Despite initial testing of fish stocks showing no pollution from the recent North Sea oil spill, Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said, “work to monitor the impact of the spill on our marine wildlife continues”.
The huge oil leak from the Gannet Alpha platform has, says Shell, now been stopped. Last Friday, Shell divers closed the relief valve from which oil had been seeping. No oil has been released since that point but the 19 by 2.5 mile slick caused by the leak has been described by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) as “substantial.”
Shell says it delayed releasing information about the leak until it had established the source and extent of the problem, but they have been criticised by a number of organisations for being slow to let people know what was going on.
Shell eventually divulged that an estimated 216 tonnes (1,300 barrels), had escaped into the North Sea since the flowline to the Gannet Alpha platform, which reportedly produced about 13,500 barrels of oil per day between January and April, was damaged. High winds and turbulent waters have apparently helped keep the size of the slick down, which is not expected to reach land.
However, the incident means that Shell’s ability to drill safely in ecologically sensitive waters will now be questioned, especially since it seems that an internal investigation by Shell eight years ago raised serious concerns about safety in the Gannet oilfield. Shell has been officially censured for breaking safety rules 25 times in the last six years and has one of the worst safety records of the major oil companies in the UK, reports the UK’s Daily Telegraph.
Groups, including the RSPB, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, have all rebuked Shell for ‘covering up’. Further, WWF Scotland said the UK Government should restrict all Shell's operations in the North Sea until a proper independent audit has been carried out on their installations.
