Oil men on the make

NoRightTurn has a post on the just-released National Energy Strategy [PDF] about which I/S says,

"While the government has switched the ordering of the goals, so that it no longer puts finding oil first and the environment last, it has also put a much greater emphasis on its quest for oil, with an extended preface about how important oil is, and the simultaneous release of a report on how much money the government could make out of it."

So he's far, far from impressed and his comments make me think of the recent attention we have been receiving from the Oil industry down here in Southland, with articles and letters from the heads of the potential drilling companies, some of which I've covered here. Leaving the Energy Strategy for a moment, I'll post two letters from today's Southland Times that were penned, I presume, in response to the statements of the Oil Men earlier in the week.
'We can't afford an oil disaster'
The over-riding message from Shell NZ's chairman Rob Jager is that production in the Great South Basin won't be starting for some time, so people shouldn't be worried (August 24).
  But BP's Deepwater Horizon was an exploratory rather than a production rig, and that disaster has so far cost US $24 billion to try (unsuccessfully) to undo the damage done by the millions of barrels that poured into the Gulf of Mexico.
  This country's clean and green reputation would be lost forever well before a similar spill was plugged, or had simply run its course - 6000 ships were involved in the gulf cleanup. We would never muster anything like that number here.
  Mr Jager also claims that Shell is "committed to minimising any potential effect on the environment" - a laughable assertion, comming as it does from an oil company.
  The world is frighteningly close to a state of runaway climate change, and going to extreme lengths to get at new supplies of fossil fuels - including Southland's lignite, an extraordinarily dirty and inneficient source of energy - will only bring us closer to that point.
  The handouts the oil industry currently gets from the Government should go instead to helping New Zealand  enter into the global clean technology race. Already, more money is being invested around the world on renewable energy generation, than is invested on fossil fuels.
  Southland, which has a wealth of renewable energy options, is well placed to capitalize on that.
  If we do not act now, New Zealand will miss out on our best opportunity yet to secure true prosperity for ourselves, and those generations to come.
SIMON BOXER
Climate Campaigner
Greenpeace NZ


Safety isn't certain

Shell NZ's chairman is being extremely disingenouos when he likens the sort of oil drilling that his company wants to carry out off the bottom of the South Island, to Taranaki's inshore oil and gas industry (Letters, Wednesday)
  The deepest well off Taranaki is under 330 metres of water, and most are under less than 150 metres.
  Shell's permits in the Great South Basin cover a seabed as deep as 1700 metres.
  Given that a diver cannot descend below 200 metres to fix a gushing wellhead, there's no comparison between an inshore Taranaki well and a deep-sea oil well.
  Mr Jager's management patter about 'modular systems' and 'multi-layered' control systems is also pretty hollow, when you consider that as he is boasting about his company's plans, and of its dedication to the environment, one of his company's oil rigs is leaking oil into the North Sea. It took Shell 9 days to stop that leak.
  That's despite the North Sea rig being in just 95 metres of water. The deeper the water, the harder it is to stop a spill: the oil gushed from BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico (which was under 1500 metres of water) for four months until it was brought under control.
  It is standard procedure for the oil industry to promise high safety standards before an accident, but then deliver weak excuses when things go wrong.
  In the case of the spill in the North Sea, one of Shell's technical directors is quoted as saying: "It has proved difficult to find the exact source of the leak because we are dealing with a complex subsea infrastructure and the leak seems to be coming from an awkward place surrounded by maritime growth."
  I would imagine that a similarly bizzare excuse would sound pretty chilling if crude oil was washing up on Stewart Island's beaches for instance.
JAY HARKNESS
Auckland