On a planet primarily covered by water, marine life and polar ice caps are essential to maintaining our fragile ecological balance. However, unchecked and unregulated industrialisation has started tipping the balance against us. Deep-sea oil exploration is yet another industry, which has greatly damaged the native ecology. Latest reports of an underwater oil pipeline rupture in UK's North Sea has again raised the debate on the cost we are paying for offshore drilling.
This pipeline from the Gannet Alpha platform operated by Royal Dutch Shell Company has spewed an estimated 216 tonnes (1300 barrels) of oil into the sea since last Wednesday (10 August). Although, the company has assured that the leakage is under control, the most recent report coming out of the UK states that Shell has found additional leakage in the pipeline. This could possibly mean that the official spill figures may be revised later on.
The North Sea oil spill is minute in comparison to the BP's mammoth disaster last year in the Gulf of Mexico in which an estimated 4.9 million barrels of oil leaked into the sea over 85 days. But this spill is still the worst in the UK waters since 2000 and quite significant, considering the ongoing world-wide debate on offshore drilling and safety measures.
The Gannet Alpha platform is a shallow rig in an area which is widely considered among the safer places for oil drilling due to stringent security requirements. Yet in the last two years, the platform has had 10 incidents of oil leakage, voluntarily declared by the company, of which one was described "significant" while others as "minor." The Energy and Climate Change Committee of the UK issued a report last year which states that the British safety rules for oil drilling were a "gold standard." One wonders if such spillage is possible at shallow platforms operating under the best of safety regulations in the world, how big is the risk of an unprecedented disaster when the same companies drill in deep waters with far adverse conditions.
As oil reserves dwindle around the globe, oil companies have started moving deeper in the sea in search for drilling prospects. The world's reliance on oil is the driving force behind these massive exploration drives. While the governments and private sector energy groups have started focusing on developing affordable cleaner energy alternatives, we still have a long way to go. By the time we are able to substantially limit our independence on oil, the damage to our environment could be irreversible. We need stricter safety measures across-the-board for oil drilling, both on and offshore. The oil and gas industry needs to be held accountable for the safety regulation breaches. So far there is not much information available on how this North Sea spill will affect the marine life in the area. Experts claim that the oil should be dispelled on its own and will not reach the shores. The most important aspect which needs to be considered by governments, including the British government, and observers is transparency in information exchange among all stakeholders involved. Oil companies have come under repeated attacks for their record of failure to share information.
In today's world, communities have more rights to access information than ever before. The operations of the oil companies need to reflect that openness, especially because their actions affect habitats. There is, therefore, a need for a proper monitoring system to gauge the impact on environment of such spills to ensure that the follow-up clean-up operation is adequate, and to develop further frameworks for safer practices in oil drilling.
Published in Business Recorder (19 August 2011)
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