Record £2.8m fine for chemical plant emissions shames oil giant ExxonMobil
ExxonMobil's Ethylene Plant in Mossmorran, pictured in 1986. Picture: Hamish Campbell
ENERGY giant ExxonMobil has been forced to pay the biggest fine for an environmental offence in British history for failing to report greenhouse gas emissions from its chemicals plant in Scotland.
The world’s largest oil company was hit with the £2.8 million fine by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) for neglecting to account for 33,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from its ethylene plant in Fife.
The fine was not publicised by Sepa when it was levied in September 2010 and was buried in a report issued last week by the government’s anti-pollution agency.
Environment groups said the scale of the fine should have been broadcast widely to highlight “complacency” in the oil industry and as a deterrent to other companies.
ExxonMobil is most famously associated with the Exxon Valdez oil disaster in Alaska in 1989. The company’s Fife Ethylene Plant in Mossmorran was opened in 1986 and can produce up to 830,300 tonnes of ethylene a year, much of which is used to make plastic. It is the third-largest source of greenhouse gases in the UK’s chemicals sector.
In 2005, the European Union passed regulations on carbon emissions that put in place stringent fines for not complying with the legislation.
Sepa’s enforcement statistics report, covering activity in the financial year 2010/11 and published last Wednesday, says ExxonMobil Chemical Ltd had informed the agency that it had identified three sources of carbon dioxide that had not been reported in its return for 2008. According to EU statistics, the Fife plant had verified emissions of 708,369 tonnes of carbon dioxide that year but it only reported 675,403 tonnes, a discrepancy of 32,966 tonnes. Each tonne attracts a $100 fine, making the final bill $3.3 million or £2.8m.
ExxonMobil said it “regretted” the error and reported the mistake as soon as it was spotted. Previously the largest fine handed down for an environmental offence was £1m paid by Shell in 1990 for polluting the river Mersey.
The company was also forced to pay a second penalty of £844,765 for a similar mistake at the group’s Esso Petroleum Company in Fawley near Southampton.
An insider at ExxonMobil said there had been a “sharp intake of breath” at the size of the fine. The money, paid to Sepa, was passed to the Scottish Government, which has spent it on community environmental projects.
Stan Blackley, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland, said it was “disappointing” the level of fine had not been published at the time. “This is yet another example of complacency and misinformation from the oil industry – an industry that has a reputation for poor practice, and one that often puts the environment and people at risk through its failure to act properly.”
Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland, said: “It’s surprising that a company this big has made such a significant error. It’s a serious lesson for them and I hope they have learned that lesson.”
Following the levying of the penalty in 2010, ExxonMobil’s name was mentioned, but not the size of the fine, on an obscure part of Sepa’s website.
Details were only revealed in the enforcement report and subsequently uncovered by the latest edition of the environmental campaigns journal Ends.
A spokesman for Sepa said:. “The Exxon Mobil Chemical Limited case was a reporting error, and the penalty was a mandatory consequence of breaching the EU Emissions Trading Scheme regulations. Unlike prosecution cases, there was no direct environmental impact caused by Exxon Mobil’s error, and Sepa was not required to carry out an investigation or report the matter to the Procurator Fiscal.”
In a statement ExxonMobil, based in Texas, said: “We regret the errors made at Fife and Fawley relating to the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions under the European Union Emissions Trading System. In both cases these inaccuracies were identified by ExxonMobil’s internal systems and were immediately reported to the regulator. We have now fully reviewed and improved our procedures at both sites to address the issues we identified.”
• www.endsreport.com
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Comments
There are 33 comments to this article
Page 1 of 3
duelaynomore
Monday, February 20, 2012 at 03:58 AMI must say it certainly encourages (not) future admissions of guilt don't you think? Such fines for self admitted mistakes are well out of proportion. Our economy cannot continue to weather such costs imposed from outside (or inside). Compare this to the daily discharge of CO2 from China and or India ? Do we want the jobs in Scotland. or Bangalore?
duelaynomore
Monday, February 20, 2012 at 03:52 AMNo. 31, calling people names soves the problem does it? Its always from that side of politics that name calling starts, why is that? You don't like his idea...so lets call him fat or stupid. What he's pointing out is that if we kill of our industry all that we will be able to sell is our hot air, generated by those on green salaries.
bridgetthecat
Monday, February 20, 2012 at 02:58 AMRichard Lionheart, Well said, like a true moron.
International Oil Terrorism
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 10:23 PMComment removed by moderator
vistaero
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 09:54 PMNothing in the British Gutter Press about Robert Green exposing the Corrupt Scottish Establishment in sexually abusing a Downs Syndrome girl. Awaiting removal by the Government Propaganda supporting Scotsman.
Richard Lionheart
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 08:17 PMGreen Anarchists Strike again! It is quite simple. All industries and employers who emit natural Co2 should relocate to China and help expand the Chinese economy, while the Green Anarchists in Britain bask in their glorious "Moral" Green Sunshine, importing the output from the Chinese factories! END GREEN ANARCHIST POLICIES NOW = SAVE THE HUMAN RACE AND THE PLANET
bridgetthecat
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 06:21 PMunimpressedone, Your so bitter and twisted I bet your the kind of idiot that finds this kind of actions acceptably? "Freedom of information laws are being misused to harass scientists and should be re-examined by the government, according to the president of the Royal Society. Nobel laureate Sir Paul Nurse told the Guardian that some climate scientists were being targeted by organised campaigns of requests for data and other research materials, aimed at intimidating them and slowing down research. He said the behaviour was turning freedom of information laws into a way to intimidate some scientists. Nurse's comments follow the launch of a major Royal Society study into how scientists' work can be made more open and better used to inform policy in society. The review – expected to be published next year – will examine ways of improving access to scientific data and research papers and how "digital media offer a powerful means for the public to interrogate, question and re-analyse scientific priorities, evidence and conclusions". Nurse said that, in principle, scientific information should be made available as widely as possible as a matter of course, a practice common in biological research where gene sequences are routinely published in public databases. But he said freedom of information had "opened a Pandora's box. It's released something that we hadn't imagined ... there have been cases of it being misused in the climate change debate to intimidate scientists. "I have been told of some researchers who are getting lots of requests for, among other things, all drafts of scientific papers prior to their publication in journals, with annotations, explaining why changes were made between successive versions. If it is true, it will consume a huge amount of time. And it's intimidating." It was possible some requests were designed simply to stop scientists working rather than as a legitimate attempt to get research data, said Nurse. "It is essential that scientists are as open and transparent as possible and, where they are not, they should be held to account. But at times this appears to be being used as a tool to stop scientists doing their work. That's going to turn us into glue. We are just not going to be able to operate efficiently." Nurse said the government should examine the issue, and think about tweaking freedom of information legislation to recognise potential misuse. Otherwise, he predicted, FoI aggression could be in future used by campaigners to cripple scientific research in many other controversial areas of science, such as genetically modified crops. "I don't actually know the answer but I think we have a problem here. We need better guidelines about when the use of freedom of information is useful." Bob Ward of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics said the intention of many of those making freedom of information requests was to trawl through scientists' work with the intention of trying to find problems and errors. "It's also quite true that these people do not care about the fact that it is causing a serious inconvenience," he said. "It is being used in an aggressive and organised way. When freedom of information legislation was first contemplated, it was not being considered that universities would be landed with this additional burden." http:www.guardian.co.ukpolitics2011may25freedom-information-laws-harass-scientists But really why should I bother to post this, you've had your head up your ar@e all your life, and it will remain there.
bridgetthecat
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 06:10 PM12 nabodican, So you're saying that these companies can just police themselves I think your the fool along with the moron at 13, he's a real expert, he once worked in the topics!!!!!
THX1138
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 03:12 PM#20 Nonsense that is demonstrably false, as opposed to nonsense that is not demonstrably false. 'There are unicorns' is an example of the latter - it is nonsense, but it is not practically possible to disprove.
vistaero
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 03:04 PMComment removed by moderator
Slioch.
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 02:03 PMCan anyone understand why the following is referred to as a "Related Article[s]" ? "Analysis: Business picks up the pieces AS THE world waits to uncover the human cost of Tuesday’s devastating attack on the World Trade Center, companies that were housed in New York’s tallest building are still desperately trying to find out if employees had been able to escape the twisted carnage. 0 Comments"
Electric Hermit
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 01:05 PMAnother Union dividend, close the plant down kick these yanks out!
aberdingdong
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 12:40 PM£2.8m is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to these guys. But a dust mote on their balance sheet. Not until we start to send these people to prison in the same way that we would for disregardviolation of Health & Safety, will they give even an inch of a damn. But then...if bankers, politicians and media barons are still at liberty after committing blatant acts of theft and fraud....what chance is there of that?....that'll be 'zero chance!'
george toot toot
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 12:20 PM14. "demonstrably false nonsense." How does 'false' nonsense differ from 'real' nonsense? 6. bridgetthecat So true - life has varied in nature and form depending on carbon dioxide and oxygen levels. 2-metre dragon flies need more oxygen than in today's air content. However looking at the fine... 2.8 M£ is a drop in ExxonMobil's "fortune" - with utterly zero dissausive effect... fining a pensioner a "farthing" would have been a heavier fine. For a fine to work it must have some sort of effect... in this case the only people who will suffer are the emplyees. How's about starting to fine the decision makers... Now that may start to hurt. There again, all they have to do is to increase their "salary" and other forms of income (shares etc. etc.)
charlesmn
Sunday, February 19, 2012 at 12:04 PM#17 "They" are probably the politicians that imposed the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Trading Scheme Regulations 2005 which SEPA are enforcing. It has become the norm for parliament to impose significant penalties for minor infractions. A £2.8 million pound penalty for correcting an earlier CO2 output figure is nonsensical. Had XOM killed a worker it is likely that their fine would be a tenth of that.
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