Shell oil spill

19 August 2011 Last updated at 10:12 GMT By Damian Kahya Business reporter, BBC News The sheen near Gannet Alpha has changed in size on a daily basis Environmental groups are furious that the largest North Sea spill in a decade was not revealed to the public for three days. Why did it happen and will Shell's recent environmental problems affect the company's ambitious plans?

On 10 August, a routine helicopter flight over the North Sea spotted a "sheen" on the sea's surface near Royal Dutch Shell's Gannet Alpha platform.

The oily sheen covered just 0.5 sq km to begin with, according to figures provided to the BBC by Shell.

But it was an indication that below the surface, something was leaking.

Shell immediately informed regulatory bodies, including the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the government's Joint Nature Conservation Commitee.

The DECC says, however, that it remained up to Shell to decide when and how to make the information public.

Finding the leak

The company initially struggled to find the source of the leak.

"On Wednesday this slick, or sheen, was unattributed, so it could have come from anywhere," said Hugh Shaw, the government's representative for maritime salvage and intervention, during a press conference a week later.

Shell had reported no loss of oil inventory alerting it to a spill.

"To try and identify the source has been quite frustrating at times, it's taken some time, it's meant Shell systematically shutting down the system to see what the impact of shutting down certain valves was and that has helped us come down to this source," said Mr Shaw.

It is during these first two days that most of the estimated 1,300 barrels of oil were discharged into the North Sea, in the area's largest spill for a decade.

By Thursday morning, the spill covered a surface area of 1.3 sq km squared - then by the evening, it had spread to 21 sq km.

The reason for the rapid change is not yet known. Extra oil could have reached the surface, but it is also likely rough weather spread out the existing sheen over a wider area.

The oil was destined for the Gannet Alpha platform Lack of information

Despite the now substantial sheen, Shell still did not inform the media or the public about the spill.

Shell deployed a remote-operated vehicle to find the leak in a pipe flowing between an oil well and the Gannet Alpha platform.

The company shut off the well and depressurised the pipeline, stemming the flow of oil.

On Friday afternoon, an oil industry journal, Upstream, ran a short article about the spill- based on its own sources.

Shortly after being contacted by the magazine, Shell issued a press release saying it had "stemmed" the leak significantly.

Shell says it delayed releasing information on the leak until it had established the nature of the problem.

"We released the information when we were confident about the information," said Glenn Cayley, technical director of Shell's exploration and production activities in Europe.

Even then, the company could not, or would not, specify the exact size of the leak.

'Dumb' move

The lack of information provoked fury amongst environmental groups.

Some groups, such as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, have expertise in dealing with any environmental impact from a spill.

"We want to and need to be informed at absolutely the earliest opportunity because we have a considerable degree of expertise on these sorts of things," says James Reynolds from RSPB Scotland.

Other campaigners, including Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and oil pressure group Platform, have joined the criticism.

The RSPB has called for a transparent inquiry into the incident and the company's procedures in the North Sea.

Shell has since apologised for the lack of information and say it was not a deliberate attempt to cover up the spill.

"It seems to me more dumb than planned," said Frederic Hauge from Bellona, a Norwegian environmental group which monitors the North Sea.

"My impression has been that Shell learned the lesson after Brent Spa when it came to communications and it's maybe time to read those papers again," he added.

The company says that since Saturday, it has used social media to give information, with 35,000 followers on Twitter.

North sea leaks

Although major leaks have been few, small problems in the North Sea have beset the industry.

Shell says most leaks in Nigeria are due to sabotage

In the Gannet field, figures obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the Guardian newspaper - and now publicly available - show there were 10 incidents reported to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) between 2009 and 2010, one of which was classed as "significant".

The company has also had problems in its Brent field, one of the first major oil fields explored in the North Sea, which recently benefited from a £1.3bn upgrade.

On 1 July this year, the HSE issued Shell with a prohibition notice on the field's C platform, because of a release of gas.

"HSE can confirm that a prohibition notice was served on Shell on 1 July over hydrocarbon release issues on the Brent C platform. The rig is currently 'shut in', which means it has complied with the prohibition notice ordering activity to stop," said an HSE spokesperson.

"Shell continues to progress work on Brent Charlie. Production will not resume until all necessary work is complete," said a Shell spokesman.

Nigeria liability

Shell has also had problems further afield. The company has been involved in continuing legal action in London regarding its activities in Nigeria.

In August, Shell admitted liability for two spills in 2008.

It is the first time the company has admitted liability for a Nigerian spill in a London court.

The company claims about 4,000 barrels of oil were spilt, although this figure is disputed by environmental pressure groups.

It also claims that most spills in the region are due to sabotage, but it tries to clean up the spill, whatever the cause.

However, a recent report by the United Nations Environment Agency said that 10 out of 15 investigated sites which Shell said it had completely cleaned up still had pollution exceeding Shell and the Nigerian government's best practice levels.

Shell says that, despite this, more than 90% of samples taken by the UN at the sites were within standards.

Drilling in the Arctic is controversial Bottom line

But such worries do not mean the company is performing badly.

"Every company has leaks," says Iain Reid, an oil company analyst at Jeffries Investment group.

At 1,300 barrels so far, the North Sea leak is a tiny fraction of BP's Macondo well spill in the Gulf of Mexico last year.

And in July, Shell reported second quarter profits up 77%.

"The shareholders are happy, even if the journalists aren't," adds Mr Reid.

But shareholder performance depends, to an extent, on securing new reserves of oil and gas.

At the start of August, Shell received conditional approval in the US to drill four exploratory wells in Alaska's Beaufort Sea.

But the decision is subject to appeal and environmental groups, such as Greenpeace, are watching events in the North Sea closely.

"Any relevant information with regard to Shell's operational competency will be included in this appeal, when it is relevant to a specific permit," said Vicky Pryce from the pressure group.

The DECC has confirmed that the UK investigation may also lead to fines.

"Incidents like the one we've seen in the North Sea clearly will influence how much trust people have in how well and responsibly oil companies can exploit the oil and gas in the Arctic," says Daniel Litvin, director of advisory firm Critical Resource.

His firm provides independent analysis to the major resource companies on corporate responsibility issues and political risk.

For now, Shell will be focused on stopping the spill, which it says is down to less than one barrel a day.

Then it will need to handle potentially wider regulatory and political implications that come from any spill.

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Syrian tanks shell Latakia, death toll reaches 34 (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) – Syrian forces shelled Sunni Muslim districts in Latakia, residents said, the third day of a military assault on the northern port city aimed at crushing protests against President Bashar al-Assad.

The Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union, a grassroots activists' group, said six people, including Ahmad Soufi, 22, were killed in Latakia on Monday, bringing the civilian death toll there to 34, including a two-year-old girl.

Assad, from Syria's minority Alawite sect, has broadened a military assault against towns and cities where demonstrators have been demanding his removal since the middle of March.

The crackdown coincided with the August 1 start of the Muslim Ramadan fast, when nightly prayers became the occasion for more protests against 41 years of harsh Baathist party rule.

Syrian forces have already stormed Hama, scene of a 1982 massacre by the military, the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, and several northwestern towns in a province bordering Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told Assad to halt such military operations now or face unspecified consequences.

"This is our final word to the Syrian authorities, our first expectation is that these operations stop immediately and unconditionally," Davutoglu said in Turkey's strongest warning yet to its once close ally and neighbor.

"If these operations do not stop, there will be nothing left to say about the steps that would be taken," he told a news conference in Ankara, without elaborating.

Turkish leaders, who have repeatedly urged Assad to end violence and pursue reforms, have grown frustrated. Davutoglu held talks with the Syrian leader in Damascus only last week.

The Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union said troops also assaulted villages in the Houla Plain north of the city of Homs on Monday, killing eight people as they raided houses and made arrests. The organization said four people were killed in Homs during similar attacks.

FAMILIAR PATTERN

In a now-familiar pattern, tanks and armored vehicles deployed around dissident neighborhoods of Latakia and essential services were cut before security forces began raids, arrests and bombardment, residents said.

"Shelling has renewed on al-Raml al-Filistini (home to Palestinian refugees) and al-Shaab districts. There is heavy machinegun firing on Sulaibeh, al-Ashrafieh, al-Quneines and al-Ouneineh and the citadel neighborhoods," one resident, a business owner who asked not to be named, said by telephone.

"People are trying to flee but they cannot leave Latakia because it is besieged. The best they can do is to move from one area to another within the city," another witness said.

Thousands of people fled a Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia, some fleeing gunfire and others leaving on orders from the Syrian authorities, a U.N. official said.

"Between 5,000 and 10,000 have fled, we don't where these people are so it's very worrying," said Christopher Gunness, spokesman for the UNRWA agency which cares for Palestinian refugees. "We have a handful of confirmed deaths and nearly 20 injured."

The Palestinian presidency in the West Bank city of Ramallah urged Damascus to safeguard the lives of Palestinian refugees in al-Raml camp in Latakia.

A grassroots activist group, the Local Coordination Committees, said it had the names of at least 260 civilians, including 14 women and two infants, killed this month.

It said the actual toll was likely to be far higher with scant information so far from the hard-hit city of Hama, still besieged by troops and secret police.

Syria has expelled most independent media since the unrest began, making it hard to verify reports from the country.

Tanks and navy ships shelled southern parts of Latakia on Sunday, residents and rights groups said.

Nightly anti-Assad rallies after Ramadan prayers have drawn around 20,000 people in different areas of the city, said one witness, a university student.

The official state news agency SANA denied Latakia had been shelled from the sea and said two police and four unidentified armed men were killed when security forces pursued "armed men who were terrorizing residents ... and using machineguns and explosives from rooftops and from behind barricades."

The U.S. State Department said on Monday it was unable to confirm that the Syrian navy had shelled Latakia.

"However, we are able to confirm that there is armor in the city and that there is firing on innocents again in the pattern of carnage that you have seen in other places," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland.

ALAWITE ELEMENT

Unlike most Syrian cities, which are mainly Sunni, Latakia has a large Alawite population, partly because Assad and his father before him encouraged Alawites to move from their nearby mountain region by offering them cheap land and jobs in the public sector and security apparatus.

Latakia port has played a key role in the Assad family's domination of the economy, with Bashar al-Assad's late uncle Jamil having been in virtual control of the facility, and a new generation of family members and their friends taking over.

Assad replaced the governor of the northern province of Aleppo, SANA reported, after pro-democracy protests spread to the provincial capital, Syria's main commercial hub.

"The minority regime is playing with fire. We are coming to a point where the people in the street would rather take any weapon they can put their hand on and fight than be shot at or arrested and humiliated," said one activist.

"We are seeing civil war in Syria, but it is one-sided. The hope is for street protests and international pressure to bring down the regime before it kills more Syrians and drives them to take up arms," he added, asking not to be named.

Rights groups say at least 12,000 have been detained during the uprising. Thousands of political prisoners were already in jail. Amnesty International says it has listed 1,700 civilians killed since mid-March. Washington has put the toll at 2,000. Damascus says 500 police and soldiers have been killed.

The assaults by Syrian security forces have drawn increasing condemnation from the West, Turkey and more recently from Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia and Jordan.

Washington wants Europe and China to consider sanctions on Syria's vital oil and gas industry. Germany called for more European Union sanctions against Syria on Monday and urged the U.N. Security Council to discuss the crackdown again this week.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Ramallah, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Reporting by Jonathon Burch, Tulay Karadeniz and Ibon Villelabeitia in Ankara; editing by Michael Roddy)

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