With the Edinburgh-based energy company set to begin its £277 million drilling programme next month, Canada’s Minister of Environment, Jim Prentice, travelled to Ilulissat last week where he announced he has Greenland’s approval to dispatch the full-time supervisor.
Prentice stressed that he supports Greenland’s decision to allow Cairn Energy to drill two wells for oil in the Arctic waters, close to Canada’s coastline. The minister, in Greenland for a meeting of Arctic environment ministers, said: “I was impressed with the amount of work the Greenlanders have done and that they are determined to enforce the highest possible environmental standards for Arctic drilling.”
The decision came as the eminent Cambridge scientist who first discovered the thinning of the Polar ice cap further raised the pressure on Cairn by urging Greenland to “take every precaution” while allowing the exploitation of its offshore reserves.
Peter Wadhams, Professor of Ocean Physics at Cambridge University, has conducted years of experiments with the ice. He is a world authority on the polar ice caps and president of the International Association for the Physical Sciences of the Ocean, Commission on Sea Ice. In March 2007 the professor was under the ice in the submarine HMS Tireless when an explosion killed two members of the crew.
He told the Sunday Herald. “I’m not against drilling off Greenland so long as adequate precautions are taken.
“A lot of research on this subject has been done in Canada, and I was involved in a lot of it. This was at a time when scientists were allowed to do their own mini-oil spills of a few barrels to see what happened in the interaction with ice.”
He said the extra problems of a blowout or pipeline break on the seabed under pack ice would be extremely difficult to handle.
Wadhams said: “First, the drilling will probably take place during the ice-free season, which can be short. If a blowout occurs it may not be possible to drill a relief well during the ice-free season – as we see from the Gulf it takes two to three months – so that the blowout could last right through the winter until the next summer season.”
This will not have an impact on Cairn Energy as it has ordered two rigs to work together on its exploration. Prentice applauded Cairn’s decision to use two drill rigs in the area all summer. If there is a blow-out with one rig, the other can immediately begin drilling a relief well, a process he estimates would take about a month.
Wadhams said oil rising under ice coats the under side of the ice. If the ice is in motion, the oiled ice floes can be carried away by the wind and current. “Once they are away from the blowout zone no new oil is added, but the existing oil gets encapsulated through new ice growing under the oil layer. This preserves the oil in a toxic state. Months later and hundreds of miles away, the floe will eventually melt, releasing toxic oil, which has light fractions still present, in a location where it might be dangerous to birds and other wildlife.”
Environmentalists say even a small oil spill would have a massive impact on endangered species such as the beluga and bowhead whales. The professor said this was why those undertaking the work must be “very careful”.
