Greenpeace lawyers today revealed they have threatened the UK government with legal action over deep sea drilling in British waters, as four Greenpeace climbers who spent nearly 48 hours in sub zero temperatures on an Arctic oil rig ended their occupation early this morning.
Freezing conditions and strong winds forced the climbers to abandon plans to spend a third day in tents suspended from ropes attached to the underside of the rig, owned by British company Cairn Energy.
The environmental group also said it has delivered a formal 'letter before action' to the coalition government, which accuses ministers of granting licenses for new deep sea drilling before the causes of the Deepwater Horizon explosion have been properly established.
Today's news will alarm the oil industry due to Greenpeace's strong record in similar campaigns - on nuclear power and the third runway at Heathrow - where a combination of high profile direct action and robust legal challenges have led to significant delays or even cancellations for the companies involved.
Greenpeace Executive Director John Sauven, who is in contact with the ship, said:
Our climbers have stopped this rig from drilling in the fragile Arctic for two days, and this is just the start of a long campaign. The world needs to go beyond oil, but here in the UK the Government is waving through applications for new drilling as if the Deepwater Horizon explosion never happened."
"The Gulf of Mexico disaster was a game changer, so ministers should suspend new deep water licenses and companies like Cairn Energy must stop dangerous drilling in the Arctic and start investing in clean alternatives instead."
As storms closed in this morning Greenpeace activists were forced to climb onto the gantry of the oil platform, where they were arrested at around 1am local time.
By stopping the rig drilling for two days, Greenpeace hopes that Cairn Energy will now struggle to meet a tight deadline to complete the exploration before winter ice conditions force it to abandon the search for oil off Greenland until next year.
In the legal letter, Greenpeace asks the Government for an undertaking that it will stop the UK licensing process for new offshore drilling (exploration and production) and consult fully on the scope of a new, full environmental assessment in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The explosion led to the deaths of 11 workers and the release of around five million gallons of oil into the ocean.
Sauven continued:
"It is our view that for the government to carry on licensing for new offshore drilling without a new environmental assessment is in breach of European and UK environmental law, and is irrational."
The legal letter cites a series of UK environmental assessments for offshore drilling, dated from the months before the Deepwater accident, including one which concedes that "the feasibility of containment and recovery [of oil] in offshore locations is generally considered low in the UK", and which admits that "there is currently no capacity for large scale containment and recovery in the offshore UKCS [UK Continental Shelf]".
The government concedes that the area to the West of Shetland, where much of the proposed deep sea drilling would take place, is a "particularly challenging location" and yet insists that "no depth constraints [for drilling] are envisaged."
It was recently reported that BP plans to drill its deepest UK well to date off the West coast of Scotland, possibly as early as October this year.
The government has 14 days within which to respond to Greenpeace's letter. If there is no undertaking then Greenpeace will claim for judicial review of the government's decision.
ENDS
For more information contact James Turner, Greenpeace UK Press Office on 0207 865 8255
For video please contact Melissa Thompson, Greenpeace International Video Desk: + 31 621 296899
For images John Novis, Greenpeace International Picture Desk: +44 7798 678281
To speak to a campaigner off the coast of Greenland contact the Esperanza on +8816 7770 1411 or +8816 7770 1412 or +8816 7770 1413.
NOTES:
For nine days the Esperanza was shadowed by a Danish Thetis-class 120m warship, commandos in speed boats and a flotilla of police boats. The rig was forced to stop drilling because any breach of the 500m security zone around it results in a routine shutdown. The other rig operated by Cairn 150km away - the Stena Forth - also stopped drilling due to the Greenpeace protest. Cairn last week claimed the Forth had struck gas and was optimistic it would strike oil.
Drilling west of Greenland is limited to a 'summer window' between July and end September. After this date, sea-ice becomes too thick to allow vessels to operate and relief wells cannot be drilled effectively. The area which contains the occupied rig is known locally as 'iceberg alley'. Cairn is having to tow icebergs out of the rig's path or use water cannons to divert them. If the icebergs are too large the company has pledged to move the rig itself to avoid a collision. Last month a 260km2 ice island broke off the Petermann glacier north of Disko island and will eventually make its way south through Nares Strait into Baffin Bay and the Labrador Current.
The crew of the Esperanza includes Waldemar Wichmann, the Captain from Argentina; Annkatrin Schneider, deck hand from Germany; Ben Stewart and Leila Deen from the UK; Jon Burgwald from Denmark; Victor Rask from Sweden; Mateusz Emeschajmer from Poland; Timo Puohiniemi from Finland; Danielle McCarthy, Second Mate from Australia; Mannas, Chief Engineer from Holland; and Sim McKenna from the USA.
Greenpeace is calling on the UK to follow Obama's lead and introduce a moratorium on deep sea drilling. The US Interior Secretary, launching the US Moratorium, said: 'A pause on deep sea drilling is essential and appropriate to protect communities, coasts, and wildlife from the risks that deepwater drilling currently pose. I am basing my decision on evidence that grows every day of the industry's inability in the deepwater to contain a catastrophic blow out, respond to an oil spill, and to operate safely."
