http://indymedia.org.au/2011/06/11/arctic-deep-sea-oil-cairn-energy-oil-spill-response-plan-missing

Sat 11 Jun 2011
By takver

Activists from Greenpeace have been harassing the drilling program of Cairn Energy in the Arctic off the Greenland coast citing the lack of a publicly available oil spill response plan for drilling in the sensitive Arctic environment. Cairn Energy, an Edinburgh registered company, is presently involved in exploratory deep sea oil drilling in the Arctic in the Davis Strait (Iceberg Alley).

An oil spill response plan is a requirement of the Norsok drilling standards, which Cairn Energy claims to follow, and the Arctic Council’s offshore drilling guidelines. The Arctic Council specify in their Arctic Guideline 2009 (PDF) under section 7.2 on Reponse that “Operators should be required to have site-specific or operator-specific plans.” and that “Operators should allow the opportunity for public review and comment of the Plan.”

Cairn Energy has repeatedly refused to make an oil spill response plan available for public review and comment, despite the recent disaster of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which saw a deep sea oil gusher that took 3 months before being capped and involved extensive oil pollution damage to marine and wildlife habitats in the Gulf of Mexico.

Eighteen Greenpeace activists are being held in a Greenland jail for boarding the Cairn oil rig Leiv Eiriksson last Saturday (4 June) to look for it’s elusive oil spill response plan. They have all been charged with trespassing and breaching a security zone, fined 30,000 dkk and will be deported for their action in defense of the Arctic.

Ben Ayliffe radioed the Greenpeace ship Esperanza from the oil rig saying “We have met with the drill manager and requested a copy of the oil spill plan, which we assume he has on board, yet once again we have been refused even sight of it. What is Cairn Energy trying to hide? We have phoned, written, faxed, emailed and now even paid a visit to the rig to get a plan that should be in the public domain and should be subject to independent verification and public scrutiny.”

In late May Greenpeace activists disrupted drilling operations by suspending a survival pod with two people from the rig just metres from the drill bit.

Cairn Energy on Thursday June 9 were granted an injunction in a Dutch court against further disruption by Greenpeace entering a 500 metre exclusion zone around the Cairn Energy oil rigs. The penalty for defying the order would be damages paid to Cairn Energy of ¤50,000 a day, but no more than ¤1 million in the case of multiple violations of the order. The damages is far less than what Cairn Energy were asking for: 2 million Euros per day.

According to Greenpeace the Injunction judge stated in his ruling: “A leak of this kind could indeed have major consequences for humans, wildlife and the environment in a large region. It is therefore evident that it is also in the interests of many who are not directly involved with the drilling that maximum safety is observed during the drilling including that there are plans and operational possibilities in place to address a possible incident of this kind. In that sense Greenpeace serves a general public interest with its call for attention to the risks of the drills.” (Greenpeace Blogpost by Nick Young – What the Judge said)
An oilspill in the Arctic would be near impossible to clean in this pristine environment – and would be much worse than the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. British Energy Minister Lord Howell has been briefed in documents obtained by Greenpeace under Freedom of Information that “The impact of such a spill in the Arctic would be proportionally higher due to the lower temperatures and (in winter) lack of sunlight that will inhibit oil-eating bacteria (which played a large role in cleaning up the Macondo spill). The Arctic ecosystem is particularly vulnerable, and emergency responses would be slower and harder tha in the Gulf of Mexico due to the area’s remoteness and the difficulty in operating in sub-zero temperatures….”

The Davis Strait where oil exploration is ocurring is also known as Iceberg Alley. Cairn Energy have ships to watch for and tow smaller icebergs away from the rigs; for larger ice bergs, the rigs have to stop operations and move out of way. The two exploratory drill sites are AT-7 well in the Atammik Block, approximately 160 kilometres offshore Nuuk, west Greenland and the LF-7 well in the Lady Franklin Block approximately 300 kilometres offshore Nuuk. Drilling is being done at water depths of 905 and 989 metres respectively. The area is famous for its narwhal population and is an important fisheries area for Greenland. Fisheries products represents 88 per cent of Greenland’s export earnings. An oil spill would potentially devestate this industry.

With the onset of peak oil, exploration and extraction of the more difficult fossil fuel reserves is taking place. This includes deep sea and Arctic oil exploration and drilling, shale oil and tar sands mining. These fossil fuel reserves are much more expensive to develop and involve greater expenditure of energy and carbon emissions contributing to climate change, and real and potential damage to local environment and ecosystems.

Renowned NASA climate scientist Dr James Hansen believes coal mining and other fossil fuel extraction such as shale oil, tar sands and deep sea oil drilling, needs to be quickly curtailed if we are to achieve the necessary emission reductions to avoid dangerous climate change.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.alaskajournal.com/stories/061011/oil_catico.shtml

Web posted Friday, June 10, 2011

By Peter Orsi
Associated Press

China’s Vice President Xi Jinping, left, and Cuba’s President Raul Castro walk before a meeting at Revolution Palace in Havana, Cuba, Sunday June 5, 2011. Jinping is in Cuba on a two day official visit. AP Photo/Alejandro Ernesto, Pool

HAVANA (AP) – Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping toured a joint oil exploration project in Cuba near the end of a three-day visit during which the two countries signed economic accords that include the expansion of a refinery, Cuban state media said Tuesday.

Xi, who is widely expected to be China’s next president, called the Camarioca Norte 100 exploratory well and other projects a sign of excellent relations and close economic cooperation. Chinese equipment is operating at the well, Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma said Tuesday.

Ministry of Basic Industry chief Tomas Benitez said Empresa de Perforacion y Extraccion de Peroleo del Centro, Cuba’s leading hydrocarbons concern, is working with Chinese help on several oil exploration and exploitation projects in the country.

Cuba’s domestic production is exclusively heavy oil with a high sulfur content, but there are high hopes for offshore Gulf reserves that could contain large quantities of lighter, sweet crude. A test well in 2004 turned up only modest deposits, however.

Benitez said drilling is expected to begin later this year on six deep-water exploration wells with the help of a platform built in China and scheduled to come online starting in October, according to government Web portal Cubadebate.

Washington’s 48-year-old trade embargo prohibits U.S. companies from investing in Cuban oil exploration and production.

Earlier during Xi’s visit, he and Cuban President Raul Castro presided over the signing of 13 accords in areas from telecommunications and transport to biotech and energy.

The agreement on the Cienfuegos refinery is a joint plan by China and Cuban-Venezuelan oil company Cuven Petrol SA, a division of China National Petroleum Corp. and Technip Itali SA. A liquid natural gas project is also in the works, but specifics were not announced.

China is Cuba’s No. 2 commercial partner after Venezuela. The Chinese ambassador was recently quoted as saying trade between the two nations was $1.8 billion last year.

Chinese exports to the Caribbean nation mainly fall in the transportation, communications, agricultural and electricity sectors, in addition to consumer goods like appliances, while Cuba provides China with services in health, biotech and pharmaceuticals.

Xi also met Monday with former President Fidel Castro, Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency reported.

Xi was to leave later Tuesday bound for visits to Uruguay and Chile.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/oil-spill-illness_b_873582.html

by Riki Ott, Marine toxicologist and Exxon Valdez survivor

Posted: 06/ 8/11 07:59 PM ET

Recently Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer overseeing the $20 billion Gulf Coast Claims Facility to “make it right” for people harmed by the British Petroleum oil blowout disaster, told a Louisiana House and Senate committee that he had not seen any claims, or any scientific evidence, linking BP’s oil and dispersant release to chemical illnesses. Feinberg also stated that chemical illnesses take years to show up — conveniently well after his tenure with the compensation fund.

Instead of tossing the media a juicy bone, Feinberg tossed a red herring. He is wrong at worst, or intentionally misleading at best, on all points.

The GCCF process makes it difficult for people to be compensated for medical claims or even raise illness claims, while making it easy to release claims and rights to future medical care and benefits for chemical illnesses or other medically-proven illness related to the BP blowout and disaster response.

In fact the GCCF process is so blatantly egregious in terms of protecting corporate liability at the expense of human rights and health that a bill was introduced in the Louisiana state legislature, specifically targeting the BP oil disaster, to declare such “contractual releases are invalid as against public policy” and the release of claims to future medical care and related benefits null and void. In Louisiana. BP lobbyists are reportedly out in force, trying to gut the legislation.

Further, the pro-industry bias in the GCCF process turned thousands of people away. Over 130,000-plus claimants have filed lawsuits, now consolidated in Louisiana federal court under Judge Carl Barbier. According to one of the law firms involved, many of these claimants have indicated concerns about health and desire medical monitoring.
Feinberg’s downplay of chemical illnesses and other medical issues stemming from the BP oil disaster — with full knowledge of the parallel court proceedings — shows that he and his boss, BP, have no intention of “making it right” for people in the Gulf.

“Not recognizing that there is a problem — that’s the problem,” said Joey Yerkes, a former Florida cast net fisherman who became sick from chemical exposure while doing cleanup work during summer 2010. He filed a medical illness claim for compensation through the GCCF in early 2011 despite the obstacles. He had to file all his paperwork for medical claims twice because the GCCF employees could not find his initial paperwork. Joey undertook a rigorous treatment under medical care to detoxify his body — but he exhausted his finances before completing treatment. Now he is forced to wait for the BP-controlled GCCF to pay, while his health steadily deteriorates. It’s all he can do, he says, “just to chase my 2-year-old daughter around the park when we play.”

Unlike Joey Yerkes, Monette Wynne has not filed medical claims through the GCCF. Her entire family — herself, husband, 4-year-old twins, and 6-year-old child — all tested positive for oil in their blood after spending last summer in their seaside home in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. Wynne was so upset about her sick family that she and her husband drove to Atlanta, Georgia, and presented the family’s test results to seven toxicologists with the federal agency, Center for Disease Control.

“We were told the levels of oil were of no concern,” Wynne said. The federal scientists told them their levels of oil in blood were typical of urban dwellers who breathe traffic exhaust. Wynne didn’t believe it — her family’s blood work shows they have more oil in their blood than most people, and her family is all sick with symptoms like those of Joey Yerkes — symptoms that became widespread in Gulf communities during summer 2010; symptoms that are not going away. Wynne is considering borrowing money to treat her family. She and her husband had exhausted their savings to buy their dream home, a home that is now for sale.

Unfortunately for Joey Yerkes and the Wynne family — and the legions of other Gulf residents and visitors with similar medical issues from summer 2010, British Petroleum is the “responsible party” for its disaster, but BP is actually responsible, by law, to its shareholders, not the injured people in the Gulf. This inherent conflict of interest means Feinberg is nothing more than a well-paid sock puppet for BP. He can be expected to act to minimize liability and financial damages for the “responsible party” by covering up the chemical illness epidemic in the Gulf.

Further, the federal laws and regulations designed to protect public health, worker safety, and the environment from oil and chemical poisoning are so riddled with exemptions that they cannot deliver their promise of protection — as people near oil drilling and hydrologic fracturing (“fracking”) operations have discovered. Social documentaries such as Gaslands and Split Estate exposed chemical illnesses and symptoms similar to the Gulf injuries and independent studies documented groundwater contamination, but the federal government still denies there is a problem.

Similarly, the federal government is also in denial about the horrific-and-federally-sanctioned poisoning of the Gulf people and wildlife, despite prior and post knowledge of the extent of contamination and the health impacts of oil and chemicals used to drill or disperse oil.

As Joey pointed out, denial of the problem is the problem. At the root of the issue of oil and chemical poisoning in the Gulf and elsewhere in America lies the problem of corporate constitutional rights — transnational corporations claiming human rights. The challenge for all Americans is to reclaim our democracy and end corporate rule.

______________

Activist and author Riki Ott is attending the Democracy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin, August 24-28, hosted by the grassroots coalition MoveToAmend. To learn more about what happened in the Gulf, and people and communities are doing to reclaim democracy and end corporate rule, visit www.changingtheendgame.org.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/06/09/2258613/environmental-groups-challenge.html

Posted on Thursday, 06.09.11

ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA — Environmental groups asked a federal appeals court Thursday to throw out a U.S. government decision to approve a Shell oil exploration plan that involves five proposed wells under more than 7,000 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement approved the plan in May. The plan also includes three previously approved wells 72 miles off Louisiana.

Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council claim in a petition filed in the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta that the decision violates the law and that the environment would be harmed if it stands.
New regulations for deepwater drilling were imposed following last year’s deadly rig explosion and Gulf oil spill.

The conservation groups argue that there is no basis to conclude that drilling in waters substantially deeper than the BP well that blew out would have no significant impact on the environment. BP’s well that blew out was in 5,000 feet of water. Engineering experts and some industry observers have argued that more than a year after the disaster oil companies are still not adequately prepared to prevent a deepwater blowout or be able to efficiently deal with one if it were to occur again. The industry says it is prepared and it is eager to get back to business in the Gulf.

A moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf was imposed after the BP oil spill. It was lifted in October, though permits have only started to flow again in recent months. The industry has prodded the government to move faster, while environmental groups have encouraged the government to slow down.

Shell said in a statement that the petition “fails to take into account the comprehensive nature of the approved exploration plan.” The company said the plan reflects numerous improvements to enhance safety and to protect the environment. Shell said it would assist the government in defending the approval. A spokeswoman for the offshore drilling agency declined to comment on the petition.

Approval of an exploration plan is not an approval to drill. A drilling permit must be issued for that. The government has not yet issued a permit for the project the environmental groups are objecting to.

Separately, the government approved in March a Shell exploration plan involving a project 130 miles off Louisiana, south of Lafayette. The offshore drilling agency later approved a permit to drill a new well in 2,721 feet of water. Shell said that as of Thursday the company was preparing to drill that well, but had not yet started.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.

http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2011/06/authorities_continue_to_invest.html

Times-Picayune
Louisiana Environment and Flood Control > Breaking News

Published: Thursday, June 09, 2011, 3:50 PM Updated: Thursday, June 09, 2011, 4:00 PM
By Paul Purpura, The Times-Picayune

Federal authorities continued their investigation today to identify and determine the source of an oily substance fishers discovered Wednesday in Breton Sound.

The brown oil-like substance was floating about two miles southeast of Baptiste Collette Pass and has not touched land, according to the Coast Guard.

The agency conducted an aerial inspection in the area of North Breton Island today with Plaquemines and St. Bernard parish officials in a Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry patrol airplane, Petty Officer Steve Lehmann said.

Samples that Coast Guard pollution inspectors gathered Wednesday have been sent to a laboratory for analysis, and another day or more could pass before results are in, a spokesman said.

A fisherman notified authorities Wednesday morning after spotting the substance Plaquemines Parish officials feared was remnant oil from last year’s Deepwater Horizon catastrophy.

A private company, Oil Mop, has been hired and has sent barges and work boats to the scene, according to the Coast Guard.

The Bureau of Ocean Energy, Management, Regulation and Enforcement is investigating with the Coast Guard.

A charter fishing captain took this cellphone photo of a suspected oil slick off the coast of Plaquemines Parish. June 8, 2011
Paul Purpura can be reached at 504.826.3791 or ppurpura@timespicayune.com.

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Special thanks to Richard Charter