More transparency on the offshore and less light
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?
More transparency on the offshore and less light
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?
A stream of Information
The ocean is still considered as a trash can. Radioactive releases by Japan are increased by a decrease of vigilance. What is occurring in the Pacific Ocean is probably inevitable. However it is not excusable nor should it be viewed as routine as many scientific experts in dispersion and farfetched comparison are currently stating. This type of practice would be impossible in the North East Atlantic. Contracting Parties to the OSPAR Convention follow carefully step by step the slow progression of iodine 131, of cesium 137 and of plutonium released by nuclear installations along the Channel and the North Sea to the Arctic Ocean.
