify the ruling of February 14 2011 in all its parts, including the sentence for moral reparation,” the court in the Amazonian city of Lago Agrio said in its ruling, according to Reuters.

Long-running battle

In a statement released in response, Chevron said the decision was a “glaring example of the politicization and corruption of Ecuador’s judiciary”. It said it would continue to seek recourse through proceedings outside Ecuador.

The decision is the latest twist in a long-running legal battle between Chevron and the Ecuadorean plaintiffs.

The lawsuit was brought on behalf of 30,000 Ecuadoreans, in a case which has dragged on for years.

Ecuadorean indigenous groups said Texaco dumped more than 18bn gallons (68bn litres) of toxic materials into unlined pits and rivers between 1972 and 1992.

But Chevron says Texaco spent $40m cleaning up the area during the 1990s, and signed an agreement with Ecuador in 1998 absolving it of any further responsibility.

In September, a US appeals court overturned a decision to block the collection of the fine from the company.

Plaintiffs, who had agreed not to attempt to collect the damages until the appeals process was completed in Ecuador, welcomed Tuesday’s ruling.

“This [ruling] confirms and ratifies that the company polluted and affected the Amazon,” they said in a statement.

“It is necessary to clarify that no amount will be enough to repair all the crime they did in our area, nor will it be enough to bring the dead back to life.”

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa described the dispute as a “David and Goliath” battle.

“I think justice has been done,” he said after the ruling was announced.

“The harm that Chevron caused to the Amazon cannot be denied.”

Chevron has challenged the fine, arguing that lawyers and supporters of the indigenous groups who brought the case conspired to fabricate evidence.

In a previous separate case, international arbitrators ordered the Ecuadorean government to pay $96m to Chevron because Ecuador’s courts had violated international law as a result of delays in resolving commercial disputes involving Texaco.

SOURCE ARTICLE

RELATED ARTICLES

• US court upholds Chevron oil fine
• Ecuador’s oil battle far from over
• Chevron hits back in Amazon row

12 December 2011

The oil industry has been warned that cyber-attacks could “cost lives” and cause “huge damage”.

Ludolf Luehmann, an IT manager for Shell, told the World Petroleum Conference in Doha that the company had suffered an increased number of attacks.

He said the hacks had been motivated by both commercial and criminal intent.

Security researcher David Emm said that such attacks were “not only possible, but they’re now real”.

Mr Luehmann said Shell and others in the industry were experiencing a “new dimension” of attack which could leave physical machinery at serious risk.

He made reference to Stuxnet, a targeted “worm” which was designed to attack industrial systems in the summer of 2010.

Mr Luehmann said Stuxnet showed energy giants that cyber-attacks could have a real-world consequence on business processes.

“If anybody gets into the area where you can control opening and closing of valves, or release valves, you can imagine what happens.

“It will cost lives and it will cost production, it will cost money, cause fires and cause loss of containment, environmental damage – huge, huge damage.”

He added: “We see an increasing number of attacks on our IT systems and information and there are various motivations behind it – criminal and commercial.”

Dramatic change

When contacted by the BBC, Shell said it would not comment further on Mr Luehmann’s statements.

BP, itself a target of high-profile cyber-attacks following the Gulf oil spill, said it did not speak publicly about security issues as a matter of company policy.

Dennis Painchaud, director of international government relations at Canadian energy company Nexen, said targeted attacks such as Stuxnet and the more recent threat Duqu form a “very significant risk to our business”.

“Cybercrime is a huge issue. It’s not restricted to one company or another – it’s really broad and it is ongoing.

“It’s something that we have to stay on top of every day. It is a risk that is only going to grow and is probably one of the pre-eminent risks that we face today and will continue to face for some time.”

Moscow-based security experts Kaspersky, said the past 18 months had seen a dramatic change in how cyber-threats were perceived by large companies.

“The scene used to be dominated by speculative attacks – people being at the wrong place at at the wrong time, but it was nothing personal,” Mr Emm told the BBC.

“But we certainly are in a different world than where we were 18 months ago. What we’re starting to see is an increase in targeted attacks. We know critical systems, like those in oil production, are vulnerable to attack.

“A lot of countries now are pumping money into research – the last 18 months have shown these people are after not just the public’s money, but they’re after larger organisation’s information.

“Organisations like Shell and others are hopefully taking steps to minimise that risk.”

SOURCE ARTICLE

24 November 2011

An indication of a fault that led to a North Sea helicopter crash in which 16 men died had not been recognised just a week earlier, a report has found.

All 14 passengers and two crew lost their lives in April 2009 when the Bond Super Puma came down off Peterhead.

The Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) said an indication of gear degradation had not been picked up on.

There was a “catastrophic failure” of the main rotor gearbox as a result of a fatigue fracture, it said.

The Super Puma helicopter had been returning from BP’s Miller oil platform when it crashed about 11 miles north east of Peterhead, in Aberdeenshire.

Eight of the victims came from the north east of Scotland, seven from Liverpool, Norfolk and Worcestershire, and one from Latvia.

The report said a magnetic particle had been found on the chip detector in the gearbox of the Eurocopter Super Puma a week before the crash.

However, it was not recognised as an indication of the degradation of a part of the gearbox known as the second stage planet gear.

The AAIB said: “The use of verbal and email communication between the operator and manufacturer on 25 March led to a misunderstanding or miscommunication of the issue.”

It was this second stage planet gear that failed just days later as a result of a fatigue crack.

The main rotor separated from the fuselage and the aircraft crashed into the sea as the helicopter was flying to Aberdeen from the Miller Platform.

‘Final transmission’

The report said the captain had transmitted a mayday followed by the co-pilot.

“One second later, one of the flight crew uttered an expletive; this was the final radio transmission,” the report added.

The report makes 17 safety recommendations.

Bill Munro, managing director of Bond Offshore Helicopters, which is part of the Gloucestershire-based Bond Aviation Group, said: “The manufacturer’s procedures have been strengthened and Bond, along with others in the industry, implemented those changes immediately.

“We take a rigorous approach to safety and will continue to do so as technology and best practice evolve. Our company will also implement any further actions required by the industry which are issued by the authorities and manufacturer as a result of the report.

“Our thoughts remain with the families of those who died, and their loss is a constant driver in our commitment to the highest standards of safety in all our operations.”

Eurocopter said it remained committed to working closely with the regulatory authorities, investigators and its operators to prevent the risk of accidents.

‘Significant developments’

A Crown Office spokesperson said: “The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) welcomes the publication of the report on this tragic incident by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch, following a technically complex and challenging investigation.

“The findings contained therein will now be fully considered by the health and safety division of COPFS.

“The division and Grampian Police have been engaged in this investigation since the tragedy occurred and will continue to progress lines of inquiry and carry out such investigation as is necessary in order that a decision may be taken in relation to the form of any proceedings.

“The liaison with the nearest relatives of the 16 men who lost their lives will also continue and the division will keep them advised of significant developments.”

Crew names

The two crew who died were Captain Paul Burnham, 31, of Methlick, Aberdeenshire, and co-pilot Richard Menzies, 24, of Droitwich Spa, who worked for Bond Offshore Helicopters.

The KCA Deutag employees killed were Brian Barkley, 30, of Aberdeen; Vernon Elrick, 41, of Aberdeen; Leslie Taylor, 41, of Kintore, Aberdeenshire; Nairn Ferrier, 40, of Dundee; Gareth Hughes, 53, of Angus; David Rae, 63, of Dumfries; Raymond Doyle, 57, of Cumbernauld; James John Edwards, 33, of Liverpool; Nolan Goble, 34, of Norwich, and Mihails Zuravskis, 39, of Latvia.

The other victims were James Costello, 24, of Aberdeen, who was contracted to Production Services Network (PSN); Alex Dallas, 62, of Aberdeen, who worked for Sparrows Offshore Services; Warren Mitchell, 38, of Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, who worked for Weatherford UK; and Stuart Wood, 27, of Aberdeen, who worked for Expro North Sea Ltd.

SOURCE

RELATED ARTICLES

BORNEO POST: MHS helicopter catches fire, aborts take-off : 24 February 2006

EXTRACT: “The ill-fated Super Puma was airlifting 11 employees of Shell and its contractors when it ran into trouble and crashed into the South China Sea during a routine flight to the offshore gas production platform B11 in Bintulu waters at noon.”

Royal Dutch Shell terrorist tactics against Malaysian whistleblower …

EXTRACT: “For his audacity in raising the reserves issue, Dr Huong was demoted, appointed as an asset manager with responsibility for helicopter flights. Once again, his integrity got him into trouble when he raised concerns over helicopter safety, recording in internal documents that Shell employees were being used as guinea pigs on test flights.”

John Moylan goes behind the scenes at Perdido to see how Shell’s operation works

9 November 2011

It’s a one-and-a-half-hour flight by helicopter to the loneliest platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

Perdido lies 200 miles (322km) south of the coast of Texas. It’s just nine miles from the edge of US territorial waters.

The huge structure floats in more than 8,000ft (2,438m) of water, making it the deepest deep water drilling and production platform anywhere in the world.

It collects oil from wells at depths of more than 9,000ft.

When it started to pump oil to shore, back in March 2010, it had cost in excess of £2bn.

But within weeks, drilling on the brand new state-of-the-art platform had ground to a halt.

Deepwater Horizon

The reason was the Deepwater Horizon disaster. It left 11 people dead and resulted in the largest accidental offshore oil spill in US history. The Obama administration responded by imposing a deep water drilling moratorium. Across the Gulf, equipment worth billions stood idle.

“It’s had a big impact on our business,” says Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Company, the US division of oil major Royal Dutch Shell.

“We’ve lost hundreds of millions of dollars associated with not having that production.”

Shell had five other platforms drilling in the Gulf at the time. All were shut down.

The Gulf of Mexico has been a source of energy for the United States since the 1920s. Today it accounts for 30% of all the oil consumed there.

And according to Daniel Yergin, the bestselling author and authority on the industry, it supports about 400,000 jobs alone in the four Gulf states of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

“It wasn’t really recognised before how much of US oil production comes from the Gulf,” he says. “The employment impacts are much larger than people realised, it’s also quite an important source of government revenues.”

So in the months that followed the accident, as millions of barrels of oil polluted the Gulf’s clear blue waters and public opinion hardened, the Obama administration faced a dilemma – how and when to allow deep water drilling to resume.

Aftermath

The drilling moratorium was lifted in October 2010. But many complain that a “de facto” moratorium has existed ever since.

“It takes about 200 days now to get a drilling permit,” says Mr Odum. “That used to take about 50 days.”

A year on, drilling activity still hasn’t recovered. According to the oil services firm Baker Hughes, the number of drilling rigs in US waters fell from 46 in the first quarter of 2010 to just 12 rigs four months later in July. The numbers have since increased but averaged 34 in the most recent quarter.

By contrast, the number of oil rigs drilling across the United States recently hit a record high, a reflection of the soaring interest in unconventional so called “tight oil”.

There’s also a new offshore regulator and new rules covering deep water activity.

Back on Perdido that includes independent checks of the on-board Blow Out Preventer, the last line of defence against an uncontrollable well. It’s the vital piece of equipment which failed in the BP accident.

Mr Odum also points to the new Marine Well Containment System developed by the industry.

“One thing that was perfectly clear to us and to everyone else that was watching that incident unfold is that the ability to respond to oil in the water was not adequate. So we’ve built new systems now to do that.”

Uncertain future

Those systems would be stretched to the limit in the event of an accident at Perdido. It’s 60 miles from the nearest platform. Any rescue boats would be hours away.

It’s also drawing oil and gas from the deepest sub-sea well in the world. Capping a blow out could mean operating in 9,000ft of water, almost twice the depth of the Deepwater Horizon’s Macondo well.

But the rewards of operating in deep water are great.

Perdido is expected to keep oil and gas flowing for the next 20 years. At its peak it will produce 100,000 barrels of oil a day, which Shell says is enough to meet the energy needs of more than two million households.

But Bob Tippee, editor of the Houston-based Oil & Gas Journal, warns that a major deepwater incident can happen again. He’s been covering the industry for 34 years.

“We’re going to be drilling more wells. We’re going to have more industrial activity in deep water environments,” he says. “And where you have industrial activity anywhere, you are going to have accidents.

“The only way to have zero risk is to have zero activity, but then you have zero energy.”

SOURCE ARTICLE (WITH VIDEO CLIPS)

Marvin Odum, President of Shell Oil Company, on new safety measures brought in since the Deepwater Horizon accident

8 November 2011

The US state department’s handing of a request to build Keystone XL, a 1,600-mile (2,700km) oil pipeline, will be reviewed for wrongdoing.

Reports have surfaced that a company involved in the environmental review had listed developer TransCanada as a “major client”.

The review decision comes a day after demonstrators protested against the pipeline plans outside the White House.

A review could potentially delay a final decision on the pipeline.

The state department is handling public consultations on the project as the pipeline would cross the US border with Canada, but the White House has made it clear that President Barack Obama will influence the final outcome.

The review request was led by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee, both Democrats.

“At a time when all credible scientific evidence and opinion indicate that we are losing the battle against global warming it is imperative that we have objective environmental assessments of major carbon-dependent energy projects,” Mr Sanders said.

In an October letter, Mr Sanders and Mr Cohen specifically asked the state department’s inspector general to look at all contractual or financial ties between the consultant, Houston-based Cardno Entrix and TransCanada.

They also asked for a review of state department emails related to a TransCanada lobbyist who had worked in Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

TransCanada, which is seeking permission to build the pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf coast in Texas, said it welcomed the review.

“We conduct ourselves with integrity and in an open and transparent manner. We are certain that the conclusion of this review will reflect that,” spokesman James Millar told the Associated Press news agency.

Pollution and political risks

Environmentalists are opposed to the Keystone XL project because of the method used for extracting petroleum from Alberta’s oil sands.

They are also concerned by the risk of pollution on the pipeline route.

The proposed pipeline would pass south from Alberta through the US states of Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma before ending up at refineries in Texas.

Correspondents say the decision to allow the project or not is fraught with political risk for Mr Obama.

If he rejects it, he could be accused of destroying jobs. But allowing it to go ahead could lose him the support of activists who helped propel him to the White House, they note.

On Sunday, protesters formed a human chain around the White House, with some carrying an inflatable replica of a pipeline on their shoulders.

“We have to leave the tar sands oil in the ground. That’s the only solution if we are going to save the planet,” protester Martin Springhetti told AP.

SOURCE ARTICLE

4 November 2011

Work to release gas trapped in a pipeline which spilled more than 200 tonnes of oil into the North Sea has been completed, Shell has said.

Divers earlier closed a relief valve after the incident at the Gannet Alpha platform in August.

Shell said the latest operation on the 4km structure had “further enhanced its stability and security”.

Plans are being made to deal with the remaining oil in the pipeline. An investigation into the leak is ongoing.

The impact of the oil spill in the North Sea was minimal, Scottish Fisheries Minister Richard Lochhead said in September.

The leak was discovered about 300ft (91m) below the surface.

The Gannet Alpha oil platform is 113 miles (180km) off Aberdeen.

SOURCE ARTICLE

By John Donovan

For getting on to a hundred years, Shell has claimed that its petrol is better quality and delivers more miles per gallon than rival brands, as per the example of one such advert from October 1925.

Fortunately for Shell, there was no UK Advertising Standards Authority in existence to rule on whether such claims were justified.

Now Shell’s false advertising claims are regularly exposed by Advertising Standards Authorities in the UK and overseas.

Printed below is a transcript of a feature on the BBC TV flagship consumer programme “Watchdog” broadcast last night – at 8pm on 20 October 2011.

The feature was preceded by a trailer by the main presenter Anne Robinson during the opening segment, with a picture of a Shell FuelSave advert.

“Still to come. Shell has claimed its fuel offered drivers big savings.

O no it doesn’t!“

Later segment by Chris Hollings

Now looking forward to making big savings with Shell’s FuelSave unleaded?

It’s not going to happen!

(Picture of Shell logo at petrol station)

The oil giant has been ticked-off for bigging up the effects of its petrol in a print and radio ad earlier this year.

One featured a man dressed in a lab coat holding a measuring glass with a promise that drivers could save up to one litre per tank at no extra cost.

(Screenshot shown from shell.com Shell FuelSave webpage featuring FuelSave advert)

Shell argued that its tests showed that its fuels achieved a 2% saving more than 10% of the time but the Advertising Standards Authority said it had exaggerated the effects and banned the ads for being misleading.

On a brighter note for the company its second quarter profits are up 77% this year. It made 4.9 billion pounds in just 4 months, which works out at nearly 54 million pounds every day.

Ponder that while your filling up.

RELATED ARTICLE:

Shell FuelSave reminiscent of Formula Shell debacle