Scots oil firm wants Greenpeace fined £1.8m a day after rig protest

AN OIL company conducting deep-water drilling in the Arctic has filed legal papers to try to stop environmentalists protesting against its operations.

Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy is seeking an order from a Dutch court to stop Greenpeace disrupting its drilling for oil off Greenland.

The campaign group wants the company to stop its deep water drilling in the Arctic region because of the extreme fragility of the environment.

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On Wednesday night, Danish police removed two protesters from the company's 53,000-tonne drilling vessel the Leiv Eiriksson, which the activists had occupied since Sunday.

The rig is operated on behalf of Cairn, which is planning as many as four new exploration oil wells off the coast of Greenland.

The protesters were hanging from the underside of the rig in an Arctic survival pod, with enough supplies to stay there for ten days.

Future delays in drilling for oil could cost the company up to $4m (2,449,397) a day, the company claimed. Cairn also wants Greenpeace to be fined €2m (1,768,891) for every day the campaigners manage to prevent drilling. The claim will be heard in a Dutch court on Monday.

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