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Deepwater Horizon

Oil spill exposes Shell’s ticking timebomb

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

The Royal Dutch Shell platform Gannett Alpha in the North Sea. Photograph: Ho/Reuters

For Shell, the timing of a spill at its Gannet A facility in the UK North Sea couldn’t have been worse. For months, it has been selling its reputation as a responsible and cutting-edge oil company in its bid to drill in the Beaufort Sea in the US Arctic – and it recently won approval.

The Gannet Alpha platform spill and a damning report by the UN, undermining Shell’s PR strategy. The company has been castigated over its lack of transparency in reporting the leak and for downplaying its magnitude and potential impacts. We now know that the spill is the single largest in UK waters in the last 10 years. While the spill is unlikely to approach the devastating impacts of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, its significance lies in the fact that it took place under the much vaunted “gold standard” regulatory regime of the UK and by a company that has been trading on its reputation as a responsible corporate citizen. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell struggles to contain worst North Sea oil leak in a decade, hit to its reputation

MEERA SELVA ASSOCIATED PRESS August 16, 2011

LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell struggled to contain the worst North Sea oil spill in a decade as well as damage to its credibility Tuesday as a second leak was found in an oil line the company had said was “under control.”

Although the amount of oil involved in the Shell spill off the coast of Scotland is an order of magnitude smaller than BP’s 2010 Gulf of Mexico disaster — around 1,300 barrels so far compared to an estimated 4.9 million in the Gulf — the spill undercuts Shell’s earlier suggestions that it was a safer company than BP. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Big Green lawsuits are obstacle to jobs, economic growth

By: Examiner Editorial 06/12/11 8:05 PM

Federal regulators had no sooner completed their review and approval of Royal Dutch Shell’s application to resuming drilling for oil and natural gas in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico before Big Green environmental radicals were in federal court filing suit to stop the project. David Guest, a spokesman for Earthjustice, which filed the suit along with the Sierra Club, the Gulf Restoration Network and the Florida Wildlife Federation, said the litigation was necessary because “before new deep-water Gulf drilling occurs, the government must make a realistic assessment of the risk to the Gulf’s ecosystem, its communities, and the many jobs that depend on tourism, fishing and recreation. It has utterly failed to do so here.” read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Deepwater Horizon Regulatory Failures

By W M Campbell – 12th January 2011 (Retired HSE Group Auditor, Shell International)

Regulatory Failures

As the queue begins to form of those who would sue BP and others for the failures that caused Deepwater Horizon, it appears, from the early release of the findings of the Presidential Commission published last week, that it was the negligence of multiple parties that caused the multiple failures.  Negligence also extends to the present and previous US Government administrations, their agencies and members of Congress.  To put the Commission Report in context we need to go back in time to 1982, and take in some history. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
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