Brent Spar
Brent Spar, or Brent E, was a
Technical information
Brent "E" was a floating oil storage facility constructed in 1976 and moored approximately 1.2 mi (2 km) from the Brent "A"
Shell based its decommissioning decisions on estimates of the quantities of various pollutants, including
Disposal options
Shell examined a number of options for disposing of the Brent Spar, and took two of these forward for serious consideration.[2]
On-shore dismantling
The first option involved towing the Brent Spar to a shallow water harbour to decontaminate it and reuse the materials used in its construction. Any unusable waste could be disposed of on land. Technically, this option was more complex and presented a greater hazard to the workforce. This option was estimated to cost £41M. There was some concern that the facility would disintegrate in shallow coastal water, having a much more economically and environmentally significant effect.
Deep sea disposal
The second option involved towing the decommissioned platform into deep water in the
Shell proposed that deep sea disposal was the best option for Brent Spar, arguing that their decision had been made on sound scientific principles and data. Dismantling the platform on-shore was more complex from an engineering point of view than disposal at sea. Shell also cited the lower risk to the
Having decided on a preferred method of disposal, Shell contracted
At these three sites, FRS carried out:
- seabed visualisation surveys using a remotely operated underwater vehicle (ROV) to confirm the topography in each area
- sediment sample collection using a box core sampler to analyse for polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), oil-related hydrocarbons and radionuclides
- investigations into particle size distribution, and total organic carbon levels of the sediment
- box core sampling to count the numbers of animals living in the sediment of the seabed
- beam trawlsampling to determine the different animals living on the seabed
The North Feni Ridge was found to include a narrow channel. The Rockall Trough area was found to be a gently sloping basin between the Anton Dohrn Seamount and the Wyville-Thomsom Ridge. The Maury Channel area was found to be a flat, gently sloping area.
Infaunal communities were found to be high in diversity and low in abundance, characteristic of unimpacted sediments. These communities were thought to have a limited food supply, which is also normal in deep water communities.
The final conclusions of FRS were that abundance and diversity were greater than had been expected, especially in the North Feni Ridge area, however the limited extent of sampling precluded detailed analysis of data for the entire area. On the basis of the data which FRS gathered, there was little to choose between the three potential disposal areas. Analysis of the North Feni Ridge area may indicate that this area may have been accumulative, but that this would not preclude deep-sea disposal of the platform.[4]
Having received these conclusions, Shell opted for the North Feni Ridge site, and applied to the British government for a licence to dispose of the rig at sea. This was approved in December 1994.
Greenpeace involvement
Greenpeace objected to the plan to dispose of the Brent Spar at sea on a number of issues:
- That there was a lack of understanding of the deep sea environment, and therefore no way to predict the effects of the proposed dumping on deep sea ecosystems.
- The documents which supported Shell's licence application were "highly conjectural in nature", containing unsubstantiated assumptions, minimal data and extrapolations from unnamed studies.
- That dumping the Brent Spar at sea would create a precedent for dumping other contaminated structures in the sea and would undermine current international agreements. The environmental effects of further dumping would be cumulative.
- Dismantling of the Brent Spar was technically feasible and offshore engineering firms believed they could do it safely and effectively. The necessary facilities were already routinely in use and decommissioning of many other oil installations had already been carried out elsewhere in the world.
- To protect the environment, the principle of minimizing the generation of wastes should be upheld and harmful materials always recycled, treated or contained.
Greenpeace claimed that the scientific arguments for ocean dumping were being used as a way of disguising Shell's primary aim, which was to cut costs.[6][citation needed]
The "battle" of Brent Spar
Four Greenpeace
Greenpeace mounted an energetic media campaign that influenced public opinion against Shell's preferred option. It disputed Shell's estimates of the contaminants on the Brent Spar, saying that these were much more than initially estimated. On 9 May, the
Towing of the platform to its final position began on 11 June. By this time, the call for a boycott of Shell products was being heeded across much of continental
On 20 June, Shell had decided that their position was no longer tenable, and withdrew their plan to sink the Brent Spar. They released the following statement:
"Shell's position as a major European enterprise has become untenable. The Spar had gained a symbolic significance out of all proportion to its environmental effect. In consequence, Shell companies were faced with increasingly intense public criticism, mostly in Continental northern Europe. Many politicians and ministers were openly hostile and several called for consumer boycotts. There was violence against Shell service stations, accompanied by threats to Shell staff."
In early July, the Norwegian government gave Shell permission to mothball the Brent Spar in Erfjord. It remained there for several years while other options for disposal were considered.
Aftermath
Contaminant | Shell Co est. (kg) | DNV audit est. (kg) |
---|---|---|
PCBs | trace | 6.5 – 8.0 |
Hydrocarbons | 50,700 | 75,000 – 100,000 |
Aluminium | 28,677 | 24,000 – 40,000 |
Arsenic | 0.3 | 0.0 |
Bismuth | 29.0 | 0.0 |
Cadmium | 16.4 | 1.0–3.8 |
Copper | 13,542.9 | 7,500 – 13,200 |
Indium | 10.2 | 5.0 – 21.0 |
Lead | 9.5 | 0.11 |
Mercury | 0.3 | 0.4 |
Nickel | 7.4 | 0.9 – 1.5 |
Silicon | 48.0 | 0.0 |
Titanium | 8.8 | 0.0 |
Zinc | 13,811.4 | 5,200 – 8,300 |
Scale (oil production residue) | 30,000 | 7800–9400 |
Having moored the Brent Spar in Erfjord, Shell commissioned the independent Norwegian consultancy
Shell received over 200 individual suggestions for what could be done with the Brent Spar. One of these came from the Stavanger Port Authority. They were planning a quay extension at Mekjarvik, to provide new Roll-On/Roll-Off ferry facilities. It was hoped that using slices of the Spar's hull would save both money and energy that would otherwise have been spent in new steel construction. The Spar was raised vertically in the water by building a lifting cradle, placed underneath the Spar and connected by cables to jacks on board heavy barges. Jacking the cables upwards raised the Spar so that its hull could be cut into 'rings' and slid onto a barge.[8]
After cleaning, the rings were placed in the sea beside the existing quay at Mekjarvik and filled with ballast. The construction of the quay extension was completed by placing a concrete slab across the rings. The Spar's living quarters and operations module were removed and scrapped onshore at a Norwegian landfill site.[9]
While the Brent Spar was being dismantled, quantities of the endangered cold-water coral
Effect of Brent Spar
According to a poll of 1000 adults carried out by Opinion Leader Research on 26 January 1996 on behalf of Greenpeace, a majority of the British public were aware of the Brent Spar (57%). Of these, 57% were opposed to the dumping of Brent Spar in the Atlantic, and 32% were in favour of it.
Although Shell had carried out an environmental impact assessment in full accordance with existing legislation, they had severely underestimated strength of public opinion. Shell were particularly criticised for having thought of this as a "Scottish", or "UK" problem, and neglecting to think of the effect which it would have on their image in the wider world. The final cost of the Brent Spar operation to Shell was between £60M
The overestimation of the contents of the Brent Spar damaged the credibility of Greenpeace in their wider campaigns. They were criticised in an editorial column in the scientific journal Nature for their lack of interest in facts.[14] Greenpeace moved to distance itself from its "5500 tonnes" claim, after the Brent Spar argument was won.
Timeline
- 1976: Brent Spar built and enters service
- 1977: 3 men lose their lives to hydrogen sulfide poisoning
- September 1991: Brent Spar ceases operations
- 1991–93: Shell examines options and carries out risk assessment and environmental impact assessment. Decides to sink Brent Spar at the North Feni Ridge.
- February 1994: Independent environmental consultancy, Aberdeen University Research and Industrial Services, endorses choice of deep sea disposal. Shell begins formal consultations with conservation bodies and fishing interests. Draft Abandonment Plan submitted.
- December 1994: UK government approves plans for sinking.
- 30 April 1995: Greenpeace activists board Brent Spar and start occupation of abandoned installation.
- 30 April – 21 May 1995: Brent Spar occupied by Greenpeace to draw attention to the issue of decommissioning of obsolete North Sea oil and gas installations. During the occupation activists take samples from the oil storage tanks and European Greenpeace offices organize a boycott of Shell products and services.
- 5 May 1995: British Government grants disposal licence to Shell UK.
- 9 May 1995: German Federal Ministry of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safetyprotests against disposal plan.
- 21 May 1995: Activists removed from Brent Spar by Grampian police and Shell.
- 10 June 1995: Shell UK begins to tow Spar to deep Atlanticdisposal site.
- 15 June 1995: German chancellor Helmut Kohl protests to British Prime Minister John Major at G7 summit.
- 14–20 June 1995: Protesters in Germany threaten to damage 200 Shell service stations. 50 are subsequently damaged, two fire-bombed and one raked with bullets. Greenpeace officially distances itself from any violence related to the Brent Spar controversy.
- 16 June 1995: Greenpeace wrongly asserts that the Brent Spar still contains 5,500 tonnes of scale and crude oil.
- 26–30 June 1995: Eleven states call for a moratorium on sea disposal of decommissioned offshore installations at meeting of Oslo and Paris Commissions. Opposed by Britain and Norway.
- 7 July 1995: Norway grants permission to moor Spar in Erfjord while Shell reconsiders options.
- 12 July 1995: Shell UK commissions independent Norwegian consultancy Det Norske Veritas (DNV)to conduct an audit of Spar's contents and investigate Greenpeace allegations.
- 5 September 1995: Greenpeace admits inaccurate claims that Spar contains 5,550 tonnes of oil and apologizes to Shell.
- 18 October 1995 – DNV present results of their audit, endorsing the original Spar inventory. DNV state that the amount of oil claimed by Greenpeace to be in the Spar was "grossly overestimated".
- 29 January 1998: Shell announces Brent Spar will be disposed of on shore and used as foundations for a new ferry terminal.
- 23 July 1998: OSPAR member states announce agreement on onshore disposal of oil facilities in the future.
- February 1999: BBC 9 O'Clock News screens interview with Conservative former environment minister John Selwyn-Gummer in which he accuses Greenpeace campaigners of telling lies and, as a result, causing damage to the whole environmental movement.
- 10 July 1999: Decommissioning is completed and the first stages of constructing the ferry terminal are started.
- 25 November 1999: BBC formally apologizes to Greenpeace over screening of Gummer allegations.[15]
Helicopter crash
- On 25 July 1990, a British International Helicopters Sikorsky S-61 registration 'G-BEWL' coming in from Sumburgh Airport crashed onto the platform as the pilots were attempting to land. The Sikorsky fell into the North Sea, where six of the 13 passengers and crew on board died.[16][17]
References
- ^ "Structural damage danger for Brent Spar". Chemical Engineer. 7. London: 615–616. 1996.[verification needed]
- ^ "Brent Spar". Shell. Archived from the original on 24 November 2007.
- ^ Owen & Rice 1999, p. 38.
- ^ "Case study: Brent Spar" (PDF). Fisheries Research Services. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 May 2006.
- ^ Parmentier, R, "Greenpeace and the Dumping of Wastes at Sea" Archived 28 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine, 1999
- ^ Nash, Nathaniel C. (23 June 1995). "A Humbled Shell Is Unsure On Disposal of Atlantic Rig". The New York Times.
- ^ "DNV Inventory". Contents of Brent Spar, relative to quantities in the North Sea, as detailed by Det Norske Veritas. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 10 March 2005.
- .
- ^ "Brent Spar gets chop". BBC News. 25 November 1998.
- S2CID 4431862.
- .
- ^ "Oil rig home to rare coral". BBC News. 8 December 1999.
- ^ "Brent Spar Outcry Leaves Shell with a 60 m Pound Bill". Professional Engineering. 12 (16): 9. 1999.[verification needed]
- S2CID 4369687.
- ^ "BBC apologises to Greenpeace". BBC News. 25 November 1999.
- ^ "Aircraft accident report 2/91" (PDF). Retrieved 20 November 2012.
- ^ "Appendices" (PDF). Retrieved 20 November 2012. in "Report on the accident to Sikorsky S-61N, G-BEWL at Brent Spar, East Shetland Basin on 25 July 1990".
Sources
- Owen, P.; Rice, T. (1999). Decommissioning of Brent Spar. Spon Press. ISBN 0-419-24090-X.
Further reading
- Melchett, Peter (23 December 1995). "Green for danger". New Scientist.
- Wilkinson, W.B.; Bakke, T.; Clauss, G.F.; Clements, R.; Dover, W.D.; Rullkötter, J.; Shepherd, J.G. (February 2016). "Decommissioning of large offshore structures – The role of an Independent Review Group (IRG)". Ocean Engineering. 113: 11–17. .