Activists on board the Greenpeace ship Esperanza have documented
a large methane leak located in the British exclusive economic
zone in the North Sea.
Using an ROV (Remotely Operated Underwater Vehicle), they were
able to film two of the gas-emitting craters at about 100m water
depth on the seafloor (at positions 57°55.30'N, 001°37.87'E and
57°54.81'N, 001°38.72'E), which are between 50 and 15 meters in
diameter and up to 20 and 9 meters deep, respectively. The leak
was caused by a major blow-out during an oil drilling operation
30 years ago, and is still emitting methane; a gas 28 times more
powerful than carbon dioxide.[1][2]
“Like many places across the North Sea, climate-destroying
methane has been leaking here for decades, yet the oil and gas
industry, instead of closing the leak and monitoring it,
continues to drill holes in the sea bed, while decision-makers
turn a blind eye. We are in the middle of a climate crisis
fueling fires, floods and inequality across the world and this
leaking methane is a climate change multiplier!” said Dr Sandra
Schöttner, marine biologist and oceans campaigner with Greenpeace
Germany, who is leading the scientific work on board the
Esperanza.
In 1990, the Swedish Stena Drilling Company, on behalf of
Mobil North Sea (now Exxon Mobil), accidentally tapped a gas
pocket with the drilling platform High Seas Driller while
searching for oil, causing a blowout that resulted in several
craters on the seabed.[3][4] An international team of scientists
had previously been to this site and estimated in 2015 that up to
90 litres of methane per second were being released. [5] The
leaking borehole has been returned by Exxon Mobil to the British
state who in 2000 determined that further monitoring was not
required, believing that the reservoir would soon be depleted.
But 30 years later the greenhouse gas keeps escaping into the
atmosphere.[1]
According to a recent independent study, an estimated total
of 8,000–30,000 tonnes of methane per year escape from gas leaks
from more than 15,000 boreholes in the North Sea[6] - adding to
the 72,000 tonnes of methane that normal operations of platforms
in the North Sea release every year.[7]
The Greenpeace ships Esperanza and Rainbow Warrior are on a
month-long documentation and peaceful protest tour to document
the impacts the extraction of fossil fuels is making in the North
Sea. Teams on board will gather evidence of the extreme
industrialisation of the region by the oil and gas industry,
which has been polluting the ocean, fueling the climate crisis
and exacerbating inequality with its “business as usual"
operation model.
"The oil and gas industry has been fuelling the climate
crisis and polluting our oceans for decades. This industry does
not belong in the new green world we need to build after the
pandemic. We need a rapid change to renewable energies and
a transfer of fossil fuel workers to industries with a
future. We need governments to bail out the climate and workers,
not the polluters," Schöttner added.
