Shipping company insists oil transfers safe

Published on Friday 16 March 2007 01:05

SHIPPING company managers insisted yesterday that their plans to start ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Firth of Forth were safe, despite being involved in a serious spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 1995.

Dermot Loughnane, the president and chief executive officer of SPT, wrote to Holyrood's environment committee in an attempt to convince MSPs to support his proposals for ship-to-ship oil transfers.

SPT wants to start transferring oil from carriers into tankers in the Forth, a plan which has aroused fierce opposition on both sides of the firth. The decision rests with Forth Ports, a private company, not with the Scottish Parliament - something which has angered MSPs on all sides.

The environment committee wrote to SPT after it emerged that the company had been involved in the 1995 spillage of 35,000 gallons, or 830 barrels, of oil, but had neglected to tell the committee about it.

Mr Loughnane said he only thought it was useful to give his company's safety record for the last ten years, not the last 12.

In his letter, he said: "The ten-year period we used for reporting was, in our opinion, more reflective of all the many positive changes that have seen the global safety record for oil operations result in a dramatic reduction in pollution. We had no intention of concealing any information and would be happy to forward separately summaries of any incidents, even those unrelated to ship-to-ship transfer operations."

And Mr Loughnane added: "In the past 26 years we have engaged in some 10,000 ship-to-ship operations, transferring about six billion barrels of oil.

"In addition to the 1995 incident in the Gulf of Mexico, two further incidents involving ship-to-ship operations have resulted in an additional four barrels of spillage. Overall therefore, a 99.998 per cent safety record, but for SPT any size spill is too much and we constantly strive to improve our performance."

But Linden Jarvis, a campaigner against the ship-to-ship transfer plans, said he did not believe the process was as safe as SPT claimed.

He said: "I don't believe them. It might be 95 per cent safe, even 98 per cent safe, but not more than that. It only takes a small spillage to do tremendous damage."

Kenny MacAskill, an SNP MSP for the Lothians, described the SPT letter as "baloney".

He said: "No-one cares about SPT's protestations. What matters is having the powers to decide what happens in one of Scotland's major estuaries."

And Mark Ruskell, a Green MSP, said: "All three parties in this ongoing debacle are dodging responsibility. The Executive desperately needs to take control and stop these plans."