Shell Oil and Statoil are planning to:

Take land from local residents and build a high pressure gas pipeline that will go past their houses:

The pressure inside the pipeline will be up to four times greater than that of the biggest Bord Gais pipelines. The pipeline will be going through boggy land with a history of landslides.

Construct a gas refinery on unstable bog:

This construction will be using previously untried methods to stabilise the bog surface and involve a massive amount of traffic. Emissions from the refinery will affect the nearby Carrowmore Lake, source of the regional water supply.

Pump toxic waste into Broadhaven Bay:

A U.C.C. research team found that Broadhaven Bay was an important breading and rearing area for dolphins and whales. They recorded over 220 sightings of seven whale and dolphin species, plus sightings of two seal species, in Broadhaven Bay and north-west Mayo waters.

The government is giving them our gas for practically nothing and then we will have to buy it back:

From 1975 for oil and gas companies there was a tax rate of 50%, an automatic 50% state stake in any commercial well, and royalties of 6 %– 7%.

In 1987, after lobbying by the companies, Ray Burke got rid of the 50% state stake and removed royalties.

In 1992 after further lobbying Bobby Molloy reduced the tax rate to 25% and 100% tax write offs were introduced, meaning that the companies can subtract their costs from their tax bill.

In other places in Europe the state take can be 55% or even 79% of a field.

Shell have been given permission by the High Court to start work on the on land parts of the pipeline in about a months time, construction is due to start on the landfall, where the off-shore pipeline hits the beach, on May 31st.

Help the local people to stop Shell!

Who Pays the Piper?

On a side note this issue totally demonstrates the importance of the independence of Indymedia.

Tony O’Reilly, owner of the Belfast Telegraph, the London and Dublin Independents, the Sunday Independent (Ireland), the Independent on Sunday (England), the Sunday World, The Star, The Evening Herald, some of the Sunday Tribune, various local weeklies including The Kerryman and the Drogheda Independent, as well as other media internationally, also owns Providence Resources.

Providence Resources are an oil and gas exploration company with interests in potential fields off the south and west coasts of Ireland.

There is the possibility that what is happening in Erris, Mayo, will only be the first instance of corporations cutting corners at the expense of the environment and local communities as they exploit the potential oil and gas reserves off the coast, particularly the west coast, of Ireland.

More background

The Pipeline:

This is an unprecedented development, normally up stream pipelines of untreated gas do not go over land. The gas pipeline also has adjoining pipelines carrying hydraulic fluid, cleansing acids, and a waste pipe. There will also be electric cables.

This is a high pressure pipeline, 345 bar pressure for the gas, 610 bar pressure for the acids and hydraulic fluid. It is untreated, that is, odourless, without the added smell for detecting leaks. This is not the normal run of the mill gas pipeline.

In Kinsale the gas is refined at sea, piped ashore at a much lower pressure and odorised. The biggest Bord Gais pipelines, in the so-called Transmission network, bringing the gas cross-country or overseas, run at 16 – 70 bar pressure.

This development is so unprecedented the relevant legislation and regulations assumes its non-existence, that is, it applies to off shore upstream pipelines and to on land ones of around the levels of pressure used by Bord Gais.

The large pressure is necessary as the pipeline is actually pumping the gas straight out of the field, normally this process takes place completely at sea. This pipeline will pass by peoples’ houses and by villages. It is being built through a bog where there have been landslides.

Carrowmore Lake:

This is the source of the regional water supply, and is protected as a Natura 2000 site under the E.U. habitats directive; it is also on the United Nations list of protected conservation areas. It has already been degraded due to Shell related civil engineering, with a marked decline in fishing and the arrival of algae bloom.
It will be on the receiving end of emissions from the proposed refinery at Ballinaboy.

Broadhaven bay:

Into Broadhaven Bay will be pumped the waste from the refinery, including lead, nickel, magnesium, phosphorus, chromium, arsenic, mercury and the radioactive gas radon, due to the bay’s circular tidal pattern and semi-enclosed nature a large portion of this toxic waste is likely to stay within the bay rather than be washed out to sea.

Broadhaven Bay is a Special Area of Conservation under E.U. regulations; it also provides livelihoods to local communities through fishing.

According to state heritage agency An Duchas “Broadhaven Bay supports an internationally important number of Brent Geese” as well as regionally important populations of other birds.

The Environmental Impact Statement made to the Department of the Marine by Shell as part of the process to gain a licence for off-shore work claimed there was 'no evidence that Broadhaven Bay is of particular importance to cetaceans (whales and dolphins)'. Against this the Irish Whale and Dolphin group pointed out the historic and anecdotal evidence to the contrary, which is sightings by fishermen and the former presence in the area of major whaling stations.

However it now turns out that Shell commissioned a study by University College Cork's Coastal and Marine Resources Centre which found the exact opposite from the claim Shell made in its environmental impact statement.

Shell neglected to mention the study, though the lack of concrete data on whales and dolphins in their statement was criticised by the departmentof Marine.

The U.C.C. research team recorded over 220 sightings of seven whale and dolphin species, plus sightings of two seal species and marine mammals such as basking sharks and a sea turtle in Broadhaven Bay and north-west Mayo waters. This including sightings of the relatively rare Risso’s Dolphin. It found that Broadhaven Bay was an important breading and rearing area for dolphins and whales.

The pipeline is to go straight through the machair sand dunes/coastal grasslands at one end of Broadhaven Bay. These are habitat unique to the north west of Ireland and the north west of Scotland.

The Refinery:

The cleaning terminal, a large combustion plant, is a huge project. It will require in excess of 120 MW power to operate. The power will come from burning off the uncleaned gas condensate, full of chemical nasties, such as oxides of carbon and nitrogen, sulphur dioxide, methane and ozone.

There are nine chimneys, four of them approximately 140 feet high. They will release carbon dioxide and methane equivalent to the global warming potential of 27,000 dairy cows. The Environmental Impact Study (EIS) from Enterprise Energy Ireland (EEI) notes two houses within a 2 km radius of the station. In fact, there are 16 houses.

The waste water problem is twofold. There is a pipe to take waste impurities to sea and a perforated perimeter ditch which will surround the drainage from the site. The waste water storage sump is designed to withstand one hour continuous rainfall, though Crossmolina had 106 days consecutive rainfall last autumn. The overflow will flow into Carrowmore Lake, which feeds the water supply of Erris.

This untreated waste water will contain many lethal substances, including lead, nickel, magnesium, phosphorus, chromium, arsenic, mercury and the radioactive gas radon.

Both the refinery and the pipeline are to be constructed on unstable bog land, Shell’s plan to stabilise this involves mixing in cement to form a hard surface.
This process has only ever had small field trials and lab tests and creates a reaction which produces the very toxic hexavalent chromium.

The Deal:

From 1975 for oil and gas companies there was a tax rate of 50%, an automatic 50% state stake in any commercial well, and royalties of 6 %– 7%.

In 1987, after lobbying by the companies, Ray Burke got rid of the 50% state stake and removed royalties.

In 1992 after further lobbying Bobby Molloy reduced the tax rate to 25% and 100% tax write offs were introduced, meaning that the companies can subtract their costs from their tax bill.

In 1996 the licence for the Corrib Gas field was granted to Enterprise Energy Ireland a subsidiary of Enterprise Oil, which has since been bought out, in 2002, by Shell, and the consortium also includes Statoil and Marathon Oil.

Enterprise Oil held major fundraising events for Fianna Fail at the Galway Races in 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.

Other companies involved are also major Fianna Fail donators.

Then Minister Frank Fahey granted them innumerable licenses before the planning procedures were over, and gave them 400 plus acres of Coilte land.

Bertie Ahern has had meetings with Shell on this issue.

The deal is the pipelines after the refinery, running to Dublin and Scotland, will be constructed by the state, that is, Bord Gais, while a good deal of infrastructure, new roads and bridges is already being built by the state, i.e. Mayo County Council. Some of the gas, that which is not exported, will then be purchased back by the state.

These companies have a track record of not employing Irish rig workers.

According to Mike Cunningham, a former director of Statoil Exploration (Ireland): “No other country in the world has given such favourable terms as Ireland.”

In other places in Europe the state take can be 55% or even 79% of a field.

Window of Opportunity:

In the High Court , in Shell’s case against some of the small farmers upon whose land Shell’s development is to go, Hanratty, barrister for Shell, made the case that they needed injunction proceedings to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Claiming that they have a “window of opportunity” for construction between April and October of this year, and that if the project was delayed until late June there was a “real possibility that it would not be completed in that construction season” and hence would be delayed until next year.

He argued that was a real “urgency” to this, that it is “imperative” that this does not happen, lest there be “enormous additional costs.”

Construction Dates:

Landfall construction of the Pipeline, that is, building at the beach in Broadhaven bay where the pipe comes on shore, is due to commence on the 31st of May 05 and run to the 8 of November 2005.

The installation of the pipeline across country was to begin on the 25th of February, of course it hasn’t.

Construction of pipeline estuary and river crossings is due to start on the 15th of August and finish on the 30th of September.

Construction of the Refinery is due to commence on the 29th of August 2005 and finish on the 14 December 2006.

The important thing to remember is Shell had initially planned to have the whole project up and running, finished, completed, built and pumping gas, last year, but have faced considerable delays in the planning appeals process.

They claim they will lose 25,000 euro a day, every day, that the construction is delayed for after the 1st of June.

Should they be delayed into next year this will cost them a remobilisation fee of 2.5 million euro.

There are big bucks involved in this too, in July 2002 Shell had to cancel their hiring of the Solitare, a pipe laying ship, due to a delay provoked by an An Bord Plenala request for further information, and this cancellation resulted in Shell getting hit with a 31 million sterling breach of contract claim.

GLOBAL WARMING DESTROYS WINE INDUSTRY
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Per the Sustainable Industries Journal,
the Pentagon has blocked the construction of 16 Wind Energy sites in the USA.
The military claims the Wind Farms are a threat to national security.
Maybe the Wind Farms are a threat to Big Oil and Big Coal?

WHO KILLED THE ELECTRIC CAR?
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Protect your business from the Oil Pirates and Robber Barons.
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With the introduction of the Strategic Infrastructure Bill and the reverses in democratic participation that it embodies, the legislative framework for such a state is already partially in place. In this context, where Shell to Sea will go, other peaceful and democratic objections will follow: heavy-handed policing backed up by complicit media coverage whose aim is to invert the truth of what is happening. If this goes unchallenged, all we will be left with is the danger and the pollution, the despoliation of some of the most beautiful parts of the country and a handful of smug, newly made millionaires.

A prominent member of the Shell to Sea campaign has said he believes intelligence files are being gathered on behalf of Shell in respect of anyone who challenges the current Corrib Gas project. It is also believed that many phones are being tapped. A number of people have been told directly by the Gardai that they are being watched and one man has been told that his ‘number is up’. Garda cars have been parked outside the homes of some of the protestors for hours at a time. One protestor has been told by his employer that if he does not give it up, his job is on the line. Journalists – in both national and local papers - who have been prepared to write accurate accounts of what is happening have been leaned on to stop. Again’ it is not news but worth remembering that the smearing of Frank Connolly by Minister McDowell under cover of Dail privilege followed directly from the publication of his Centre for Public Inquiry’s publication of a damning report on the safety of this same project. It was alleged that Connolly had travelled on a false passport to Columbia in support of illegal IRA activity although no charges have ever been brought against him. Nevertheless, the philanthropist who was funding the CPI withdrew his support following a private audience with Bertie Ahern. These undemocratic methods of suppressing information and silencing objection are becoming increasingly blatant in Ireland and it is time, surely, for the Irish people to signal that they are no longer willing to submit to this treatment.

The issue is not just about the Corrib gas field, it is about all of the oil and gas finds off the west coast and the manner in which these finds will be got ashore. It is imperative that the foreign corporates involved are made to conduct their drilling and extraction in a way that will not damage significant parts of the west coast. Bear in mind that none of these companies would be allowed to do to the coast of the USA what they are being encouraged to do by our present government in Ireland. The Dunquin field alone, the licence for which was recently sold at a huge profit by Sir Anthony O’ Reilly to Exxon Mobil, is estimated to be worth Euro 500billion, of which he retains a 16% share – an accrual of personal wealth which dwarfs his entire business empire to date. The northern tip of the Slyne field – well number 27/5-1, is thought to be the most lucrative find of all – a massive oil field lies there said to be worth trillions. How is all this to be got ashore?

The Shell to Sea campaign is not about preventing the mining of gas in the Corrib field, it is about ensuring that it is done safely at sea so as neither to put the local community in danger nor to damage the countryside. This will cost Shell more, but only a fraction of the profit which would be made and the same principle needs to be applied to all of the other projects off our coastline.

It has also been alleged that the reason exploration licences were issued on such disadvantageous terms is that the fields off the west coast are difficult and dangerous to drill. Not so. In comparison to drilling taking place in the Shenzi field off the Louisiana coast, to give just one example, where the ocean goes to a depth of 7K feet and the well itself to a depth of 27K feet - drilling in the Corrib field, where the sea is just 200 meters deep, is the industry equivalent of ‘taking sand off a beach with a spade’. One Statoil representative has admitted, at an EPA oral hearing, that there is no technical difficulty or obstacle involved in mining the fields – the geological environment poses no problem beyond what is entirely normal.

And yet extreme technical difficulty is the reason cited for the undoing of established state policy which would have secured a 40/60 split between the Irish state and the drilling companies, respectively. The scale of the mismanagement involved might be partly explained by the fact that the Irish government appointed as its adviser a Mr David Fox, a man whose day job was advising exploration companies on how to secure the best possible terms from governments. As conflicts of interest go, this one is a real stinker. To this very day, no cost-benefit analysis for the state has been done by the Irish government for any of these multi-billion dollar projects.

In planning to push the commencement of building of the refinery through, it’s clear that a strategy had been devised in advance to intimidate the objectors and to ensure that media coverage was sympathetic to the commercial interests involved. Shell had lost the argument and were looking nasty having sent five people to jail. The hostile and inaccurate reporting from most of the media which accompanied the Garda action is hardly a coincidence. RTE coverage has been strikingly biased at times. For example, coverage of the press conference at Bellanaboy last Monday, at which five elected TDs were intimidated at close quarters by Garda filming – even while being filmed themselves by our national broadcaster – was atrociously unrepresentative of the actual event.

The shocking revelation by a local business man that he had been offered 15K Euro to support the Shell project and told that nobody would have to know anything about it, should have been at the top of the RTE news coverage and front page headline news in every national newspaper the following day. Instead it has passed by with barely a murmur. Ciaran Murphy, a former army officer and member of the Air Corp, stressed that this was the means by which Shell were attempting to divide the local community – with secret bribes. What additional pressures will have been brought to bear on the media? It is highly unlikely that Shell have been idle in that direction - or are the likes of Paul Williams only too pleased to prostitute themselves to foreign corporates at the expense of his fellow Irish citizens? Kevin Myers has long since descended into a complete parody of the ranting buffoon that he is, but he excelled even himself in recommending a baton charge in Bellanaboy. And what, as ever, about the newspapers owned by Sir Anthony? ‘Independent’? Hardly, as we are all so weary from pointing out.

Aware perhaps of the damage that Ciaran Murphy’s testimony could do to their scheme, Minister Noel Dempsey went about some negative spinning later that day to the effect that the Shell to Sea campaign had proved more difficult to bring to mediation than Gerry Adams and Ian Paisely – a distortion of the truth and a comparison that seems calculated to resonate with the past violence of the Northern Irish situation. In fact, this appears to be the favoured smearing theme of the Shell/government agenda. Shell to Sea have also been accused of being hijacked by Provo sympathisers – a completely unfounded accusation. Shell to Sea have met seven times with the government appointed mediator, Mr Cassells, despite their misgivings about the severely limited terms of that mediation. The central safety concerns have not been adequately addressed – despite the claims of government and Shell to the contrary and the relatively minor concessions that they were forced to make previously. This tactic of offering essentially false mediation in these situations is a well-worn one, whose only objective is to paint the objectors into a corner where they appear unreasonable. Now we have also heard from Minister Dempsey that he and others have received death threats. Frankly, that claim is simply not credible if it is being suggested that Shell to Sea are responsible. The only violence in this situation has been the violence dealt to the protestors – not the other way around.

At one of the regular Shell to Sea meetings held last Sunday night it was a striking experience to witness how composed and constructive local people were in the face of the physical and media violence that is now being done to them and their community. They are adamant that they will do nothing to discredit themselves and are understandably offended at what Shell and the government are now doing and also at how they are being portrayed in the media.

Will Shell to Sea in Mayo re-invigorate the democratic process or will it be the death knell of all future civil involvement in the management of our natural resources and amenities? The exploration and other companies have only one simple point to take on board: that they must conduct their business without endangering or destroying local communities. They have simply to invest what would be a tiny fraction of their profit (even at a couple of billion dollars) to secure the harmonious outcome that Shell to Sea and the people of County Mayo are anxious to see. If our government have conducted themselves foolishly in this matter, let the people of Ireland show these circling corporate sharks that we will be treated with the respect we deserve, after all.
-------------------

POLITICS OF OIL AND MONEY

Another sub-title for this article could well be "a study in state monopoly capitalism." A book of the author, Dan Briody, focused on the Carlyle Group, the spectacularly well-heeled firm that includes former President George H.W. Bush, his crony James Baker and a veritable rogues’ gallery of washed-up politicians and businessmen of questionable integrity who blatantly trade upon their inside knowledge of government for private gain in yet another textbook example of state monopoly capitalism.

Yet, their money-grubbing pales in comparison – and chutzpah – to Halliburton, a firm formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, a firm that is frequently in the headlines in light of the lucrative contracts they have been awarded by Cheney’s government in the theater of war that is Iraq.

The story begins in Texas where a predecessor firm of Halliburton, Brown & Root, was catapulted into prominence – and obscene profitability - because of a tight relationship with former Senator, then Vice President and President, Lyndon B. Johnson. Large scale construction and oil services were the two pillars on which this giant company was built. Routinely the government handed out handsome "cost plus" contracts, e.g. building the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station, to this corporation. "Cost plus" means that the contractor could recoup all expenses plus a guaranteed profit based on a pre-negotiated percentage. This eliminates risk for the contractor and erodes the necessity to eliminate wasteful billing which, says the author, is "great for the contractor, not so great for the taxpayer." "Basically, it’s a blank check from the government….when your profit is a percentage of the cost, the more you spend, the more you make."

Brown & Root reaped a bonanza of wasteful contracts during the war in Vietnam, which – coincidentally – Johnson prosecuted as vigorously as Cheney has done in Iraq. By 1967 this firm was the largest employer in South Vietnam. Yet even then there was an obvious downside to relying so heavily upon the private sector to perform the clear government function of waging war: motivated by the lust for profit their employees were "manipulating currency and selling goods on the black market," among other transgressions.

Johnson was so helpful to this company that the author argues that actually he was "working for Brown & Root, not the people of his district or the state." Something similar used to be said about another leading Democratic Party politician, the late Henry "Scoop" Jackson of Washington, who was referred to as the "Senator from Boeing." Obviously today we are in dire need of deeper examinations of the ramified ties between various sectors of state monopoly capitalism and leading political figures and parties, along the lines of the work at hand.

Brown & Root was also viciously anti-union. At one time, for example, progressive formations e.g. the National Maritime Union, played a pivotal role in Texas politics but after Brown & Root and their confederates pushed through anti-union legislation in the 1940s, the political complexion of what is now the second largest state began to change to the point where it has now become a reliable Republican redoubt and, not coincidentally, the home of both the current President and Vice-President.

But as profitable as it had been, when Dick Cheney left the Pentagon in the 1990s to become head of Halliburton, this company was catapulted to a new level of profitability. A staunch conservative, while a member of Congress Cheney avidly opposed imposing sanctions against apartheid South Africa while pushing aggressively for sanctions against socialist Cuba. Before leaving the Pentagon, which he headed during the administration of George H.W. Bush, he accelerated the privatization of core military functions in a way that – coincidentally – aided the company he was about to lead. "They made $109.7 million in Somalia…$6.3 million from Operation Support Hope in Rwanda…..Operation Uphold Democracy in Haiti netted the company $150." Halliburton was "becoming another unit in the US Army" and reaping millions from war and misery, providing a perverse incentive for an increase in such pestilences. "From 1995 to 2000, Brown & Root" – now part of Halliburton—"billed the government for more than $2 billion in services. The company did everything from build the [military] camps to deliver the mail, with 24-hour food service and laundering. It provided firefighting services, fuel delivery, sewage construction, hazardous material disposal, and the maintenance and delivery of equipment." War in the Balkans was the "driving force" for Halliburton’s increased profitability and heightened profile. "Halliburton’s government business doubled while Cheney was CEO."

Yet Cheney also left this firm with a basket of problems after he was elected Vice-President and this may have given him incentive to steer contracts in Halliburton’s direction in order to lessen the pain inflicted on his firm. He pushed through a merger with Dresser Industries, a profoundly disastrous maneuver, given the backbreaking liability for asbestos related lawsuits that this company carried. Coincidentally – that word again – Dresser was "the company that gave George H.W. Bush his first job." After Cheney left Halliburton a "grand jury investigation into over-billing and a Securities and Exchange Commission [SEC] investigation into Halliburton’s accounting practices while Cheney was CEO" ensued. That is not all. The company was accused of bribing a "Nigerian tax authority in exchange for contracts to build a liquefied natural gas plant." A French magistrate "was looking into the possibility of bringing charges against Dick Cheney for complicity in the bribery case and allegations that $243 million in secret commissions were paid from the late 1990s to 2002….the United States Justice Department and the SEC are looking into accusations that Halliburton made $180 million in illegal payments to win other contracts in Nigeria."

This points up another festering problem with Halliburton. The French investigation of Cheney’s alleged malfeasance has complicated Washington’s already deteriorating relations with Paris, while Halliburton’s chicanery has contributed mightily to a culture of corruption in West Africa.

After Cheney left, Halliburton stock plummeted precipitously and given the millions of stock options that he still holds, this jeopardized his own personal fortune, not to mention the fortunes of his fellow executives with whom he had become quite close.

Though the author does not stress this, his study reveals a critical fault line within state monopoly capitalism. For when Halliburton began to feed ravenously at the government trough, other firms in the same business became angrily resentful, which helped to fuel congressional investigations and adverse publicity. For example, during the Reagan years, Bechtel was the government contractor of choice, as suggested by the prominent role in his administration played by two of their former executives – former Secretary of State George Schulz and former Pentagon chief, Caspar Weinberger. "The rapid rise" of Brown & Root, for example, "brought on a fit of jealousy" from their "biggest rival, Bechtel of San Francisco."

Reference
book: The Halliburton Agenda, The Politics of Oil and Money
author: Dan Briody

2ND BOOK: OIL, THE BUSHES, AND THE RISE OF TEXAS

Halliburton is of Brown & Root, a company that obtained government contracts via Lyndon B. Johnson during the New Deal. They also took most of the government contracts during the Second World War, Korean War and Vietnam War. It was all done by controlling the chairman of key Senate Committees and having their people holding key posts in the government such as Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Treasury.

Not that this is common knowledge. This group of Texans (sometimes known as the Suite 8F Group) bought into Operation Mockingbird (a CIA project to control the US domestic media). However, the web has undermined this project.

The key point made by Bryce and Briody is that this is really an economic issue. The politics of all this is about making money out of their ideology. It does not matter who the US is fighting, it is the spending this goes on it that is important.

Global military spending is $956bn and rising. US spends 40% of this. Most is spent with companies based in Texas.

In 1963 John F. Kennedy tried to deal with the Texas stranglehold over government policy. However, he underestimated the power of the Suite 8F Group.

References
book: Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas; author: Dan Briody
book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; author: John Perkins
---------------

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