Shetland deep drilling to be challengd in court

[Nick]

.
Greenpeace has been given the right to challenge the UK government's go-ahead for oil drilling in deep waters West of Shetland. It claims the government failed to carry out an "appropriate assessment" of the risks in light of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

More HERE on the BBC site or on various other news sites.

[Rowana]

I think the oil companies will be EXTREMELY twitchy about safety on future deepwater drilling anywhere, considering the damage done to bp over Deepwater Horizon.

[Nick]

I think the oil companies will be EXTREMELY twitchy about safety on future deepwater drilling anywhere, considering the damage done to bp over Deepwater Horizon.

I am not so sure. The stuff that went on on the DWH - covering up losses/kicks, dodgy cement jobs, skipping the final CBL etc - was all stuff I saw fifteen years ago. Usually they get away with it, and if you want to become a company legend then bravely cutting corners and saving bucks is the way to go about it. I can't see DWH making a lot of difference unless there is a massive top-down clampdown, but at the moment I don't think that is in the culture.

(And the BP safety culture was always the best of all the majors as well )

[DaveS]

.
Greenpeace has been given the right to challenge the UK government's go-ahead for oil drilling in deep waters West of Shetland. It claims the government failed to carry out an "appropriate assessment" of the risks in light of the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

More HERE on the BBC site or on various other news sites.

Both this and the previous story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11635921 are likely to result in a delay in extracting oil. Taking the longer view, the price of oil is only going to rise, so arguably it is in Scotland's long term interest to delay then extract relatively slowly in overall terms, i.e. a few fields developed at a time, each extracted at full commercial rate, rather than develop lots of new fields simultaneously. (I seem to remember this point being put, and ignored, during the boom years, but Maggie had to fund mass unemployment somehow...)