Brussels, 11/10/2010 (Agence Europe) - Ahead of the presentation on Wednesday 13 October 2010 of EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger's plans to ensure safe oil and gas drilling, including a potential moratorium on deep sea drilling, controversy is mounting in Europe over whether an immediate moratorium is needed as a precautionary move while investigations are carried out into the exact cause of the explosion of British oil company BP's Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico in April this year.
Reacting to leaks in the media, the United Kingdom said on Monday that it opposed a temporary suspension of EU Member States' licensing of 'complex' oil and gas drilling. A spokesperson for the British energy ministry said on Monday: 'We do not see a case for a moratorium on deep drilling. We are learning from the Macondo incident, but we have a demanding regulatory regime.' The spokesperson added that no EU institution had the power to issue a moratorium on oil drilling.
The UK's rules were stepped up after the 1988 explosion of the Piper Alpha oil rig in the North Sea, which caused the greatest number of human deaths to date (167 victims). London has not, however, ruled out a tightening of its rules by the regulatory authorities if the results of the investigation reveal shortcomings in the UK's legislation. Meanwhile, London is checking all new drilling on a case-by-case basis. Due to a fall in North Sea oil reserves, the UK is drilling in deeper and more difficult-to-access waters to avoid importing oil during the transition to a low carbon economy.
The idea of a moratorium is expected to be greeted by reservations by the council of countries involved in offshore oil drilling that are members of the north-east Atlantic marine environment protection convention, OSPAR (Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Norway and Iceland), which reject Germany's idea of a moratorium mooted at a ministerial meeting late last month.
At the European Parliament, which rejects the idea of a moratorium on offshore drilling, a great fuss is being made around the attitude of the Scottish MEPs. Herald on Sunday describes the controversy surrounding the 'shameful six' Scottish MEPs accused of rejecting the moratorium and playing along with the oil industry. Opposing the suspension of drilling that would cost British oil companies billions of pounds while the UK's oil and gas drilling security system has a reliable reputation, Conservative MEP Struan Stevenson, Liberal George Lyon, S&D MEPs David Martin and Catherine Stilher, and Green/s EFA MEPs Ian Hudghton and Alyn Smith are accused of 'environmental hypocrisy' by ecological NGOs. (E.H. trans fl)