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Norway probes leak on BP platform

Norwegian authorities said Tuesday they have opened an investigation into a "substantial" oil and gas leak on a production platform operated by BP off the coast of Norway.

Published: 18 September 2012 16:26 CEST

Norway probes leak on BP platform

File image of the Ula platforms (Photo: BP).

"No people were injured and no damage caused to the installation beyond the equipment directly involved. But the (Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority) PSA considers the incident to have had a substantial potential," the PSA said in a statement.

The leak occurred on September 12th on the Ula field, in the Norwegian waters of the North Sea.

Production at the site, which reached some 10,000 barrels of oil per day in July according to the Petroleum Directorate, has been suspended since the incident, PSA said.

A spokesman for BP in Norway said the company had launched its own investigation but that it was too early to determine how much oil and gas had leaked out.

"We have set up a team to investigate the origin of the leak and prevent a recurrence of this kind of incident in the future," Jan Erik Geirmo told AFP.

"We will not restart the platform until the investigation is completed," he added.

He said a thin layer of oil could be seen "for a brief moment" on the water before it disappeared.

The US Justice Department has accused BP of "gross negligence and willful misconduct" in the massive 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

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NGOs take Norway to European Court over Arctic oil exploration

Northern Norway. Photo by Vidar Nordli-Mathisen on Unsplash.

It’s the latest turn in a legal tussle between environmental organisations Greenpeace and Young Friends of the Earth Norway on one side and the Norwegian state on the other.

The organisations are demanding the government cancel 10 oil exploration licenses in the Barents Sea awarded in 2016, arguing it was unconstitutional.

Referring to the Paris Agreement, which seeks to limit global warming to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the organisations claim that the oil licenses violated article 112 of Norway’s constitution, guaranteeing everyone the right to a healthy environment.”

The six activists, alongside Greenpeace Nordic and Young Friends of the Earth Norway, hope that the European Court of Human Rights will hear their case and find that Norway’s oil expansion is in breach of human rights,” Greenpeace said in a statement.

In December, Norway’s Supreme Court rejected the claim brought by the organisations, their third successive legal defeat.

READ MORE: Norway sees oil in its future despite IEA’s warnings

While most of the judges on the court agreed that article 112 could be invoked if the state failed to meet its climate and environmental obligations– they did not think it was applicable in this case.

The court also held that the granting of oil permits was not contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights, in part because they did not represent “a real and immediate risk” to life and physical integrity.

“The young activists and the environmental organisations argue that this judgment was flawed, as it discounted the significance of their environmental constitutional rights and did not take into account an accurate assessment of the consequences of climate change for the coming generations,” Greenpeace said.

On Friday, the Norwegian government unveiled a white paper on the country’s energy future, which still includes oil exploration despite a warning from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

The IEA recently warned that all future fossil fuel projects must be scrapped if the world is to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The Norwegian case is an example of a global trend in which climate activists are increasingly turning to courts to pursue their agenda.

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