Ship-to-ship oil transfers in the Forth
As far back as 2005 news first surfaced about plans to transfer Russian crude oil between tankers moored just off the Fife coast. These plans were roundly rejected by all the relevant local authorities and environment agencies and in Fife, East Lothian and Edinburgh local Councils formed a consortium in a successful campaign to ditch the proposals. This article provides some background on the oil transfer story.
The plan conceived by Forth Ports plc (FP), a privately-owned harbour authority, and Sunderland firm, Melbourne Marine Services (MMS) was simply to boost profits by cutting corners – to save oil companies time instead of using safe terminals such as Scapa Flow. Oil multinational, Skaugen PetroTrans (SPT) stood to make millions of pounds from the oil transfers.
The operations would have involved a fleet of small tankers shuttling up to 8 million tonnes annually of heavy crude oil annually from the Russian Baltic to massive carriers at swinging anchorage just off the Fife coast at Methil.
The Firth of Forth contains many sites and species protected under international and European law. The Bass Rock and the Isle of May, world famous for their wildlife, are only a short distance from the proposed oil transfer anchorage and ironically, had just been identified by the UK government as Marine Environment High Risk Areas (MEHRAs).
A Scottish Green Party website news article from the original campaign stated that:
“Since the Donaldson report, commissioned after the Braer disaster in Orkney in 1993, there are only three sites in the UK considered suitable for ship-to-ship transfer. The Firth of Forth isn't one of them.”
A change in the law
They called for the law to be changed so that publicly-elected and accountable ministers, rather than a private company, would have the final say on all proposals for ship-to-ship oil transfers. Because of loopholes in the law, Scottish ministers had no say over the development. Instead it was solely in the hands of Forth Ports, the harbour authority with a vested interest in the plan, to assess whether it was safe.
In February 2006, the Department for Transport launched a 12-week "public" consultation exercise (via the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, MCA), on the ship-to-ship oil plans for the Forth. But many felt it was a sham of a consultation because it wasn't about whether people agree or disagree with the activity - it was simply about whether the plans to deal with an oil spill were good enough or needed revision. Confining discussion to the 'oil spill plan' failed to address the whole basis of the oil transfer project.
A confidential environmental report drawn up for the Forth Ports was heavily criticised by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) which said that it was inaccurate and inadequate because it failed to properly assess the damage that wildlife could suffer from oil spills. These criticisms were backed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), which described the report in a leaked letter as “inappropriate”, “misleading” and “fundamentally wrong”.
The public also made their opposition well heard, with two petitions submitted to Parliament. Other objections centred around an obvious and unacceptable conflict of interest in the harbour authority (Forth Ports plc.) being both the promoter and the regulator of the such plans. In December 2007 Mark Lazarowicz, Labour MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, launched a private member's bill aimed at plugging the loophole which had enabled ship-to-ship oil transfers to escape independent scrutiny.
Bidders pull out
Early in 2008 Forth Ports eventually announced their decision to pull out of the scheme stating that:
"Given the uncertainty surrounding the scope of the proposed project, we have decided that this application is not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders," Forth Ports chief executive, Charles Hammond.
Nevertheless the company still maintained that they had demonstrated that the ship-to-ship (STS) transfers could be carried out safely.
“This assessment clearly demonstrates that, taking into account the extremely high safety stipulations which would be placed on any vessels and the extensive support operations, STS is feasible in the Firth of Forth and could be undertaken without any adverse impact on the integrity of the environment, a paramount factor in any such exercise.”
Mr Lazarowicz ultimately withdrew his Bill when in May 2008 the UK Government published draft ship-to-ship regulations. RSPB Scotland initially welcomed the publication and were pleased that it seemed to encompass the necessary environmental safeguards, including applying the European Birds and Habitats Directive to ship-to-ship oil cargo transfers.
“The continued absence of a clear legal framework has been unhelpful to all parties, the introduction of clear ship-to-ship regulations will ensure a comprehensive and workable regime and a level playing field for all interests in oil handling operations in UK waters, and will serve to protect the UK’s coasts and marine wildlife.”
Anyone interested in the full history would be well advised to read this series of articles by Rob Edwards, a freelance journalist who has been specialising in environmental issues for over 25 years, from whose writings much of this summary has been compiled.
It still remains to be seen what impact the subsequent introduction of a Marine Bill will mean for the chances of any such plan re-emerging in the future. The Marine Bill now means that there is now a duty on ministers to protect and enhance Scotland’s seas, together with duties to deliver marine planning, environmental targets and a network of marine protected areas.
March 2010 - Fife councillors criticise new oil transfer Regulations
The most recent development in this long running saga is that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency have drafted new Regulations to control ship-to-ship transfers in UK waters of oil carried as cargo:
Consultation on draft Merchant Shipping (Ship-to-Ship Transfer) Regulations 2010
In an edition of the Fife Free Press on 11th March 2010 it was reported that furious Fife councillors will again be fighting the cause. At a meeting of the council’s environment, enterprise, and transport committee councillors voted to oppose proposed these regulations and will take advice from a QC and will ask the agency for an extension to it’s six week consultation period, accusing the agency of trying to ‘sneak in new regulation by the back door’.
The new Regulations in detail
According to MCA, the most important change, is that the scope of the legislation has been refined. The 2008 Regulations applied to transfers of any hazardous substance, whereas the new draft of the Regulations applies exclusively to cargo transfers or bunkering operations consisting wholly or mainly of oil.
Another important change, proposes an arrangement whereby a harbour authority applies to the Secretary of State for an “oil transfer licence”, and – once the licence has been granted – “cargo transfers” which are within the scope of the oil transfer licence may then be authorised by the harbour authority.
- The Regulations will now make a distinction between ‘consolidation and lightening operations’ which take place in many harbour authority waters and which are distinct from the ‘ship-to-ship transfers’.In the new Regulations, these operations may take place in a harbour authority irrespective of whether it has an oil transfer licence.
- Transfers on government non-commercial service have always been outside the scope of regulations. These new regulations add transfers carried out by or on behalf of a general lighthouse authority.
Additionally, there are also some ‘minor drafting changes’.
Ongoing discussion
According to a Scottish Parliament bulletin on 18th March Claire Baker has asked the Scottish Executive whether it has submitted a response to the consultation on the draft Merchant Shipping (Ship-to-Ship Transfer) Regulations 2010 and, if so, whether it will publish its response. This will be addressed in parliament on Thursday 25th March (beyond the closing date of the consultation!).
Update - 8th April 2010
I have so far heard nothing from either Claire Baker nor from the Fife Councillors I tried to contact on this matter.
However, on 23rd March 2010 Alan Wells from Scottish Environment LINK (who are an umbrella organisation for the environmental NGOs in Scotland) kindly replied to advise that RSPB, who had been leading the group of concerned environmental organisations, had made a formal reply to the consultation.
In summary, the reply to the consultation states that the group feel that the new regulations are mostly a good thing and should actually help to provide adequate safeguards but they do also have some requests for changes to the proposed regulations.
We now need to wait and see if the Agency will fully respond to the RSPB’s feedback.
I also had a reply from Rob Edwards, who at that stage was not even aware of the consultation process, which is further evidence that it was not sufficiently publicised.
The ScotLINK response in detail:
On the whole the response praises the intention of the regulations:
“the revised draft regulations that are the subject of the current consultation seem to us to be greatly improved. In particular, Schedule 1 now appears to us to include adequate safeguards for European wildlife sites, with appropriate burdens of proof in the tests required to be met before consent can be given.”
Nevertheless, they also express some notable concerns:
“There still appears to be no provision for the Secretary of State to review or withdraw a licence once granted, or to attach conditions other than maximum duration. Periodic review would appear to be a sensible measure, as would the power to withdraw a licence if the Secretary of State were to see fit”
They also question the definition of whether the term “oil transfer” in the draft regulation necessarily captures the most appropriate range of hazardous bulk liquids, and that other bulk liquids such as liquefied gas should also be covered.