August 2011

LONDON – Britain’s worst oil spill for over a decade appeared to be entering its final stages yesterday, as the company said the volume still leaking was insignificant.

“The rate of leakage from the flowline to the Gannet platform continues to decline and currently stands at less than one barrel a day,” Glen Cayley, technical director of Shell’s European exploration and production activities, said yesterday. Shell also said a change in weather meant the oil on the surface had grown in size.

Monday 15th August at 9am a group of 12 people went down to Shell's compound in Aughoose to stop work. Eventually Shell's private security (IRMS) and the Gardaí began working together to police the roads and protect deliveries of equipment to the compound.

August 2011: Ballanaboy Gate 1 IRMS and Gardai working hand in hand

The State is about to sign away almost all our resources on terms by far the worst in the developed world

SOMETIMES, YOU have to consider extraordinary things. I want to suggest two of them at one go. The first is that the State is simply incapable of dealing with one of the key challenges and opportunities facing Irish people: getting the best for the Irish people from the potentially huge resources of oil and gas off our shores. The second is that we should therefore split those resources with a state that has proven its ability to manage this challenge for the maximum public benefit. That state is Norway. I am suggesting, in all seriousness, that we should give joint ownership of our oil and gas to the Norwegian state.

The first part of this proposition is the easiest to grasp. The official estimate of the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources is that there are reserves of 6.5 billion barrels of oil and 20 trillion cubic feet of gas off the western seaboard – enough to meet our energy needs for a century. (This does not include southern waters, where significant gas fields already exist, or onshore resources.)