Gannet Alpha
 
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Gannet Alpha is an oil rig in the Scottish North Sea . The name of the platform and of the oil field is the Basstölpel ( English gannet ), a seabird derived. The platform is operated by the Shell group .
According to the operating company, more than 200 tons of oil leaked from Gannet Alpha in August 2011 due to two leaks. Independent information on the extent of the incident was not available even a week after it became known.
Location and facility
The gannet oil field was discovered in the early 1970s and later developed. Gannet Alpha is off the coast of Scotland, 180 kilometers east of Aberdeen. The North Sea is only 95 meters deep in this area.
The Gannet complex consists of the fixed drilling and production platform Gannet Alpha in Block 21/25. It is the basis for the production fields A, B, C, D, E, F and G. The gas production in the satellite fields is monitored from Gannet Alpha . The extracted oil is pumped to the Fulmar oil field via a fixed pipeline . The gas is routed through another pipeline into the Fulmar gas pipeline and then on to the St Fergus / Vesterled pipeline.
The oil field is operated by Shell . In addition, Esso , which belongs to the ExxonMobil group, has shares in it. The field is exploited in equal parts by the corporations. According to the BBC , the oil field produces around 13,500 barrels of oil per day.
Leak and oil spill
On August 10, 2011, a leak was discovered in the conveyor system. A 31-kilometer-long oil layer with a maximum width of 4.3 kilometers drifted on the North Sea. According to the Shell Group, on August 15, 2011, a “significant amount” of oil spilled into the sea on the damaged platform. By this time, around 216 tonnes had probably leaked, Shell announced in London. The leak is still under control and work is being done to close it. According to the UK authorities, it was the largest incident of its kind in more than a decade. According to its own statements, the group expected the oil slick to dissolve by itself due to the wave activity and not reach the coast. The staff on the platform continued to work as usual.
The leak occurred at a junction between the platform and a pipe. "The underwater infrastructure is very complex and the leak is in a complicated place," said a Shell spokesman on August 15, 2011. According to Shell, an underwater remotely controlled robot was used to explore and seal the leak. As an expert from Clausthal University of Technology explained, in contrast to the BP drilling platform, the leak was immediately isolated in the Gulf of Mexico last year; the leaked oil is a residual amount in the line and presumably a further amount due to a leaky valve . According to the company, a boat with chemicals to bind oil was waiting and the situation was observed from an airplane.
The UK Department of Energy and Climate said the incident was being investigated. According to government information , the coast guard flew over the affected area twice a day. During an overflight on Monday afternoon, August 15, 2011, a wide plume of oil could be seen south of the drilling rig in the North Sea off Scotland, reports the environmental protection organization Greenpeace , which flew over the area with its own aircraft. The visible oil slick is constantly changing, said Shell. About a ton of oil came to the surface of the sea. According to Greenpeace, neither oil barriers nor suction ships could be seen that could hold up or decimate the oil.
On August 16, 2011, the Joint Situation Center of the German Emergency Command in Cuxhaven announced that the oil slick had shrunk to a size of half a square kilometer. This information came from the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). Waves and wind “smashed” the oil so that it was distributed in the water. The MCA monitored the oil spill from the air.
On August 19, 2011, Shell announced that the flow of oil from the rig had stopped. Divers would have closed a valve on the defective line. The oil remaining in the line must be pumped out of the line. Over a longer period of time it must also be observed whether the leak actually remains tight.
Information policy and consequences
Various conservation organizations accused Shell of covering up the dimensions of the accident. An unknown amount of oil leaked from the leak into the sea since August 10th. Shell first informed the public on August 12, 2011 that there had been an oil spill accident on Gannet Alpha. "The leak has been around for days, but Shell didn't make it public until the situation was under control," said the director of WWF Scotland on August 14, 2011. A robot with video technology was used to investigate the leak. The resulting pictures and videos were not published. The group wrote a daily report on the situation on its homepage. Shell's technical director on the group's information policy: They first wanted to gain reliable knowledge. After that, Shell kept the public informed.
The group admitted a problem: "We are dealing with a complicated infrastructure on the seabed, the location of the small leak is in a difficult place, surrounded by marine fauna", it said in a message from the group. When asked what this meant, there was no answer. "It is clear that Shell has great difficulty dealing with its leaky pipe," criticized the director of WWF Scotland.
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ www.shell.co.uk ( Memento of the original dated December 11, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Worst North Sea oil leak since 2000 , orf.at on August 16, 2011
- ↑ https://www.fr.de/panorama/neues-oelleck-shell-plattform-entdeck-11710979.html
- ↑ New alliance in the parcel business - Amazon now goes with Shell; www.tagesschau.de ( Memento of the original dated November 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ www.spiegel.de
- ↑ Interview on Deutschlandfunk on August 17th, from 11.30 a.m.
- ↑ www.nzz.ch
- ↑ Oil: Shell stops oil leak on damaged platform at tagesschau.de, August 19, 2011 (accessed on August 19, 2011).
- ^ Ralf Sotscheck: Oil spill in front of Scotland. taz, accessed on August 18, 2011 .
- ↑ Axel Bojanowski : Oil leak in the North Sea. Tactics of silence make Shell difficult to explain. Spiegel Online, accessed August 18, 2011 .
Coordinates: 57 ° 11 '3.8 " N , 0 ° 59' 54.3" E