US energy giant Chevron has this afternoon sought a court order to shut down a Greenpeace protest.
Environmental campaigners have been occupying a purpose-built reinforced survival pod attached to the anchor chain of a Chevron-operated oil drilling ship off Shetland. The direct action protest began on Tuesday morning and prevented the Stena Carron leaving to drill an exploratory well in deep water off the Scottish coast.
Now the company is seeking an ‘interdict' in Edinburgh - a court order that would force the Greenpeace protesters to come down or face huge fines or custodial sentences.
Speaking from the Greenpeace ship Esperanza about one mile from the protest site, Leila Deen - who occupied the pod for part of the three day protest - said:
"Chevron is using a legal hammer to end a peaceful protest. Our pod occupation by expert climbers is entirely safe, but Chevron wants to send this ship to sea to drill a dangerous deep water well off the Scottish coast and that's why they've gone to court. This is all about money for them, regardless of the dangers to the Scottish coastline and the global climate. Our climbers might be forced down, but we'll continue to bear witness to this reckless drilling operation. We have to go beyond oil and invest in clean energy technologies that won't pollute our seas and overheat our fragile climate."
Chevron claims it is seeking the court order because it needs to move the ship away from the coast in rough seas for safety reasons - in other words, the company claims its ship can't hold its position. But drill ships such as the Stena Carron are designed to hold their position to one metre in the roughest seas while drilling. If they cannot, they risk a disastrous oil spill.
Leila Deen added:
"There is a huge contradiction at heart of what Chevron's saying. They claim they need us off their anchor chain because they can't guarantee this ship can hold its position in rough seas, but they want to use the same ship to drill for oil in even rougher seas, where a deviation of a few metres in their position risks disaster. In reality our protest was always entirely safe, while deepwater drilling is reckless and dangerous."
Greenpeace is now threatening legal action against the Cameron government in an effort to stop the granting of new permits for deep water drilling. Last month Greenpeace lawyers wrote a so-called ‘letter before action' to ministers - the precursor to seeking a judicial review of the decision to push ahead with new deep water drilling before the lessons from the BP disaster have been learned. Permits are granted by Lib Dem Energy Secretary Chris Huhne.
The area west of Shetland is believed to hold 2bn-4bn barrels of ‘oil equivalent' in oil and gas. BP already operates three oil and gas fields in the area, in water no deeper than 1,800ft. In July 2010, BP confirmed that it plans to drill at much deeper depths at a potential field called Cardhu, a few miles south of the Chevron site.
ENDS
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For more, call Greenpeace on 020 7865 8255
Or the Esperanza on +47 5140 7986
Notes:
Investigations into the Gulf of Mexico spill are still underway and the full extent of the tragedy is only now being discovered. Any clean-up operation off Shetland could be severely hampered by rough weather, making it more expensive and difficult than the operation in the US, which as of September 2010 had already cost nearly $10bn (£6.4bn), with continuing costs of $90m per day. Colder waters would also mean that oil would disperse much more slowly, and therefore cause greater damage to wildlife.
Harsh weather conditions west of the Shetlands, in what is described by the Government as ‘a particularly challenging location', have so far deterred major exploitation of oil, but recently energy firms have lobbied for tax breaks to make production more attractive. In January this year Alistair Darling announced changes that could be worth £12 billion over the next eight years. The Eggar review, led by former Conservative Energy Minister and oilman Tim Eggar, is expected to recommend further incentives. The Lib Dem-Conservative coalition government is refusing to release the contents of the Review.
The process by which exploration and production licenses are issued to the industry is being ‘streamlined'. As a result, Chevron, BP and other oil majors have announced their intention to push further into the region west of the Shetlands, drilling wells in riskier deeper water and more remote locations than before.
