Posts under ‘Corrib Gas Project’

But the officials didn’t even stop to blink. They tipped their forelocks to the oil executives, gave a two-finger salute (metaphorically speaking, of course) to the local residents and told the hearing they were entirely satisfied with the project. The rest, as they say, is history

Last month An Bord Pleanála ruled that up to half of Shell’s proposed onshore pipeline was unacceptable on safety grounds and gave it three months to provide an alternative route.

“The Corrib gas dispute in many ways tells the story of modern Ireland,” Mr Murray said. “The result has been an erosion of civil liberties and the emergence of corporate rule, where multinationals appear to have greater rights than Irish citizens,” he said.

BBC NEWS

Friday, 20 November 2009

Militants have been demanding a greater share of the oil wealth

The European Commission has signed a $1bn (£602m) development pact with Nigeria, aimed at tackling corruption and promoting peace.

A substantial amount of the funding will be spent on resolving conflict in the oil-rich and crime-plagued Niger Delta, the EU’s development chief said.

The money will also target electoral reform and improving human rights.

But correspondents say many Nigerians will doubt the money will get to its intended targets.

$1 BILLION EU FUNDS 25%: peace and security 44%: governance and human rights 16%: trade, region integration and energy 15%: environment, health, culture and sciences

The BBC’s Caroline Duffield, in Lagos, says corruption touches the lives of everyone in Nigeria and leaves the vast majority of people in poverty.

And she says many Nigerians believe the current government is losing the fight against corruption.

Almost a third of the EU money is devoted to the Niger Delta region.

For years militants have blown up pipelines and kidnapped foreign oil workers, demanding a fairer share of the wealth.

“I’m delighted that a substantial amount of this financing will go to support conflict resolution and the peace process in the Niger Delta which has been ravaged by years of unrest,” said the EU’s development commissioner Karel De Gucht .

Over the past few months, thousands of militants have given up their weapons in an amnesty deal offered by the government in return for the promise of education and jobs.

A three-month respite from the violence has brought back some oil and gas production, but sceptics fear the former fighters could resume violence if they do not quickly find work.

BBC ARTICLE

“I respect An Bord Pleanála’s recent decision. It is an independent and competent body that is removed from any influence. They have made their decision and now Shell has to respond to that,” he continued. The board has ruled that almost half of the new route was “unacceptable” on safety grounds.

EXTRACTS

As the road approaches the Shell gas terminal at Ballinaboy on Ireland’s Atlantic west coast, only the posters pinned to the telegraph poles give any hint of the country’s longest-running environmental protest.

…for the past four years this remote but beautiful corner of north Mayo has been the setting for a bitter industrial dispute. At times, hundreds of police have been deployed to break up pickets. And this summer, the tiny hamlets of Glengad and Rossport looked on as two Irish navy frigates moored in Broadhaven Bay, apparently there to stop the protesters’ dinghies interfering with the Solitaire, Shell’s vast pipe-laying ship.

Exactly how a grass-roots campaign led by a retired schoolteacher and a handful of hill farmers and lobster pot fishermen has frustrated Ireland’s most important energy project perplexes industry experts.

…this tiny group, with its headquarters in a huddle of tents in a field overlooking Broadhaven Bay, has consistently outwitted Shell’s vast public relations apparatus.

Shell, by contrast, has been flat-footed. Its decision in 2005 to resort to the courts is now seen, even by company officials, as counter-productive. Three farmers and two retired schoolteachers, quickly dubbed the Rossport Five, were sent to prison for defying a court order to let Shell on to their fields and became overnight celebrities in a country that loves a rebel.

“Shell took the local people for idiots,” says Pat O’Donnell…

FULL FT ARTICLE (SUBSCRIPTION)

A REPORT for a US human rights group on the Corrib gas project says that residents in north Mayo had been given “false information” and “their legal rights have been trampled upon”.

By Gordon Deegan

Saturday, November 07, 2009

SHELL Ireland has received a €90 million cash injection to complete its controversial works to allow gas be taken from the Corrib gas field.

The cash injection to Shell E&P Ireland Ltd from its parent company is confirmed in documents recently lodged with the Companies’ Office.

The €90m represents a 28% increase in the company’s share capital to €344m.

A spokesman for Shell E&P Ireland confirmed that the injection of equity “is towards the development costs of the final phases of the project”.

The Corrib field could produce enough gas to meet 75% of Ireland’s peak winter gas needs for up to a decade.

An Bord Pleanála found this week that up to half of Shell’s proposed route for its Corrib gas onshore pipeline in Co Mayo is “unacceptable” on safety grounds.

A subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, Shell E&P Ireland now has three months in which to provide An Bord Pleanála with revised proposals for an alternative pipeline route to bring the gas onshore.

A company spokesman said yesterday: “The current window for project completion is year-end 2010/early 2011. It is too early to say whether the recent correspondence from An Bord Pleanála will have an impact on this schedule.”

It is now seven years since the Corrib gas project plan was approved by Government.

However, since then the proposal — sparked by safety fears — has become mired in controversy, including the jailing of the “Rossport Five” in 2005 and a number of confrontations between gardaí and protesters at the site of the Bellanaboy gas processing terminal in north Mayo.

Over 850 people are employed by Shell on the construction of the terminal at Bellanaboy.

The Shell spokesman said: “The terminal is over 80% complete and a period of operational qualification of the terminal is expected to take place in 2010.”

Accounts for 2008 have yet to be filed by Shell E&P Ireland. However, in the company’s returns to the end of 2007, they show that accumulated losses were €121m, due largely to developing the Corrib gas field.

The filings show that the losses would have been much higher but for Shell E&P Ireland Ltd receiving tax credits from the exchequer totalling €28m in the four years to the end of 2007, paying no net tax during that period.

The spend associated with the project almost breached €100m at the end of 2007, while losses include €40m in exploration costs written off since 2004.

However, the accounts show that the company’s book value of the Corrib gas field under development has almost doubled in three years, going from €230m at the end of 2004 to €422m at the end of 2007.

Last June, one of the partners in the project, US oil company Marathon, sold its share of the Corrib gas field to Canadian rival Vermilion in a deal potentially worth $400m (€285m).

Discovered in 1996, the gas field contains 1 trillion cubic feet of gas and has an estimated field life of 15 to 20 years.

This story appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Saturday, November 07, 2009

The Associated Press

BUSHLAND, Texas —

Authorities say three people were injured when a natural gas pipeline explosion shook homes, melted window blinds and shot flames hundreds of feet into the air in northern Texas.

The blast occurred around 1 a.m. Thursday near Amarillo. Potter County Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Roger Short says firefighters were able to contain the fire several hours later.

Those injured suffered burns and were taken to a local hospital. Authorities say they’re still investigating the cause of the explosion.

Short says nearby residents were evacuated and gas was shut off. One house was destroyed and several others were damaged.

Bushland Middle School principal Mark Reasor says about 60 people took shelter at the school. They returned home before dawn.

SOURCE ARTICLE

GAS from the controversial Corrib field off Co Mayo will not come ashore until at least 2011, 15 years after it was first discovered. The disclosure came after An Bord Pleanala ordered oil giant Shell E&P Ltd to redesign the pipeline and move it away from homes because it poses an “unacceptable risk”. Residents gave a cautious welcome yesterday after Shell was ordered to re-route the pipeline for a third time.