The reporting of a recent pipeline leak into Poole Harbour, Dorset (Poole Harbour: Pipeline sealed after onshore oil field leak – BBC News) on Sunday the 26th March seemed to receive vastly differing headlines. As reported, an estimated 140,000 litres of oily/water mix and over 5 tons of contaminated beach/soil material was recovered from the leak site.
The Wytch Farm well operator, Perenco reported that a “limited oil leak” of circa 200 barrels of reservoir fluid (80% Saline / 20% crude) leaked into the water at Poole Harbour. I did approach Perenco for engagement with this article, however they did not acknowledge nor engage. No surprise there really.
As protesters gathered (not sure how many offered to assist with the clean-up), and despite an absence of claims of any wildlife casualties from either the RSPCA or RSPB, we had varying reports as to the severity of this leak.
Obviously, no spill is acceptable; and I would expect most oil field operators within the UK sector would agree. The problem is that there are many oil producing regions/countries where such a leak would not even make the news.
I am yet to hear of any Extinction Rebellion protestors out in force among the vastly more environmental damaging Russian oilfield developments; or in China protesting for the cessation of the Afghan oilfield development (Afghanistan signs oil extraction deal with Chinese company | Oil and Gas News | Al Jazeera) from the Amu Darya basin.
It was curious to read headlines from Edward Church from DorsetLive such as “A large spill at Wytch Farm oil field dumped around six tonnes of crude oil into the watercourse”… or that from Benedict Tetzlaff-Deas of the Mirror” (Poole oil spill: Aerial pictures show scale of devastation as black mass fills river – Mirror Online).
This article notes a “Black Mass fills river”.. Where? I could not find any photos posted in the public domain. Perhaps this was referring to some sort of unreported satanic religious gathering? Are there actual photographs supporting that this 80/20 saline to oil fluid leak did in fact cause such an event (religious gathering or black fluid spill – I will take evidence of either)?
The pictures that I could find show an oily sheen being contained behind spill barriers. I neither saw black crude nor people in pentagram adorned black robes – Protesters in pink hazmat suits rather. I assume that these very protesters were dressed in pink hazmat suits for photographic effect, rather than needing to be attired as such; or that they were offering to help in some way with the clean-up response? Do such protesters ever help at such events or are they simply a photo opportunity and a chance to spout Marxist mantra?
I would assume that the irony of Marxist state industry being significantly more polluting would be lost on such people. Where were the protesters at Norilsk when 20,000 tonnes of diesel oil spilled from a power plant (www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52915807) into the Arctic back in June 2020? Perhaps these protesters might want to take the time to consider Tatiana Kondratenko’s 2021 article “Russia: A country of oil spills” (www.dw.com/en/russia-oil-spills-far-north/a-56916148) and the quote “With an oil leak occurring somewhere in the country almost every half hour, Russia records many more spills than other oil-rich states.”.
I have not cross-checked this article – so people will have to draw their own conclusions. Note that the article references that there is “no publicly available data on China and Saudi Arabia” with respects to oil spills. I would wager that there are few (if any) environmental protests in such countries.
I would be curious as to when (and where) the image reported to be from Graham Hunt/BNPS of “oil in the sand” was taken (as referenced in the above Mirror article) and to what scale this is at (it seems a fairly zoomed in photo).
Is there anything linking this “black mass” (be it a small one on the sand) shown in this photo in relation to the Poole leak? What is somewhat true (but in a different context) in the reported article was the line “Pictures show the devastation” … in that no real “devastation” is shown, rather published pictures show the Perenco incident response in full swing to contain and clean-up.
Is this the only “evidence” of the reported lines “with dark fluid visible within the water at the important local wildlife spot” and “Thick clumps of washed-up tar have also been seen across the shoreline.” Given the throngs of protesters gathered, have they not this “evidence” to present or post into the public forum?
Search as I did on the internet, I could not find any pictures of oil-soaked birds or “thick black (oil) masses” in relation to this particular fluids spill. I did however find reference to a 2015 American crime drama “black mass” about Whitley Bulger that seemingly is more truthful than much of the alarmist reporting in relation to this particular fluids spill.
As written previously by co-columnist Sean Moran “Supply does not create demand” – it really doesn’t. So, to what end are those protesters at Poole “demanding” the cessation of production from Wytch Farm? Perhaps a moderately competent media would have asked those assembled protesters whether or not they are more accepting of supply oil from the Amu Darya basin than from Wytch Farm?
Is it just me that saw the irony of those protesters photographed in Andrew Goldman’s article for the Daily Echo as being in Pink Hazmat suits? Hazmat suits often being disposable and made of materials such as polypropylene – a product derived from oil production. Let’s hope they recycled these suits responsibility – or made use of the reusable type, preferably with organically grown, sustainably produced rubber?!?!?
All and every chemical and/or oil spill should be taken seriously – and it does appear that Perenco and the local authorities have done just that (and are doing just this). I would not (and don’t believe we should) diminish the importance of doing all we can to protect the environment from our actions.
Further shutting down UK sector oil and gas will only result upon greater reliance on imported oil and gas until such a time as we have made a greater transition into renewables (as we are doing). We are not there yet, and we can’t “just stop oil” without driving the UK economy into deep recession and collapsing multiple industries in the process.
I wouldn’t expect that any country deep into recession would have environmental sustainability high up it’s agenda. Such an energy transition can only be from a position of economic prosperity of which oil and gas is part of. We await the outcomes as to the reasons and causes of this particular oil production fluid loss. Our best action is to work as an industry to ensure that lessons learnt here are applied so as to prevent further occurrences.
Thankfully, reported oil tanker spills (and I wouldn’t define this incident at Poole as an “oil spill”, rather it was a reservoir fluids leak) are on the decrease (Reference Our World in data – www.ourworldindata.org/oil-spills), however reported pipeline leaks continue at an alarming rate – especially in the USA (www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/americas_dangerous_pipelines.) where it is reported that 200 barrels (often crude oil rather than 20% oil in water) are leaked every day – the same estimate as the fluid losses in Poole – but for EVERY DAY rather than as an infrequent event as was the case here. What is more worrying is those leaks and losses that aren’t reported among the many places the UK is becoming ever more reliant upon importing oil and gas from.
