Posts Tagged ‘Shell to Sea Campaign’

The Irish Times – Monday, January 23, 2012

GORDON DEEGAN

OIL AND GAS multinational Shell has injected €90 million into its Irish subsidiary to deal with the spiralling costs of the Corrib gas field project.

Documents filed with the Companies’ Registration Office show that the global group has pumped the extra money into Shell Ireland.

The Irish company confirmed yesterday that the 5km onshore gas pipeline to bring gas from the offshore Corrib field to the market will not be complete until the second half of 2014.

The Corrib gas partners, Shell, Statoil and Canadian-owned Vermillion are now nine years behind the initial target to start generating revenues from the field.

The original estimate for developing the field was €800 million and the final bill for completing the project is now expected to be almost €3 billion.

The documents confirming the cash injection show that the Shell EP Ireland’s Ltd’s capital is now more than €704 million.

A spokeswoman for Shell said yesterday: “The €90 million is to support our ongoing activities on Corrib.”

The partners had hoped that gas would be brought ashore last year – however, this was before An Bord Pleanála ruled that half of the proposed overground pipeline would be unsafe.

This meant that the developers had to apply for permission to place it in a tunnel.

Shell, Statoil and Vermillion are expected to spend a further €378 million on the development this year.

They spent €250 million on the project last year. The total spend for the project at December last was an estimated €2.35 billion.

The 2012 spend estimate arises from Vermillion confirming that it is to spend €70 million on developing the field this year. It owns 18.5 per cent of the field.

Vermillion’s 2012 Capital Programme confirms this and also states that it will cost $135 million to complete the purchase of its stake from the original owner, US group, Marathon Oil.

In a written Dáil response last week on the progress of the field, Minister for Energy Pat Rabbitte, said it is estimated that construction on the onshore section of the pipeline will take in the region of three years. He said: “First gas cannot, therefore, reasonably be anticipated before 2014.”

A spokeswoman for Shell said yesterday: “Work on the onshore pipeline, the final phase of the project to be constructed, is progressing well.

“Preparatory work at the tunnelling site is still under way and tunnelling under Sruwaddacon Bay is expected to start in the second half of 2012. Completion of the tunnel and the laying of the onshore pipeline is estimated to take at least two years to complete.”

About 400 people are working on the project, 350 of whom are based in Mayo.

Shell has 45 per cent of the field and Statoil has 36.5 per cent.

The field has one trillion cubic feet of gas and is expected to meet 75 per cent of Ireland’s peak winter gas needs for up to a decade.

It is now 10 years since the Government approved the Corrib gas project plan.

However, since then, the proposal has become mired in controversy, including the jailing of the “Rossport Five” in 2005 and a number of confrontations between the Garda and protesters at the site of the Bellanaboy terminal in north Mayo.

Separate judicial review proceedings on the onshore pipeline consents were settled in the High Court last year.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Dear John,

I’ve attached for your perusal up to the minute stuff connected with the proposed Shell/Corrib project in north Mayo.

Maura Harrington

DYING_FOR_OUR_CHILDREN[1]

Peoples Forum Booklet PDF

SIPTU Optimising Ireland’s Oil & Gas Resources

Corrib building blockaded as Shell AGM held in The Hague and London

Áine Ryan: 17 May 2011

AS ROYAL Dutch Shell holds its AGM in The Hague and London today (Tuesday),  protestors blockaded the Corrib Natural Gas building in Belmullet, to highlight the giant oil company’s huge profits.

The small group of Shell to Sea and Rossport Solidarity Camp protestors stopped workers from entering or exiting the building from about 7.30am.

A Shell spokeswoman confirmed there were company personnel already in the building and that some work continued.

The Royal Dutch Shell AGM was held in The Hague, with an audio-visual link to a satellite meeting in London.

SOURCE ARTICLE

The Irish Times – Friday, April 8, 2011

CONOR LALLY

INVESTIGATION: ONE OF the women at the centre of the Garda rape comments controversy has expressed a lack of confidence in the Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission’s ability to investigate the gardaí involved and to sanction them.

Jerrie Ann Sullivan said more than 100 complaints have been made over the past two years about gardaí policing the anti-Shell protests in Mayo but none of the gardaí had been sanctioned.

“That doesn’t leave you with a huge amount of hope,” she told a Shell to Sea press conference in Dublin.

The other woman arrested with Ms Sullivan, and about whom the rape comments were made, was not at the press conference and does not wish to be named.

Ms Sullivan, a post-graduate student at NUI Maynooth, said when she and her companion, an academic in Maynooth, were released from Garda custody last Thursday and their video camera returned to them, they realised the camera had recorded 40 minutes of conversation in a car carrying some of the gardaí who had been part of the arrest party.

“It was deeply chilling to hear the gardaí in the car laughing at the prospect of raping the other woman,” she said.

Shell to Sea and Ms Sullivan want an independent international inquiry established to examine policing around the Shell Corrib gas pipeline protests.

They believe this could be established by the Government and carried out by “well respected figures from the international community”.

Richard Boyd Barrett TD believed gardaí in Mayo had been given a signal by senior officers to meet the protesters robustly, or to “go in rough on these people”.

SOURCE ARTICLE

The five gardaí at the centre of alleged comments of a sexually threatening nature in Co Mayo are to be confined to office duties in Castlebar while an investigation into the incident is carried out.

Updated: 16:58, Thursday, 7 April 2011

The five gardaí at the centre of alleged comments of a sexually threatening nature in Co Mayo are to be confined to office duties in Castlebar while an investigation into the incident is carried out.

The move was announced in the Dáil by the Minister for Justice and Law Reform, Alan Shatter.

Minister Shatter said four of the gardaí would be moved to the station from their current posts and the fifth – who is already stationed in Castlebar – will remain there.

Mr Shatter confirmed that he received a copy of a report on the incident from the Garda Commissioner this morning and that a copy had been sent to the Garda Ombudsman Commission, which is also carrying out an investigation.

The report follows the arrest of two women at the Corrib gas site last Thursday.

It is understood that the members of the gardaí who are the subject of the report have accepted the contents of the tape on which the comments were recorded.

They have acknowledged to the Superintendent that carried out the inquiry that the comments were unacceptable and should not have been made, it is believed.

The Garda Ombudsman Commission is due to interview the women and the gardaí as part of its investigation.

Call for independent inquiry

At a press conference in Dublin this morning, the protest group ‘Shell to Sea’ called for an international inquiry into the policing of the Corrib protests.

That call has been backed by People Before Profit Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett.

One of the protestors, Jim Monaghan, also called on the Garda Ombudsman Commission to investigate his allegation that five years ago a garda made remarks that he claims were of a sexually abusive nature.

The Ombudsman refused to investigate the claim in 2007 because Mr Monaghan did not bring the complaint to the commission in time and because it felt there was no reason to extend the time limit.

Today, the Ombudsman has said it will not revisit the case.
Mr Monaghan of the Pobal Chill Chomáin group said there had been a loss of discipline ‘on both sides’.

He said gardaí should be beyond such behaviour given their position in society.

However, he conceded that some protestors have been deliberately taunting gardaí.

Gardaí involved in the incidents this week should be afforded due process and presumed innocent until otherwise proven, he added.

Asked about allegations that subversive elements had been involved in the protest side, Mr Monaghan said he was not aware of subversives being ‘actively used’ to support the process but he did concede that ‘there may be subversives on both sides of the fence’.

Also speaking at the news conference, Shell to Sea protest group Spokesperson Caoimhe Kerins criticised the Garda Ombudsman and the manner in which the office has responded to what she said were numerous complaints about garda activity in the area.

Jerry Anne O’Sullivan, who was arrested during a protest, said her name and address had been leaked to the media.

She said the words used by gardaí were horrific and added that the recordings are a reflection of the intimidation protestors have been suffering for years.

SOURCE ARTICLE

ONE OF THE women at the Corrib gaspipe protest towards whom rape remarks were apparently directed by gardai is to waive her anonymity at a press conference this morning.

The woman is to speak to reporters at Buswell’s Hotel in Dublin at 11.30am. A Shell to Sea campaign spokesperson told TheJournal.ie this morning that the woman had taken the decision to reveal her identity because she had been warned that it was being leaked by gardai to the media.

Spokesperson Caoimhe Kerins said:

The reason that she will waive her anonymity is that we have been warned that the names and addresses of the two women have been leaked by gardai to the media and that the Sunday papers were going to report on them. One of the women is not in a position to have her anonymity lifted so this woman is stepping forward. We’re hoping that this will allow her to speak on her own terms.

The Garda press office told TheJournal.ie that it would be making no comment on the claims of a leak while two investigations were ongoing into the circumstances surrounding the video tape and rape remarks.

The women are to make a formal complaint today to the Garda Ombudsman over their treatment by gardai.

The Shell to Sea group and the woman will also be calling for an independent international inquiry, not just into the tape, but into the entire policing of the protests around the Corrib gas protest. Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins will be one of the speakers at today’s conference and will be backing the call for an inquiry.

Kerins added that the inquiry should be held into what she called the “the culture of impunity” in the policing of the Corrib project.

“This has to be the end of the way these protests are being policed,” she said.

SOURCE ARTICLE

TDs unite outside Dáil to back Shell to Sea campaign

Tuesday, March 22, 2011 – 04:22 PM

Twenty-two TDs gathered at the gates of Leinster House in Dublin today to call on the Government to overturn consents granted by former Minister Pat Carey to Shell E&P Ireland on the day of the recent General Election.

United Left Alliance: Joe Higgins; Clare Daly; Richard Boyd Barrett; Joan Collins.

Independents: Finian McGrath; Catherine Murphy; Maureen O’Sullivan; Thomas Pringle.

There were also pledges of support from TDs Luke ‘Ming’ Flanagan (Independent) and Seamus Healy (ULA), who could not attend.

It has been alleged that at about 3.40am, he came out from under the truck to stretch his legs and was removed from the site by force by masked men. Gardaí at the time confirmed Mr Corduff had been removed by security guards employed by Shell. A Garda statement said he had then been hospitalised as a precaution.

Separately, a High Court action taken by four residents seeking declarations that Shell has no interest in lands acquired under compulsory acquisition orders in 2002 is continuing.

The local community has been raising the issue of Shell polluting the local water supply for over 3 years, and yet State authorities are turning a blind eye to all Shell breaches of environmental law.”