Balisage

Shell of French Guiana
Release # 3 – Volume 2

Go Fast!

1 – On May 29, 2001, Christian Pierret, Secretary of State for Industry in Lionel Jospin’s government has granted Planet Oil Limited a permission for offshore drilling in French Maritime Guiana.

2 – On July 2^nd, 2007, the license originally assigned to Planet Oil Limited was extended and given to Hardman Petroleum France by Jean-Louis Borloo, Minister of Ecology in François Fillon’s government.

3 –The operation was framed by two prefectoral decrees on January and March 2011 respectively. Then, from March to November, 2011: the primary exploratory drilling was accomplished. A peculiar situation : the prefect of French Guiana issued two security measures for evacuation of drilling platform when Kourou Space Center launched its first satellite because of the fear of a possible fallout on the drilling region.

Shell of French Guiana
Release # 3 – Volume 2

Go Fast!

1 – On May 29, 2001, Christian Pierret, Secretary of State for Industry in Lionel Jospin’s government has granted Planet Oil Limited a permission for offshore drilling in French Maritime Guiana.

2 – On July 2^nd, 2007, the license originally assigned to Planet Oil Limited was extended and given to Hardman Petroleum France by Jean-Louis Borloo, Minister of Ecology in François Fillon’s government.

3 –The operation was framed by two prefectoral decrees on January and March 2011 respectively. Then, from March to November, 2011: the primary exploratory drilling was accomplished. A peculiar situation : the prefect of French Guiana issued two security measures for evacuation of drilling platform when Kourou Space Center launched its first satellite because of the fear of a possible fallout on the drilling region.

The Ministry for Ecology has put together a plan confirming the use of perchlorethylene, a solvent that is toxic for humans and the environment, until 2028. As a result, all Laundromat owners buying dry cleaning equipment containing perchlorethylene until the deadline of January 1^st 2013 will be able to use it for fifteen years.

The text is so complicated and tangled that the members of the High Council for Technological Risks Prevention, on their June 26^th 2012 meeting, only discovered this deadline after two and a half hours of debate.

The Ministry for Ecology has put together a plan confirming the use of perchlorethylene, a solvent that is toxic for humans and the environment, until 2028. As a result, all Laundromat owners buying dry cleaning equipment containing perchlorethylene until the deadline of January 1^st 2013 will be able to use it for fifteen years.

The text is so complicated and tangled that the members of the High Council for Technological Risks Prevention, on their June 26^th 2012 meeting, only discovered this deadline after two and a half hours of debate.

Bonn

Plenary meeting – OSPAR Commission for the protection of the North-East Atlantic

So far from Guyana and yet so close, member states of the OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the North-East Atlantic in Bonn approached the offshore industry with Robin des Bois as their pilot fish. The area of competence of this international Commission extends from the arctic waters to Portugal.

Transparency

About 1,300 oil and gas offshore facilities are established in the OSPAR area, mainly in the North and Norwegian Seas. Pioneering in the field of ocean industrialization, this sector benefits from its geographical isolation. Robin des Bois proposed to the OSPAR member states to accurately map the oil rigs and label each of them with an identity voucher including key dates, water depth, drilling depth in the ocean floor, flags (certain drilling installations in the OSPAR zone are under Panama or Marshall Island flag), names of companies involved (owners, operators, managers, sub contractors…), accidents having occurred on site (fires, oil releases…) and main chronic emissions. This proposition was not greeted favorably by the UK delegation, neither was it by the International Oil and Gas Producers Association (OGP). Enforcing transparency is expensive whereas all the data is available on no free-of-charge databases, they say. These arguments were not convincing. France, Sweden, Spain, and Germany have supported Robin des Bois’s proposal. For once, the NGO will be invited to the next meeting of the offshore Experts Assessment Panel of OSPAR to itemize the project and its implementing means. Until now and for a long time, France had been represented on this panel by TOTAL. Has change finally occurred?

Bonn

Plenary meeting – OSPAR Commission for the protection of the North-East Atlantic

So far from Guyana and yet so close, member states of the OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the North-East Atlantic in Bonn approached the offshore industry with Robin des Bois as their pilot fish. The area of competence of this international Commission extends from the arctic waters to Portugal.

Transparency

About 1,300 oil and gas offshore facilities are established in the OSPAR area, mainly in the North and Norwegian Seas. Pioneering in the field of ocean industrialization, this sector benefits from its geographical isolation. Robin des Bois proposed to the OSPAR member states to accurately map the oil rigs and label each of them with an identity voucher including key dates, water depth, drilling depth in the ocean floor, flags (certain drilling installations in the OSPAR zone are under Panama or Marshall Island flag), names of companies involved (owners, operators, managers, sub contractors…), accidents having occurred on site (fires, oil releases…) and main chronic emissions. This proposition was not greeted favorably by the UK delegation, neither was it by the International Oil and Gas Producers Association (OGP). Enforcing transparency is expensive whereas all the data is available on no free-of-charge databases, they say. These arguments were not convincing. France, Sweden, Spain, and Germany have supported Robin des Bois’s proposal. For once, the NGO will be invited to the next meeting of the offshore Experts Assessment Panel of OSPAR to itemize the project and its implementing means. Until now and for a long time, France had been represented on this panel by TOTAL. Has change finally occurred?

Bonn
Plenary meeting – OSPAR Commission for the protection of the North-East Atlantic

So far from Guyana and yet so close, member states of the OSPAR Commission for the Protection of the North-East Atlantic in Bonn approached the offshore industry with Robin des Bois as their pilot fish. The area of competence of this international Commission extends from the arctic waters to Portugal.

Transparency
About 1,300 oil and gas offshore facilities are established in the OSPAR area, mainly in the North and Norwegian Seas. Pioneering in the field of ocean industrialization, this sector benefits from its geographical isolation. Robin des Bois proposed to the OSPAR member states to accurately map the oil rigs and label each of them with an identity voucher including key dates, water depth, drilling depth in the ocean floor, flags (certain drilling installations in the OSPAR zone are under Panama or Marshall Island flag), names of companies involved (owners, operators, managers, sub contractors…), accidents having occurred on site (fires, oil releases…) and main chronic emissions. This proposition was not greeted favorably by the UK delegation, neither was it by the International Oil and Gas Producers Association (OGP). Enforcing transparency is expensive whereas all the data is available on no free-of-charge databases, they say. These arguments were not convincing. France, Sweden, Spain, and Germany have supported Robin des Bois’s proposal. For once, the NGO will be invited to the next meeting of the offshore Experts Assessment Panel of OSPAR to itemize the project and its implementing means. Until now and for a long time, France had been represented on this panel by TOTAL. Has change finally occurred?

Only in French.

Only in French.

Drilling in Guyana- Press release # 2

Shell is leading the dance in Guyana. The offshore is going to be subjected for over a year to the harmful effects and pollutions of 4 exploratory petroleum drillings and experimental pumping. The Guyanese coast and neighboring countries are not immune to drifts of accidental oil spills. The Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission has highlighted the diversity of large and small cetaceans off the coast of Guyana in 2011. Manatees, leatherback sea-turtles, and thousands of migrating birds that come from the Caribbean and Brazil to reproduce on the Grand Connétable Islands are threatened by the ultra-deep drilling thanks to the Shell’s supremacy, pressure from the Guyana elect, and the weaknesses of the French governments. The story began in May 2001, with the issuance from a prefect departmental Prefect order granting an exclusive permit for oil exploration also called the Guyana Maritime license. The energy transition made a detour by the prehistoric era and it is well known that the impact on the environment does not address, far from it, all the risks due to noise, light and atmospheric pollution.