UK: Worst Case Scenario for Potential Chevron’s Lagavulin Prospect Oil Spill

An oil spill from a deepwater blowout near the Shetland Islands could reach the coastlines of Scotland, eastern England, Norway and Greenland, according to a company which began drilling there in October.

Chevron, one of the world’s largest oil companies, made a worst-case forecast of the impact caused by a spill of 77,300 barrels a day lasting 14 days.

But the company told government officials that its computer spill modelling repeatedly crashed when set to run for a longer period, which it said was typical of the software commonly used in the industry Oil gushed into the Gulf of Mexico for almost three months after BP’S Deepwater Horizon disaster.

When the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) allowed Chevron to drill the Lagavulin prospect on 30 September, it said that the secretary of state, Chris Huhne, was “satisfied that the project is not likely to have a significant effect on the environment”. Decc told the US company that the application did not need to be accompanied by an environmental statement and did not order a separate assessment.

In earlier correspondence with Decc, Chevron also said it was “likely” that the impact of a spill on whales and dolphins in the area would be limited because “given their good swimming abilities, relative intelligence and nomadic behaviour, some avoidance behaviour could be expected”.

Chevron was the first company to be given deepwater drilling consent in the UK after the Gulf of Mexico disaster. Environment minister Charles Hendry last month said the government had considered Chevron’s oil spill response plan “very carefully”.

Greenpeace, which is taking the government to court over its decision to approve further deepwater drilling before the causes of the BP disaster have been fully established, said: “The UK government remains entirely unwilling or unable to learn any lessons from Deepwater Horizon.

The government has given the green light to a project that could cause oil to coat the protected salt marshes and sand dunes of the north Norfolk coast off the back of an unfinished computer model run by a company who says we shouldn’t worry about the effect of oil on whales and dolphins because they’re clever enough to swim out of the way of a spill. This bizarre state of affairs shows precisely why there needs to be a moratorium on new deep-sea drilling off our coasts.”

The Guardian has obtained Chevron’s “oil pollution emergency plan” – detailing what it would do in the event of a spill – as well as confidential emails between the company and government officials in the weeks before the consent was granted.

Following the Deepwater disaster, Chevron doubled its original worst case spill estimate to 77,300 barrels per day.

The Chevron plan says that it would take four months to drill a relief well in the event of a blowout, at a depth of 5,140ft, with BP expected to carry out the job. The likely thickness of the spilt crude – based on nearby wells – would increase the size of the slick five-fold.

The plan admits that spill modelling is not effective for oil spilt in deep waters nor when an “ongoing spill results in a continually replenished slick which has the potential for an ongoing beaching event”. It also does not account for potential “jetting” from a well bore.

Rased on the modelling it said that if attempts to cap the well or disperse the slick were not successful, more than 233,000 barrels “could be expected to beach on… western Norway and the Shetland Islands. In smaller quantities, oil could also reach the Orkney Islands, Faroe Islands and even eastern Iceland and eastern Greenland with potential to reach eastern England and western Denmark.”

Chevron admits it would take a minimum of two to six weeks before it could cap a flowing well, and even longer if the required equipment was not available or the weather was bad. Chevron said in a statement: “It is important to emphasise that spill modelling is just one tool used in preparation for spill response. In the event of an actual spill the direction of oil travel would be determined much more accurately by visual observation using spotter planes and this would be used as the basis for actual deployment of personnel and equipment. Chevron’s first and greatest focus is 011 prevention – we take a conservative approach in exploration well design and Lagavulin is included. There would have to be a failure of all the barriers that are in place to prevent loss of containment – our west of Shetland wells have been drilled with multiple barriers and Lagavulin is no exception.”

Decc said Chevron’s environmental statement was approved after consultation with regulators and appropriate agencies: “Chevron adequately addressed the potential impact of an oil spill in its environmental submissions.

“Before the Lagavulin well was fully consented, Chevron were asked to review their plans in the light of the available information about what had happened at Macondo LBP’s Deepwater Horizon well.”

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Source: The Guardian , December 8, 2010;