Oil Spill

From Chevron to Shell, Nigeria to the North Sea, the slippery mask of big oil was briefly removed this week.

On Tuesday we learned from a leaked internal company report that Transocean – the operators of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig – had a partial “blow-out” on one of its North Sea rigs only months before the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe.

One of Cairn's tugs, towing an iceberg out the way of its Arctic oil rig

Bing. Email received. Cairn Energy sent its “Greenland Operational Update” this morning at 7.05am with news to investors of its Arctic drilling. Despite its best efforts to put a positive spin on the news, the important words stood out:

“Plugged”, and “abandoned” for its first two drill sites. “Primary objectives were not reached” for number three, with “further re-entry work depending on the results of further evaluation”.

The media were more blunt, with headlines saying “Cairn Energy fails in Arctic oil drilling”.

Scrubbing the toilets this morning a bizarre thought crossed my mind: I’m going to miss this. The squeaky whiteboard, with our names for the 8am cleaning rota, reads: Messroom/Leila, Lounge/Frank, Showers/Victor, Alleyways/Elena, Laundry/Ben and Toilets … James.

A strange thing to miss perhaps, cleaning the ‘heads’ – my ship lingo is rapidly expanding – but it’s another part of the daily routine that has defined the communal life on board our floating Esperanza.

This is a working ship and everyone is busy pretty much all the time. Whether it’s in the engine room, the galley, the fitter’s workshop, the Radio Operator’s room, up on the bridge or out on deck, there are always things to do, just to keep a ship going.

Here's the latest video from Esperanza off the west of Shetland, as our swimmers continue their vigil to halt Chevron's giant drill ship, the Stena Carron. This phase of the action is now in its third day. We've been stopping the deepwater oil drillers for a week now.