NORTH SEA OIL BLOW-OUT

HL Deb 17 May 1977 vol 383 cc654-95

7.10 p.m.

Baroness WHITE

My Lords, I beg to put the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper: namely, to ask Her Majesty's Government what lessons have been learnt as a result of the recent oil platform blow-out in the North Sea.

My Lords, as this is a debate to which I have no right of reply, perhaps I could at the very outset thank my noble friend Lord Strabolgi for the immense amount of work that I know he has put into this subject, and also thank all noble Lords who will be taking part in the debate.

One should at the very outset make it clear that Her Majesty's Government have no responsibility whatever in the matter of the Ekofisk incident. It did not occur in the part of the Continental Shelf for which we have responsibility. We offered assistance to the Norwegian Government, whose responsibility it mainly was, apart from the responsibility of the operator himself, but I understand that we were not able to offer the Norwegians any assistance for which they could find any use, and therefore we have not been directly concerned.

But, plainly, further incidents are to be expected, and sonic of them in the normal course of events are likely to take place on our side of the line. Therefore, it behoves us to learn all the lessons which we can from this experience. My right honourable friend Mr. Wedgwood Benn, in reply to Questions in the other place yesterday, said: We must see that should such a thing occur again our resources will be adequate. I am not entirely satisfied that this is now so". It is, of course, too soon to expect a complete evaluation of the experience gleaned from the Ekofisk mishap. It was three weeks ago, on 27th April to be precise, since Mr. Wedgwood Benn announced the setting up of a study group drawn from six Departments, including his own, plus the Health and Safety Executive, to go into the matter. One could not help asking oneself what was the relation of this study group to the body known as Scopcas, which is under the surveillance of the Department of Trade. Then, of course, the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association has been busy. There is the North Sea Operators Clean Seas Committee. The Norwegians have been making their investigations. The non-governmental bodies, such as the Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution of the Sea, of which I have the honour to be chairman, its Nordic counterpart, and other voluntary organisations, such as the European Environmental Bureau, have all been trying to learn what they can. I understand that the Norwegians have called for a conference to be held in June to sum up the matter. Signor Natali, the Commissioner in Brussels responsible for EEC environmental affairs, has suggested it should be referred to the meeting of environment Ministers also to be held in June in Brussels. In other words, there are very many fingers in the oil slick, and one cannot help being somewhat concerned at the plethora of committees, investigations and other bodies which are concerned, and which are likely to spend a great deal of time travelling to one another's countries to tell one another what they think. So I shall be glad to know how Her Majesty's Government view all this, and what element of co-ordination we are succeeding in establishing within our own domestic regime.

But before I put some specific questions on that point, I think one should perhaps put the Ekofisk incident in perspective. I think we would all agree that the main risk with such volatile oil was of fire. Thanks to the care and skill of Mr. Adair and his team, this major risk was avoided. But much North Sea oil is of a similar character to that of the Ekofisk field, and we might not be so lucky next time. my first question is, therefore, whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that the fire-fighting vessels povided by the various operators are adequate in themselves—that is, in equipment, in speed and the like—that they are sufficient in number and suitably placed to reach any accident at a North Sea oil installation in time to be effective, that communications and agreed chains of command between the individual operators are such that difficulties can easily and quickly he overcome.

I understand that earlier there was talk of a combined North Sea fire-fighting force, but I understand that this proposition fell through and that operators have been making their own individual plans. This division of responsibility does cause many of us considerable disquiet. The Department of Energy is responsible, with the Health and Safety Executive, for safety on oil installations within the British zone and lays down conditions for the offshore operators. But, if things go wrong, what happens occurs not on land but in a marine environment, and this is extremely important. It is an environment with which the Department of Energy, a land-based Department, is not necessarily familiar. Responsibility for dealing with oil on the sea—that is, with oil pollution in all its manifestations—rests with the Department of Trade, and one would like to know what is the relationship between these rigs and platforms, which seem to be regarded as tiny areas of land within the marine environment, and the sea-based services on which they may have to depend in case of any major disaster. Do they understand one another's language, and I mean this almost literally. Do they have joint inspections? How close in practice and at operational level is the co-ordination between land-based and sea-based administration? What instruction or training in sea safety practices is given to oil rig crews? Such may be needed in North Sea conditions, which are very different, of course, from conditions in the Gulf of Mexico, to which many of the American operators are accustomed.

May I mention one area of doubt. I have recently had discussions on communication systems between shore and sea in oil pollution situations. I was astonished to find, for example, that the system of VHF communication normally used by helicopter crews is not compatible with that commonly employed at sea. Aeronauts and mariners apparently have gone their different ways. Are British communication systems compatible with those of our North Sea neighbours? The oil rig operators are accustomed, of course, to communicating direct with their tower block offices on land. They are required, I believe, to keep marine equipment to hand; that is, equipment suitable for marine communication. But it seems to me very doubtful whether they pay much regard to its maintenance, or conceivably whether they know how to use it. That is one small, but in certain circumstances possibly quite significant, example of the difficulties which can arise when one is dealing with industrial organisations in the middle of the sea.

I do not know whether my noble friend would be in any position to say what stage has been reached in discussions on another matter which is germane to the fire risk especially; that is, whether or not separate platforms are likely to be required—I must say at vast expense—as potential refuges in case of the kind of disaster which might have happend at Ekofisk, although in fact most happily it did not. I shall be surprised if he can given any definitive answer; but if he were able to give us any indication of Government thinking it might be very helpful.

The fire risk, as I say, was quite obviously the main concern at Ekofisk. But, of course, we have to consider the fact that quite a considerable amount of oil was lost. It is true it was only something in the neighbourhood of 20,000 tonnes, which is not much by comparison with nearly 120,000 tonnes which was lost from the "Torrey Canyon". Nevertheless, it is too much, and I shall return to oil recovery problems in a moment. Then, of course, the third area of concern was the possibility of environmental damage by oil which reached the shore, by damage to marine food chains, by direct effect on birds and on fish, including spawn and fish lavae. In this context one must say that if we had to have a North Sea blow-out, then the Ekofisk field was probably as good a place to have it as any and the time of year could have been much worse than the end of April—because at that time relevant fish spawning was not endangered and the most important seabird groups were at their breeding grounds and not on the open sea.

The amount of oil to reach either British or Norwegian shores seems likely to be a very small proportion indeed of the total. Therefore, in this case, this does not seem to be any major problem. I have heard that the sliktrak forecast put the figure of possible 40 tonnes reaching the British eastern seaboard, with Lincolnshire as the most vulnerable area. Possibly my noble friend has more up-to-date information. In any case, the quantity is far smaller than the total loss would suggest. It is estimated that a considerable proportion of the oil evaporated within the first few days, and although the residue might thicken somewhat if it reached the shore—it may have become compacted—it is not the tarry, treacly stuff which one sometimes gets from other sources which can be so disagreeable and damaging.

That brings me to the controversy and the difference in emphasis between the Norwegians and ourselves over mechanical versus chemical methods of treating oil spills at sea. I am sure that we should all be extremely grateful if my noble friend can enlighten us further on this situation. Everyone acknowledges that the chemical dispursants which are now in use are very much less harmful than those used at the time of the "Torrey Canyon" disaster just over 10 years ago. Nowadays they are also used much more sparingly. Happily, we no longer have rockpools and beaches drenched with chemicals which are often more harmful than the oil itself.

In this country we have accumulated and distributed to the various local authorities concerned considerable stocks of improved dispersants. However, some of us question to what extent commercial considerations have entered into this These dispersants are manufactured and may well be a profitable product; this may, perhaps, colour the attitude towards their use. They are relatively simple to employ. The oil companies themselves make some of them. As we know, our Norwegian neighbours—and this has been much publicised in the Press—refuse to touch them. This obviously makes one question their use, because no chemical dispersant is likely to be completely harmless. I believe that that is recognised.

However, I should like to know what research is in hand on the long-term effect of chemicals on the marine food chain, on fish spawn and young fish, and in what circumstances Her Majesty's Government consider that that they should properly be used. What research is taking place on the effect of the chemical residues of oil after evaporation? Is there any synergistic effect between dispersants and the chemical residues of oil. To what extent do we have a scientific basis for our policy in this matter? It is important to recognise that one cannot generalise on this; one must particularise because, for example, what could be damaging inshore to molluses could he tolerated perfectly well in mid-sea by adult fish. In fact, up to a point fish seem to thrive on oil.

However, there are many different varieties of oil. I have been surprised to learn, for example, that Kuwait crude is less toxic to fish than the lighter aromatic oils of the North Sea. In my innocence and ignorance, I had supposed that it would be the other way round. What analysis do we have of the oil at each well point—in our section, at any rate, of the North Sea—of its dispersal characteristics, its toxicity and possible effects in relation to marine life?—because each oil may be different as, for example, the products of the Ekofisk Field and the products of the Mesa Field are radically different. One is a light aromatic oil; I am told that the other is like liquid boot polish. The danger of the Mesa Field is that it is so close inshore that anything that went wrong in that particular situation, very close to the Moray Firth—which is an ecologically vulnerable area—might be very serious indeed.

That brings me to a further question. How adequately is knowledge made available to oil well operators, who are basically engineers, of the particular ecological hazards relating to their own type of oil in its particular location at various seasons of the year? I fully recognise that in practice one should call in the experts when things go wrong and that the judgment of lay people with dangerously little knowledge can be much at fault. However, I also believe that in an emergency the expert can make his points and give his advice or instructions more effectively and intelligently to someone who already has enough background information to grasp what he is talking about and to appreciate the reasons for certain requests or requirements. In my experience, engineers and ecologists seldom meet unless somebody brings them together. I should like to know who is doing that in the context of the North Sea.

In some areas fish matter most; in others it can be birds. I speak now of the ecological and wildlife aspects. Internationally, it is Britain's seabird population that is regarded as our most important contribution to the world's dwindling resources of wildlife. I am told that although our ornithologists, and in particular The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, know a great deal about the habits of birds on land and inshore, and especially about their breeding colonies, far less is known about their habits in the open sea, the routes they take and the timing of their operations. If we should he unfortunate enough to have another blow-out towards the end of July or early in August, I believe that many birds of certain important species could be trapped at sea when the adults are moulting and the young birds not yet able to fly strongly, so that they remain for long periods on the water.

But we do not know enough, and this is a field in which the National Environment Research Council could perhaps step in and help us to find out. Perhaps my noble friend could ask the Council whether it proposes to do so. It seems that we need a great deal more basic knowledge of the kind to which I have referred if we are to make sound judgments as to the methods to be used to deal with large-scale oil spills, which we must expect from offshore operations in the future. The ecology of the North Sea is known in certain aspects, but hitherto it has not been studied adequately in relation to these offshore oil operations.

That brings me back to the question of oil recovery versus dispersants. In pursuit of both methods, British scientists and technologists have put in a great deal of work in the 10 years since the "Torrey Canyon" disaster. I, personally, should like to pay particular tribute to the staff at the Warren Spring Laboratory as well as to the staff of certain of the leading oil companies and to some enthusiasts in the Royal Navy. I have indicated the sources of our disquiet about the use of chemical dispersants, although in some situations I am sure that they may be regarded as essential. However, in the open sea nature takes a hand and disperses much oil without aid. But oil dispersed, whether chemically or naturally, is oil lost to use by man. One cannot help asking whether we have put enough money and manpower into our research and into mechnical recovery. I cannot help doubting it. So far we have nothing effective in sea states likely to be found in the North Sea, though several devices can work reasonably well in harbour or in calm or closed waters.

The Norweigians used their devices on the Ekofisk slick. We sent our Warren Spring vessel "Seaspray", though frankly it was not expected to be operational; it was exclusively experimental. I have heard various figures mentioned of the amount of oil actually recovered. Somewhere between 800 and 1,000 tonnes I think is the most reliable. But I should like to ask my noble friend whether he can give us any indication as to how seriously the Government are taking this matter and how much further effort and resources they hope to put into it.

I should like to mention one matter about which I have been in correspondence with the Departments concerned; namely, the proposal put to me that if we are to take seriously possible recovery of oil on the high seas, then it is essential to have vessels large enough to receive any of these residues. For this purpose, the most likely solution would be to use some of the laid-up tankers which have been displaced by modern giant oil carriers, and to use them as reception vessels into which one could pump the oil and water mixture for separation, if possible on the spot, if we find ourselves able to gather it by improved boom and skimmer devices.

The disappointment some of us have felt so far about the lack of success of these devices may perhaps be short lived if more recent experiments prove to be successful. The real problem of trying to gather oil together in the North Sea, quite apart from weather conditions, is that most of the North Sea oil is so thin and spreads so rapidly. I am told that the thickness is not more than 0.1 millimeter. You cannot gather that quantity of oil unless somehow you can mechanically concentrate it. That seems to be a major technological problem, but I cannot believe that it is beyond our resources to find some method of doing it.

I should mention a matter which did not arise out of this particular incident but might have arisen in so far as Ekofisk is connected by pipeline to land; that is, how adequate do Her Majesty's Government believe inspection of pipelines is in North Sea conditions. I do not profess to have any technical knowledge about this matter, but one hears constantly rumours and suggestions—I do not put them higher than that—that accidents could occur; that the conditions in the North Sea are such that the casings of these pipes could be damaged; that, although they have arrangements for metering the oil flow, these can be affected by temperature and are not entirely reliable; that they have safety valves which should come into operation if there were to be a leak, but if there were a slow leak again they may not be sensitive enough.

What one is concerned about here is the pipelines not so much in the open sea but as they come inshore where you have ecologically very vulnerable areas. One is thinking of places, for example, like Sullom Voe. I should like to be reassured that the Government are satisfied that adequate tests are taken and adequate inspections made of the pipelines as well as the other installations on the platforms themselves because there is a good deal of anxiety about this. Some of it may be ill-founded. It would be helpful if we could know more about it.

Finally, I want to come to some organisational and legal matters. First, the relationship between Her Majesty's Government and the oil operators. I understand that safety and pollution avoidance plans are submitted to the Department of Energy as part of the licensing procedure, but these are submitted on a commercial in-confidence basis. Outside organisations who may be interested in the matter have no right to be informed. How can we be satisfied, for example, that adequate account is taken of the need to safeguard areas that are ecologically vulnerable? What action is taken to ensure that these statements of intent prior to licensing are, in fact, carried out?

What is the nature of the inspection procedure, and again what reports, if any, are available to interested bodies? Are Her Majesty's Government satisfied that all oil spills are reported? Even a small spill can be informative. We have some reason to think that not all oil spills are, in fact, reported. If they are fairly small they are apt to be concealed. Is there any central register of spills, which could of course include ship generated as well as offshore generated? If so, should it not be an open one? The total figures of ship generated oil spills at any rate are issued from time to time by the Department of Trade, but the number reported by them is five to six times fewer than the number reported, mainly by local authorities and Her Majesty's Coastguards, to the Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution in the Sea for its annual review of oil spills off United Kingdom shores.

This may be due partly to spills being, what you might call, "twice sighted" as they move along the coast, but one cannot tell without an open register. The public has a right to know the true position. But the inspection procedure is of paramount importance. In using even tried technology in unfamiliar conditions, which is the state of affairs in the North Sea, a highly qualified inspectorate could be extremely helpful to operators as well as safeguarding the public interest. For example, one cannot help asking whether, if inspection were adequate, the upside-down incident would have ever occurred. Someone not there just for the daily job but coming in with open eyes from outside might possibly have spotted the danger of such an item of equipment.

What is the standing of inspectors who visit the oil platforms? Are they concerned solely with safety of operation or do they take environmental factors into account as well? Do they have, in other words, a role comparable with that in other circumstances of Her Majesty's Alkali Inspectorate? In addition to inspectors, one also needs adequate monitoring. By that I mean being able to identify oil spills on the water. This can no doubt best be done from the air. What plans do the Government have for such a service, and what collaboration or co-ordination is there in this and comparable matters with our North Sea neighbours? Possibly this is a matter which could be dealt with under the Bonn Agreement of 1969. I was glad to be informed only today that Her Majesty's Government are now satisfied that the Bonn Agreement will cover offshore as well as ship-generated pollution in the North Sea.

Finally, can my noble friend give even a rough estimate of the cost of the Ekofisk incident? Does this experience in any way modify the views of Her Majesty's Government on the liability limits included in the 1976 Convention on Civil Liability for Oil Pollution Damage, about which some of us have been fairly sceptical?

I have given my noble friend notice of a further question which frankly does not arise out of the Ekofisk incident and, therefore, is perhaps strictly not in order; but as he has had notice of it if he were able to reply it would be helpful to many of us interested in oil pollution matters. What action do Her Majesty's Government contemplate to secure observance in the congested Strait of Dover of the traffic separation schemes which come into force in July next, but which do not appear to be binding on flagships of States not a party to the international regulations under which schemes have been made? These ships are just as likely, some much more likely, as ships of the contracting parties, to be involved in collisions which could involve oil pollution.

I have asked a great many questions and I would not expect my noble friend necessarily to be in a position to answer them all; but except for the last one, they all come under the umbrella Question concerning the Ekofish experience and all are germane to the problems which are being studied by Her Majesty's Government and by the other Governments concerned with conditions in the North Sea. I am sure that any answers my noble friend can give will be read in many quarters with the greatest interest and attention. Fortunately, this incident has been nothing like as serious as it might have been. We do not know what the next incident might he and therefore to learn the lessons from Ekofisk is, we would all agree, extremely worthwhile.

7.41 p.m.

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

My Lords, predictably the noble Baroness, Lady White, used to good advantage the rather more ready availability of time in this House to raise this Question. She did so in an extremely comprehensive manner and some of us will be in a little difficulty to avoid repeating many of the questions she asked. I hope she gave the Minister a certain amount of notice of her questions, otherwise I suspect he will be in grave difficulty, because some of them were highly technical, particularly those outside his immediate Departmental interest. It may well be that this matter should be tackled by a series of Written Answers, but perhaps this is something that can go into a comprehensive report that we shall get about this incident in due time.

It is worth starting by making the point that we have known from the outset that the North Sea operations were on the frontiers of technology, and I think we can count ourselves as having been fortunate so far. Perhaps this is largely due to the cleverness of the extremely brilliant technicians who have been working there—we do not want to overlook what they have achieved in a remarkably short time—and in a sense we can draw a certain amount of encouragement and cautious confidence from what has happened. Nevertheless, as Lady White said, this has been a salutary warning to us against over-confidence and I hope we shall profit by studying what has happened and learn the lessons from it.

When does the Minister think a report is likely to be produced? After all, a comprehensive report in two years' time will, frankly, be far too late. We want something reasonably quickly, even if it is not totally comprehensive and complete. It is also probably true to say that it will be more interesting to know how we feel we reacted to the emergency than to have a complicated analysis, which I am sure many of us would not understand, as to exactly what the cause was, although I fully accept that the main emphasis in all our thinking about this sort of affair must be on precautionary measures to prevent it happening.

On the credit side, let us remember that only one well was affected in this case and, as Lady White said, there was no fire. Noble Lords may have seen on television the pictures of the platform on fire in the Gulf of Mexico, and there a large number of wells took fire. I understand that it is much less likely to occur now because there are downhole preventers which, in this particular instance, had already been removed so that the fishing operation could take place for the piece of equipment that had been lost.

We must remember, too, that we have the advantage of this being a light oil in turbulent waters, and from the narrow interest of this country I suppose that we must be grateful that we live in an area of prevailing south-westerly winds, although as a gardener I have become painfully aware in recent years that at just about this time of year we seem to get a great deal of easterly wind, and yesterday was perhaps an example of what we can expect. I am being thoroughly parochial in saying that because this would affect Britain more adversely than it would the countries on the other side of the North Sea.

We can take some encouragement, too, from the actual oil pollution figure; it was about 16,000 tons spread over about ten days and it is an interesting thought—I admit that I have not checked this with the experts—that, according to my understanding, if one has to drill a diversion well one is involved in about six weeks of work. It would appear likely, therefore, that even if one has to drill a diversion well, one is still involved with only the amount of oil that came out of the "Torrey Canyon" disaster. Goodness knows! that was bad enough, but we must try to keep a sense of proportion about these things. There is an important proviso about this to which I shall come later—and, of course, this is all on the assumption that the equipment to deal with such incidents is readily available when they happen.

I do not know whether the Minister will tell us what the statistical forecasts warn us is likely to occur. The noble Lord, Lord Ritchie-Calder, who will speak later, is something of a dab hand in this connection, so perhaps we shall hear more about it before the evening is out. It is clear that we shall have to deal with this kind of happening again. My impression is that the oil companies are taking the view that the difficulty about being adequately prepared to deal with every contingency is that there are so many different possible crises that could arise that it is very difficult to standardise one ship that is sufficiently comprehensively equipped to deal with all emergencies which can arise. One must therefore have a very wide range of equipment available.

Added to that is the fact that these fields are quite widely scattered over a considerable area, across the North Sea and it is obviously important to have emergency equipment quite near at hand when there is a disaster or potential disaster. We know that BP have the "Forties Kiwi", which I think cost them £3 million, and they have announced the possibility of building a further ship costing £20 million, so it is clear that the oil companies take an extremely serious view of their responsibilities in this matter.

I gather also that when this incident took place much more equipment was offered by the various companies than was used or was considered to be needed. What I am not clear about is what financial arrangement is made between the companies when this sort of incident occurs. If equipment is called up to stand by, is it paid for by the company responsible for operating the platform and, if it is used, is it then paid for by the company or its insurance company? Red Adair was called in this instance and I understand that he has a fixed fee, whereas the salvage tugs, which conceivably might be a comparable kind of organisation, normally work on a no-cure-no-pay basis. I am not sure which arrangement we think would be most satisfactory for the kind of thing that we foresee in the North Sea.

Here, I am in danger of sounding a little controversial, which I do not wish, but I felt that the Ministerial reaction to this episode was rather interesting. It did not seem that it showed a totally relaxed confidence in the contingency plan if the first thing that the Minister felt he had to do was to climb into an aeroplane and open up conversations with his opposite number in Norway. It may be that he felt he had to demonstrate public concern and show that he was doing something but, personally. I should have been happier if he had said, "All this has been foreseen. We know exactly what to do and we are now going to go ahead and do it". Similarly, it seems curious that he now announces that he is to set up a study group. Should we not have set up that study group two years ago when the whole operation first got under way?

Lord STONE

My Lords, would it not be advisable to get evidence of what research is needed? Also, was it not the events that stimulated the idea rather than having the whole thing in theory?

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

I accept that up to a point, my Lords, but I had been going to go on to say that we now hear that Red Adair is to be called in as a consultant. Although it may have been something of a sales pitch, Red Adair has been saying for a long time that something like this was going to happen. I should have thought that, if we had really been thinking forward properly, he should have been consulted long ago. Maybe he has been, in which case—

Lord PARRY

My Lords, I wonder whether the noble Lord would give way? It seems to me a pity that his speech is wandering into an area of discussion that should best be left at this point because constructive points have been made up till now which seemed extremely helpful. It is a pity that we are now entering into this argument when the whole expertise in the North Sea has been purchased in order that the techniques that have been practised elsewhere may be developed off our shores and, in the long run, be to the advantage of our economy. Red Adair was acting in an incident that was totally unexpected, and the expertise that he has gained elsewhere was equally brought in order to be of future use. It would be squandering that very expensive experience if we did not use it in the advisory committee that is to be set up.

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

My Lords, I do not know that I follow the noble Lord. It seems to me that we have brought in this gentleman and have said that we intend to use him as a consultant in the future. He has said for a long time that this kind of thing would happen. If that is so, I really cannot understand why we did not—if, indeed, we did not—consult him a long time ago. I am not trying to be destructive but merely saying that it is perhaps salutary that we have been reminded that we have been remiss in our duty. Of course it is true that one has to say that that is the Government's responsibility.

I hope that the noble Lord will also take this opportunity to deal with the rather enigmatic Press reports which have been ascribed to the Minister and which have certainly been taken in some quarters as indicating that he is considering the possibility of making the expenses incurred in dealing with this type of situation not deductible for tax. I cannot believe that that could possibly be the case, but it is certainly an interpretation that has been put upon some of the Press reports that I have seen. Clearly, insurance and precautionary measures are desirable and must be considered as an oil company's operating expenses. We should indeed be working in the wrong direction if we did anything to prejudice that.

I was also struck by a point raised by the noble Baroness when she asked what practice crews were given. I wonder whether we might not go even further, and whether there is any mechanism for a joint Ministry/oil company system of exercises in dealing with major crises of this kind. Such crises will certainly occur again, and it seems to me that we could learn something if we staged a military type exercise to see how effective our measures were.

In that connection, I should also like to underline what the noble Baroness said about the importance of the communications system. How well did it work? Did we have any difficulty with non-compatibility of equipment, whether airborne, seaborne or company equipment as opposed to national telegraphic equipment? It is most important that we should have a net of compatible equipment so that everybody can be co-ordinated and can know what everybody else is doing. Here again, that equipment must be regularly exercised so that we are sure that it works when we need it. One knows that standby equipment is frequently neglected unless somebody is made to check it.

Can the noble Lord also tell us a little more about how the costing of this type of operation is carried out? I imagine that the oil company is responsible for the expenses of cleaning up the mess which it is responsible for making. Who assesses what has been the damage and what are the appropriate measures to take, and who decides what measures are demonstrably sensible but not extravagant? The noble Baroness asked what had been the total cost, and I suppose that I am asking how this is allocated.

That raises the further question of how the assessors and inspectors dealing with this kind of situation are trained. Have they yet had time to get any specialised training in this field? Can we be told of the progress of the discussions with the Norwegians? The noble Baroness spoke of the mechanical versus the chemical approach: is it a fact that the Norwegians still rely on skimmers and are still rejecting dispersants? Is it also true that we still look at it the other way round? And what evidence have both our countries for their particular point of view? I do not wish to try to indulge in a lot of technical stuff which we should in any case probably not understand. Should we not also he talking with the Danes, the Germans and the Swedes, all of whom are potential sufferers from this kind of episode, as well as the Norwegians?

Lord HALE

And the Dutch, my Lords.

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

Yes, my Lords. If we look much further ahead, although at the moment we have many support ships as well as drilling rigs on station in the North Sea, the time will come when a great deal of that equipment will have been dispersed and will have moved on somewhere else. Have we thought at all about how we are to be sure of having the equipment that we need when it becomes necessary later on?

To finish, I should like to return to my starting point by saying that this episode has demonstrated that there is no cause for panic. It seems that the plans worked well at a technical level, and I believe that we shall be interested to know whether the Government think that there is room for improvement before the next crisis hits us. We must not be surprised if it happens again, which it surely will.

7.59 p.m.

The Earl of KIMBERLEY

My Lords, I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, particularly on some of the very penetrating questions which she has put to the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, this evening. I wish also to say how grateful, I am sure, are noble Lords in the House that this Question has been put; and the general public will be grateful, too. The Ekofisk incident, apart from any physical damage, has brought home to the public in no uncertain way the dangers of these problems. I believe that at a meeting between the Department of Energy and the United Kingdom Offshore Operators Association on 5th May, it was stated that, with the exception of one, all the vessels which were used were capable only of supplying large quantities of water to keep the platform cooled.

The noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, said that it is very difficult to have the right kind of vessels everywhere at the right time, and I must agree with him, because there are so many types of trouble. But I am led to believe that there is only one specific anti-blow-out vessel under construction, and that has been commissioned by Phillips, although yesterday's Times reported that there were some informal talks taking place with BP about building a £25 million offshore maintenance safety and fire-fighting vessel. Should this go ahead I sincerely hope that it will be built by British shipyards.

In the report from the Department of the Environment last year, entitled Accidental Pollution of the Sea, it was stated, as has been said previously, that there is a 50/50 chance of a blow-out in the next five years, but I should think that the probability is that it will be less than five years. The report stated that the safety precautions were adequate. I am glad that the Secretary of State for Energy said the other day that he did not necessarily think that they were adequate, and it would be interesting if the noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, could confirm this. Perhaps the Government could specify whether there are any new anti-pollution measures for when the next blow-out should occur. Would it not possibly be a sensible idea to have a conference of the oil-producing nations who operate in the North Sea area? I believe that such a conference could do three things. It could co-ordinate the monitoring of oil spillage, try to prepare an almost instantaneous reaction to deal with a blow-out wherever it may occur, and, lastly, possibly train a European "Red" Adair. On the BBC programme "The Energy File" the other day Mr. Adair said again that he did not think that the safety precautions in the North Sea were adequate, but, as I have said, it appears that the Government are inclined to agree with this.

So what have we learned? We need, if it is humanly possible, better and more adequate fire and anti-pollution precautions. But alas! no precautions will be 100 per cent. effective because blow-outs are usually the result of a human error. Therefore the optimum must be to provide measures to contain the disaster until the well can be killed. As the noble Baroness said, we are woefully behind in combating pollution at sea, so we must improve existing measures, together with the fire and blow-out preventive measures. I say this because a disaster like Ekofisk, small as it was, is international. Norway really needed outside help, and so would we if it were on one of our rigs. It would be no good saying that the artificial boundary line, such as the median line between the United Kingdom and Norway, is safe; that "it is your problem on your side, or our problem on this side".

In my very humble opinion the reason for the deficiency and lack of a lot of the right equipment is that it has never yet been clearly defined as to whose is the responsibility; whether it is that of the Government or of the oil companies. Neither can sit idly by waiting for something to happen, but so far, on the whole, neither has been prepared to undertake the necessary capital expenditure on the best possible offshore anti-blow-out equipment. The oil companies have no statutory obligations in this regard, except those which were granted licences in the last licensing round; and although some equipment and chemicals are available in Aberdeen and various other ports, very often they would probably be totally insufficient in a major emergency. Perhaps this could almost be termed as a public relations exercise, as it must be open to doubt how quickly and effectively the equipment could be brought to bear. I believe that recently a more substantial scheme has been started, known as OPOL (the Offshore Pollution Operators' Liability) which could be likened unto an insurance policy. But it is not yet fully implemented, and it is not supported by all the offshore operators, and I believe that the subscription to it is voluntary.

So to clarify the situation, we must try to determine whose is the responsibility in the event of a blow-out. If it is the operators' responsibility, it must be specifically defined and written into their licences. If this were done it would precipitate rapid action, which could be taken jointly, and some form of mandatory insurance. I do not think that the Government should leave the oil companies holding all the responsibility, because the Government take large fees and royalties and taxes, and some of this money should be allocated towards protective measures. Therefore, in practice the Government's responsibility could, in part, be exercised by BNOC, which has a 51 per cent. share in the existing production, and it would then bear its share pro rata of any measures and/or expenditure which would be required.

I have one slight doubt or feeling of unhappiness about this. Does BNOC have the technical ability? I ask this because, without wishing to denigrate it, I must say that it is a company which is directed by politicians and economists who may well not have the necessary expertise. Much more research must be done in clearing up the oil slicks, and this research can be improved. Here again, responsibility will have to be defined.

Lastly, there is the question of sabotage. Security has been taken to prevent sabotage, but it must be remembered that this threat is always present, and therefore the security must never be allowed to slacken off. The risk of sabotage is great, but probably a far greater risk is possible collision in poor visibility by ships, especially fishing vessels. It seems to me that the Government, unless they specify whose responsibility it is to provide equipment and take action in the event of a major blow-out, must be at fault. It is urgent that this be rectified, because there is bound to be a repetition of the Ekofisk incident, even if only because of the human element, and it could happen tonight or tomorrow.

8.7 p.m.

Lord RITCHIE-CALDER

My Lords, I follow the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, in the ominous note on which he finished his speech. Is it not rather frightening to think that one man, "Red" Adair, stands between us and catastrophe? I applaud what he did in capping the blow-out in the Ekofisk field, but I would remind your Lordships that he is continuous, he is in demand all over the world. Why is he in continuous demand all over the world? It is because, as others have suggested, there are blow-outs onshore and offshore all over the world, and as things stand at the moment we will go on having blow-outs on and offshore all over the world. Whenever and wherever there is a blow-out, people say, "Get 'Red' Adair". I notice that my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Energy, Dr. Dickson Mabon, has invited "Red" Adair to advise the Government on how to cope speedily with emergencies like Ekofisk, if such a thing should occur in the British sector. I want to follow what the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, said on this matter. Where are the other "Red" Adairs? Why do we not have them in this area? Why do the Americans not have them in various areas? He is practically unique.

Another matter, which is much more important, is the question of why a blowout should occur. Is it not really frightening that a valve should be installed the wrong way round? We have heard about inspection and so on, but this is almost primitive engineering that we are talking about. We talk about human error as though it were a legitimate excuse. There is no legitimate excuse for the kind of errors which can create the situations such as we have seen.

Remember, my Lords, that we are multiplying the risk of human error every day as the oil programme expands, and we are also magnifying the risk. The expertise of the oil industry is being spread extremely thinly, and risks are being taken with inexperienced so-called experts. For example, the death toll of divers in the North Sea grows every day. We find that many of them—and I speak as an expert in the British Sub-Aqua Club—are little better than amateurs, improperly trained and certainly, so far as I can gather, with very little insight into what they are doing except by specific instruction. They are willing, it is true, to risk their lives, but they are that amateurish that they are putting many more at risk.

We are told that, undeterred by Ekofisk, the Norwegians are going ahead with plans to lay pipelines across the Norwegian Trench— that deep seabed which shears the Continental Shelf—but we should remember from our debate here on the future of the hydrography service that in the North Sea and around the Orkneys and Shetlands we are laying massive pipelines in areas which, in many instances, have been inadequately surveyed. If every half-mile has to be resurveyed, I hope they are doing it, because what we heard here disclosed a very disquieting picture in relation to what we know about the seabed in the areas in which they are laying the pipelines.

My Lords, we are pushing ahead with an oil programme on which, we are told, a geat deal, including the future solvency of Great Britain, depends. We are doing it considerably through oil companies which claim to have the expertise, but that expertise is only commensurate with the experience of the experts, and we have a right to ask: How expert are the experts? I think this has come through, with some disquiet, from the speeches of previous speakers. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that, so far as the North Sea is concerned, much of what has been done—and I say this advisedly—has been improvisation. These giant platforms are only scaled-up versions of the kind of installations which have been employed in the Gulf of Mexico and in other shallow areas. I have no doubt that structurally they conform to the ready-reckoners of the civil and mechanical engineers, but the North Sea is one of the most storm-driven seas in the world. The engineers may be getting out of their depth. Obviously, the installations should not be standing on stilts or forming artificial islands: they should be encapsulated on the seabed. Then, my Lords, we are back where we started. How can we ensure that these unmanned, remote-controlled installations, which will come, will be safe, maintainable and repairable?

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Minister of State for Energy, speaking last Friday at the opening of the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Heriot Watt University, Edinburgh, insisted that we, the British, should be "the pioneering entrepreneurs of the oil industry", and went on to say: We intend that Britain should be firmly established in the oil business long after the last drop of North Sea oil is gone". He was opening a pioneer department which provides facilities for 20—I repeat, 20—postgraduate petroleum engineering students at present on their master of engineering courses. My Lords, if we are going into the business we need many times more qualified people than that. I do not want to imply any disrespect to the universities and the technical colleges which are undertaking this, but I do say that we want to have a great deal more knowledge and insight than we either have or are giving them.

I would go further, much further, than my right honourable friend and say that we need an ocean industry in which we, Britain, should take the lead in another Industrial Revolution. An ocean industry would mean much more than oil exploitation. It would mean human effort on the seabed itself—a transfer to a new living environment, and not just, as at present, ad hoc recruiting and training of adventurous divers. It means, among other things, the regulated development of seabed minerals, the harnessing of energy from the sea and (and this is the point I am trying to make) not just oil drillings; that is to say, energy from oil drillings. We are now getting into wave-generated electricity, heat transfer systems and so forth. Above all—this, I think, is the lesson of Ekofisk, and I would warn anybody who ignores the warning that it will be serious consequentially—training for an ocean industry should lay paramount importance on the ecological and environmental safeguards. We cannot afford to take chances. The oceans are our last resort. We have been outrageously reckless and extravagant with our land resources. We cannot, we must not, mismanage our ocean resources through cynical commercialisation, whether in the petroleum industry or in seabed mining.

I am specially sensitive about this subject, my Lords. Nearly 10 years ago, as was referred to earlier, we had the "Torrey Canyon" situation. At the same time, or immediately after, I recall very vividly that I left a debate in your Lordships' House and I flew to California. A friend had given us a house right on the beach. We arrived after dark, and in the morning we pulled back our curtains to admire the beauties of the Santa Barbara channel and the offshore islands. We could not see out. The windows were smothered in oil spray from the incoming waves. This had been the night of the Santa Barbara blow-out—an earlier Ekofisk. From then on we had the torment of thousands of dying sea-birds before our very eyes and a beach on which we could not even walk because it was smothered deep in oil. I am not going to repeat that outrageous story in which the oil company had taken risks which a schoolgirl geologist could have foreseen. One would have thought that the lesson would have been learned, and yet 10 years later, and obviously with very little sense of what actually happened—I am sorry; it is true—we are now, in a different dimension and in different places, facing the kind of things that we are talking about here.

My Lords, we think of oil as polluted beaches, dead sea birds, and as the destruction of marine life. I would put it tonight in another dimension—no less than a threat to our continued existence, and not just in terms of recreational pleasure or of sea food. The ocean is part of that elaborate and balanced system which generates and regenerates our atmosphere. It is a source of oxygen indispensable to all life on earth. If we curtail that oxygen supply, we impair and ultimately destroy our means of respiration. Oil released from the vaults of millions of years ago is an intractable chemical. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lady White for her extremely interesting and differentiating account of the nature of the oils of the North Sea, but I would remind anyone here that it is an intractable chemical. We are told very glibly that, apart from decomposing it with detergents, nature will biodegrade it. But I would remind your Lordships that to biodegrade oil needs a great oxygenation process, using up the oxygen in nature. The extent of this process is still not fully understood, but that does not mean that we have to overlook it or pretend it is not there, because the implications are certain.

I was very interested, also, that my noble friend Lady White brought out this question of synergistics in relation to oil and other chemicals, because I would remind your Lordships that there is an unholy alliance in a strange way between oil and DDT. In the Mediterranean—and I wrote a book on the pollution of the Mediterranean—we found the trees of the Bourbon Forest in the Tyrenian coast had been destroyed because they had been enamelled, I repeat "enamelled", with a combination of oil and DDT which had stifled and smothered the leaves of the trees.

This is all part of the story of which we have no adequate or properly adequate information today. The implications go further: the implications of a film of oil spreading, as Thor Heyerdahl told us from his experience of raft-crossing the Atlantic, for thousands of square miles over the surface of the oceans. That layer can act like the filter of a camera and cut out the sun's rays which are necessary for the photosynthetic process in the upper waters where the phytoplankton and the zoo-plankton grow, not only to supply part of the food cycle but to release oxygen into the atmosphere.

My Lords, this is a very, very serious problem, which in the haste and hurry of our development of oil (for the imperative reasons which are always justified) we are at the moment, in the scientific and technological history, at least, only beginning to glimpse. But it is so important that—and I am not asking my noble friend on the Front Bench to answer this—among those who are concerned with this (in the multiplicity of Departments mentioned by my noble friend Lady White, which fills me with dismay) somebody, somewhere, somehow should be looking not just at the immediacies of the Ekofisk but the certainty—and I say this to the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley—of repetitions. It is not just what Red Adair has said: it is a mathematical certainty that the way things are going now we will have repetitions on a world scale. I cannot conceive of what would happen if we had a repetition in the North Sea of what happened in Saudi Arabia with a backflash fire through an entire oilfield. What would happen to Piper Field and all the others if we had that?

The noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, was asking who should share the responsibility. It is a Government responsibility. It is government by catastrophe when you must wait for something like this to happen before something is done about it. But, also, the burden of this responsibility must lie with those people who are on the job, doing the job, and with the experts and expertise that they are supposed to be able to muster. To the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, I would say that I do not think that it was the chartered accountants and the civil servants who discovered the BP oilfield in Alaska. There was a good deal more expertise than there was bookkeeping or civil servants.

My Lords, the question is this. Who will deal with it? First, I put the responsibility squarely on the Government. It is their job to see that if we have not enough adequate experts—and 20 MSc's is not good enough for me—we should be encouraging and developing as quickly and as thoroughly as we can the kind of people who, as my noble friend Lady White suggested, will be standing at the elbows of the engineers to see that they know what it is that they are talking about in relation to these things.

Dr. Mabon, the other day, said that frankly we would hope to get more co-operation from the oil companies than we have had so far. If the Government, he said, had to make arrangements, then the oil companies would be charged; if compulsion is wanted then we have ample powers provided by Parliament—and the oil companies know it. This should not be a confrontation. Everybody's interests are at stake and I am going to stake a claim for the most important interest of all. It is that we are watching, in this situation of oil blow-outs, of tankers sinking, of the dumping of waste and of all the other forms of oil pollution, in our own time a tragedy which can put prosperity itself in hazard.

8.25 p.m.

Lord AUCKLAND

My Lords, it is a pity that this very important debate has to take place at a very late hour and in a thin House because I believe this is one of the most important topics that Parliament has discussed for a very long time. It is true that the question concerns a very narrow geographical area but, as has already been stated, it has implications for a very much larger area not only in this country but in many other countries.

The nearest I have been to an oil rig is flying over one of the oil rigs in the North Sea in a helicopter on a fine summer's day. Possibly if some of us—and, indeed, Members of the other place—were able to visit an oil rig from time to time to see for ourselves what really happens it might be very educational for us; because it is a handicap to speak on a topic of this kind if one has not been on the scene.

It so happens that today's Financial Times carries an excellent supplement on Norway. There were two important points borne out about Ekofisk. First, the point already mentioned; that is, that the blow-out took place in fine weather. What might have happened had there been a gale, or if there had been an ignition of inflammable gases, was also mentioned as part of the supplement. It is not difficult to imagine what the consequences could have been. Also, it is perhaps cruelly ironic that, according to another part of the supplement, Norway's oil explorations are almost at a standstill now—not, one hopes, due entirely to Ekofisk, but because of the labour market. And this could have serious implications. The risks have already been mentioned and it is not difficult to envisage what could cause future disasters of this kind, because this very nearly was a disaster.

As one who works in the insurance market, I can tell your Lordships that there was a great deal of apprehension when this incident was reported. Had the worst happened, the insurance market could have had a crippling loss at a time when (as I mentioned in a debate yesterday) it is contributing vastly to our invisible exports. Of course, that is why insurance markets exist. This is a perfectly rational point. It could have had terrible consequences and there could have been heavy loss of life, as the noble Baroness, Lady White, mentioned. The effect on bird life could also have been dreadful. As it happened, according to reports which I have read, the loss of life among birds was mercifully small. There could have been a really major disaster.

The noble Lord, Lord Strabolgi, has had a surfeit of questions thrown at him, some of which no doubt he has been given notice, but others not. I should like to ask the noble Lord a question and I apologise for not giving him notice. I will understand if he is not able to answer it this evening. Section 6 of the Mineral Workings (Offshore Installations) Act 1971 imposes specific duties on inspectors regarding the safety aspect of oil rigs. Are the noble Lord and the Department of Energy satisfied that the Inspectorate are strong enough? This Act has now been operational, as I understnd it, since 1974. This is an important point.

The rupture of a platform by a trawl, an anchor or ramming by a vessel could easily cause a similar or worse disaster of the kind we have been discussing; and, of course, human nature being what it is, human error cannot always be avoided. Safety is all-important, and it is clear that one of the lessons which one hopes any Government must have learned from this blow-out, and previous blow-outs, is that existing legislation, such as the 1971 Act, must be looked at carefully and the terms of the Act enforced strongly. Parliament will need to debate a much wider measure than this in the future. As has already been said, there is little doubt that there will be further accidents of this kind. I will not pursue the question which has already been adequately pursued as to whether there are sufficient experts like Mr. Red Adair on hand if a serious blow-out occurs, whether it is in Scotland, Norway, or elsewhere. It is clear that if there is not expert help on hand and the weather is bad, and things are not in one's favour—and in Ekofisk they seem to have been—the worst could happen.

Anybody reading this debate may well say that this House is crying woe. That may be the case, but we are discussing an incident which could have been desperately serious. It is to be hoped, my Lords, that, as a result of this Question, the Government, oil companies and all concerned, will do all that is humanly possible if not to avoid another disaster of this kind then to minimise its effects.

8.35 p.m.

Lord HALE

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, called our attention to, I think, the financial section of The Times of this morning which I have not had the opportunity to see and probably shall not see, because I do not have occasion to read the financial pages of any newspaper. He referred to one of the points which is of serious anxiety to me: it is the way that this matter is being taken in Norway. We all know that Norway is a very ecologically conscious country and that the question of going into North Sea oil was a controversial one and is still a highly political one.

But here we have a blow-out disaster. Everybody agrees it has to be expected and has to be regarded to some extent as inevitable, though most of us believe that the new and elaborate blow-out controls provide a much greater measure of safety, and it may be that many of them do. We have a situation in which the Minister closes down the Ekofisk field the moment he has seen it. He says: "You must not apply the modern chemical detergents" if that is what they are—"because they will do more harm than good." The Phillips Company, in desperation, brought out a complete new drilling rig near the point of the disaster ready to bore new pipes by way of relief, an operation which would have taken 40 days.

Were they really expecting, or preparing for, the possibility of this going on for 40 days? What would go on for 40 days? The noble Baroness said this general type of oil, which varies in the North Sea, tends to be highly inflammable. In articles in the Press it has been suggested that if you really get a spark lighting up a blow-out, a gush of oil pouring out at immense speed and power into the sea, the spark might—and I hope it is not true—cause a fire. Presumably the immense heat could melt some of the adjoining contents and could set light to the whole of the well being served by that platform. This was Bravo 14; there are 15 wells going down an immense distance serving that platform. It is almost impossible to visualise what a fire like that could do and how far it could spread.

My Lords, before this incident, I was one of those who thought—not professing to know much about it but having taken a considerable interest in accidents and the sacrifice of life—that, so far as the North Sea Oil operation was concerned, which appeared to have been conducted with very considerable ability, in spite of grave danger of deep-sea diving, the work of an old friend of ours, Professor J. B. S. Haldane, among others, had gone very far to minimise the probability of loss of life. The additional provisions for rescue, the use of such things as undersea television and so on, going right down to the bottom of the pipe, were all providing considerable safeguards. I was one of those who would certainly have said then, and would probably say now, that in the absence of some catastrophic and unnecessary disaster, which could not be prevented in any of the operations of life, the loss of life from North Sea operations was not likely to be nearly as much as from the operations of half a dozen asbestos factories. I was certainly one of those who would have said that, ecologically speaking, the damage to be done by the Liberian Navy, sailing 2,000 ton vessels near our coast—vessels which are incapable of being navigated with safety or with accuracy—is likely to be much more disastrous.

The noble Baroness, Lady White, said that the Ekofisk site is perhaps the most convenient for such a disaster to take place, because it is so situated that it does not threaten immediate damage to any coast—although the Norwegians may rather think they would have preferred a slightly different one—and, of course, the "Torrey Canyon" was pouring out immense quantities of very heavy, very viscous and highly damaging oil, 16 miles from the coast. But in fact, apart from this inflammability, most of the North Sea types of oil have some considerable advantages in this connection and, indeed, in the Claymore and Piper fields of the Occidental Oil Company which I visited, the viscosity of the North Sea oil is stated to be less than that of sea water. This, of course, can result in increased energy coming from the less viscous oil through the mud; but, generally speaking, it can be handled fairly easily.

My Lords, my only previous experience of oil-getting was at Maracaibo, and although that is immensely useful and immensely profitable, it is really a series of comparatively small derricks in what is almost an inland water. When I went to Claymore, we came down on a drilling rig —the Ocean Victory—a tiny spot, looking down from the helicopter. It looks very small until you get to it and then it turns out to be rather bigger than a 23-storey building with a considerable area and an immense degree of technical provisions for communications, with an office and a computer, which was then employing about 70 men with fairly ample accommodation.

I took some pains to check up as far as I could, with my limited knowledge, on the provisions. There were two blow-out containers, both sub-sea, because it was a drilling machine: one with a resistance up to 2,000 pounds per square inch and another with a resistance of 10,000 pounds per square inch. The figure of pressure quoted in the many, varying and different accounts of the Norwegian water explosion was, I think, 3,500. There is to be an investigation, and one hopes that more facts will come out. Once this is done, and once the Norwegian Government have taken this grave view of the situation and once they have, as the noble Lord said, as reported, come to the conclusion that this is a major disaster for Norway, and not only politically—well, one has got to have a look again.

There is the Occidental Company, the Thomson Company and the Getty Company—which have united to finance the Ocean Victory operation. The Ocean Victory was costing 50,000 dollars a day to run. It had been boring, I think, for two and a half years at the end of its stay, and made only two finds, one of which was regarded as a substantial prospect and the other is just about good enough. Fortunately, it was made good enough by the fact that it could be served by the same oil terminal.

The other strange and worrying thing was that they were prepared to build an immense "reaping" platform with 24 wells, I think; and they have laid down 137 miles—my Lords, I fear that I am taking up too much time—of tube. I ought, to do justice, say this. So far as Flotta is concerned, I saw the opening from a comfortable armchair at the Dorchester Hotel on film, with speeches and so on. It may be said that the provision of Flotta for the containing of 500,000-gallon tanks its their services, which will employ 100 Orcadians among the 160 workers, and so on, is good publicity.

All those things were fought by the Government; they were fought by the Ornithological Association; they were the result of long discussions. They have given, we are told, great satisfaction in Orkney. Their industries are being developed, and Orkney is to have its art gallery containing the famous pieces of the well-known Margaret Stuart, who has been living there for some years and has offered to give her pictures. Also, the legendary Mr. Arnold Hammer, who used to be a friend of Lenin, is building a theatre, and so on. It is good publicity. It is very convincing, too. I am quite sure that my noble friend will give all the information that he can.

What I meant was that they did not speculate about this or that. I have a set of illustrated booklets issued by Occidental. I have not been a friend in the past to big companies, and I am not a friend now. I do not know them from Adam, except in two senses. But the booklets are impressive. They show the construction, the siting of the end of the 30-inch pipe, with its immense capacity, the wells, the refinement and the provisions in every way for dealing with the ecological problems. It is an impressive document and they are entitled to the credit. Of course, this is a very well-financed operation.

I agree in every way, in view of the attitude of the Norwegian Government, in view of some of the descriptions that are given, in view of the allegation of a valve being fitted upside down—which I think is quite impossible—or a faulty blow-out container, that all of this is subject to argument in the various camps. We want a lot of information. But this operation has started and it will not be stopped, in view of the immense amount of capital now invested. What we can concentrate on doing is seeing that all possible steps are taken, and I am quite sure that my noble friend Lord Strabolgi will give assurances that that is being done.

8.53 p.m.

Lord STRABOLGI

My Lords, this is a very important matter, and I think that we have had a notable debate. I am very glad that my noble friend Lady White put down her Unstarred Question and I have listened with great interest to the speeches made, demonstrating as they do the concern we all feel about the actual effects of the Ekofisk blow-out, because this Question is about Ekofisk and its lessons and the potential problems that any future blow-out might cause.

Before dealing with the various points raised—and I am grateful to my noble friend Lady White for giving me notice of some of the questions that she would ask—I should like to make a few general points. It might help, first, if I tell the House what seems to have happened at Ekofisk Bravo which, as your Lordships know, is part of the Norwegian Ekofisk oilfield. Late on Friday evening, 22nd April, a routine operation on well maintenance went wrong, when the mud which was in the well started to flow. Immediate attempts to stem the flow were unsuccessful and, of course, a blow-out ensued. The cause of the blow-out has not yet been established with any degree of certainty. The Norwegian Government have announced the setting up of an independent judicial inquiry to establish the facts, and we all await the outcome.

Before describing what the Government are doing in the meantime, I should like to say in answer to the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, whose very constructive speech I greatly welcome, that our own full report will depend upon the progress of the Norwegian inquiry, and we do not yet know when the results will be made available to us. Although the blow-out occurred on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, all North Sea States are, of course, involved in the effects of the pollution and concerned about the measures taken, both to minimise the pollution and to deal with the capping of the well. The Secretary of State for Energy flew to Norway and, as near as flying restrictions would allow, around the Ekofisk oilfield. My right honourable friend discussed with the Norwegian Minister of industry the steps being taken to control the well and the pollution, and he confirmed the offers of United Kingdom assistance.

My noble friend Lady White—rather surprisingly, I thought—asked in a rather dubious tone, if she will allow me to say so, how seriously the Government are taking this matter. On the other hand, was chided by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona who mentioned the fact that my right honourable friend had immediately flown over to Norway. So that, between the two of them, I hope that I have managed to convince your Lordships that the Government take this incident very seriously indeed. I think that your Lordships' House has not had the benefit of the log which has been placed in the Library of another place and I will, if your Lordships wish, see that that is put in your Lordships' Library. Your Lordships will see the very instant action that was taken, showing how very seriously we take these matters.

Tribute has been paid, and rightly so, to Mr. Red Adair and his team from Redco, and I should like to join in this. The working conditions for those bravemen who took on the job of capping the well, having flown in at very short notice from Texas, were hazardous and uncomfortable. Hot oil was pouring out from the well and explosive gas concentrations were present. The job itself is difficult and the risks high. However, as we all know, Mr. Adair and his team were successful—happily for all of us concerned about the possibility of two or three months of continued oil pollution, if the capping had failed.

During the following week, Her Majesty's Government set up an interdepartmental study group to evaluate departmental responses to Ekofisk, and the implications for our national interests offshore, including fisheries. Of course, this is not the first time that this has been done, as I thought the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona, implied. A study group had been in existence for over a year looking at the oil pollution hazards to United Kingdom waters. The Pollution Hazard at Sea Exercise, which reported its findings in Pollution Paper No. 8 last August and the information on blow-outs, was based on United States experience. The study group just set up can now look at the real blow-out, and see what additional lessons are to be learned from what is in many ways rather a new field. The special group, set up after Ekofisk, completed its first task a week later when it published on 6th May a log of the responses by the various Departments concerned. This showed that the Departments involved reacted promptly and effectively, activating the necessary contingency plans and offering a wide range of help to the Norwegian Government.

The second part of the study group's task, to review our response to any incident, is still under way. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Energy has already had two meetings with the United Kingdom Offshore Operators' Association, resulting in the formation of joint industry/Government groups to examine, in particular, the following matters: first, the provision of fire-fighting and emergency vessels. The Ekofisk blow-out has focused attention on the need for capable vessels to provide a supply of water for fire-fighting or cooling purposes, as well as providing a working platform with suitable crane facilities for lifting heavy gear. In the United Kingdom sector, three operators provide vessels with monitors capable of cooling a platform, as was done on Ekofisk, and four more are now being provided. The working group will consider this issue in some detail and recommend the type of vessel and facilities required.

Then there is the question of drilling and production well control. The procedures commonly adopted for controlling oil wells will be reviewed to see whether a common practice needs to be set down and if improvements can be achieved. There is also the question of the oil spill clean-up. The major issue here is what role, if any, skimmers and booms have in assistance such as that planned in the United Kingdom, based on the use of dispersants. I shall have a little more to say later about dispersants versus the containment and recovery which was alluded to by my noble friend Lady White.

The bulk of the equipment deployed to clean up the oil released at Ekofisk consisted of booms and skimmers. The Norwegian authorities permitted the use of dispersants only in the immediate neighbourhood of the platform, to minimise the fire risk. Several skimmers with a claimed capacity of 8,000 tons a day were sent out to Ekofisk by the operators and the Norwegian Government. The operators were able to deploy only two at any one time. Very little oil was collected during the first few days when the skimmers were used. However, there were indications towards the latter end of the clean-up operation that significant amounts of oil were being collected. The improved performance is attributed to favourable weather and experience in operation. A total of 800 tons of oil was collected over a seven day period, and 1,100 tons were estimated to have been dispersed by the limited spraying activity. Once the well had been capped, the size of the main slick rapidly shrank. Some three days after the flow had ceased, the oil had spread to such a thin layer that the skimming operations were abandoned. Throughout the clean-up operation and afterwards the position of the slick was monitored by Norwegian ships and aircraft as well as by an American space satellite.

The Norwegians prefer the use of mechanical means, such as booms and skimmers, and at Ekofisk they tried out a number of pieces of equipment. The performance was not such as to convince our observers that the equipment was fully effective. It may be, however, that the use of a combination of a mechanical system, together with dispersants for the amount of oil and type of slick caused by a blow-out, might be successful. The Warren Spring Laboratory is currently carrying out a programme to evaluate these different methods. The Warren Spring vessel "Seaspring" carried out some promising trials with one such system in the Ekofisk spill. The results obtained with the equipment used and tested at Ekofisk will be closely examined by the groups assessing the requirements for dealing with any spill in United Kingdom waters.

The Government agree in principle that the removal of oil from the sea is to be preferred to dispersion of the oil by chemicals. However, a reliable containment and recovery system for the turbulent waters of the North Sea is yet to he proved. Hence the reliance on dispersion, both by the Department of Trade and the industry. Much is said about the toxicity of dispersant chemicals. Those in current use are much less toxic then those used at the time of the "Torrey Canyon" disaster, which has been referred to by several noble Lords today. Warren Spring have established by full-scale experiment that dilution of the chemicals into the water column is extremely rapid. Recently a new form of concentrate dispersant was developed which is dilutable in the ratio 1:10 with sea water at the time of application. The amount carried by a vessel of this type is therefore ten times as much as conventional dispersant and is, therefore, particularly attractive to operators at a great distance from the shore.

My noble friend Lady White asked a number of questions, and I think that at this point I should perhaps try to answer some of them. I will answer others later. My noble friend asked me first of all about the cost of Ekofisk. So far as it is known, the cost is about 10 million dollars. My noble friend also asked me about pipelines. The Department of Energy require that pipelines should be tested and inspected when laid and should be regularly inspected during their life. These include inspection by mini-submarine. Cathodic protection is applied to all pipelines and is monitored. World experience is that, provided this is done, the chances of leakage from pipelines are minimal. Even if a leak should occur, instrumentation on the pipeline would result in the pumping being stopped, and the amount leaked would be small.

My noble friend also raised the very interesting question of offshore installation communications. The position is that there are statutory requirements upon installations, under the Offshore Operational, Safety. Health and Welfare Regulations, and the Offshore Installations Emergency Procedures Regulations, to have appropriate communications with land, vessels and helicopters, and these regulations are enforced by the Petroleum Engineering Inspectorate of the Department of Energy. My noble friend also asked whether we have a guide to advise on treatment strategy to take into account. There is no universal guide. However, much of the information is readily available. The individual operators know the characteristics of their crude and the fishery interests around their platforms. NCC advice is also taken into account.

Many of the North Sea crudes are similar to Ekofisk. Warren Spring have carried out a number of sea trials with this crude and found that the spill from the blow-out behaved broadly as would have been expected from their trials. Further trials are planned with other crudes. The existence and availability of a viable clean-up method is regarded as an essential part of any oil spill contingency plan.

My noble friend also raised the question of superannuated tankers for use with pick-up equipment, but it appears to us that the principal problem to be overcome is the collection of oil from the surface of the sea rather than its treatment once it is aboard the ship. This is something that is being considered. Then my noble friend asked what measures the Government propose in order to improve the inspection of oil platforms. Inspection is one of the topics that will be looked at by the study group set up to learn the Ekofisk lessons. There are currently regular inspections by petroleum, mechanical, electrical and structural engineers and regular checks on the quality of the discharges and production and displacement of water.

I should like now to say something about the anticipated effects of a blowout on the environment and the steps that have been taken by the Government to assess what actually happened in the sea around Ekofisk. The principal effects were of course expected to be on fisheries, marine life, sea birds and, if the oil persisted on the surface of the sea, rocks and beaches. The marine organisms most at risk from spilled oil are those at, or very close to, the sea surface. In the Ekofisk area this means, essentially, the eggs and larvae of mackerel. The mackerel spawning starts about now and reaches its peak in July. However, the possibility of damage must be put in perspective; spawning takes place over a huge area and even if damaging concentrations of oil had persistently been discharged it would have affected only a small fraction of this area. As it is, because the slick has diminished, the overall effect on fisheries, compared with natural mortality and deaths resulting from fishing activities themselves, will be negligible. In relation to wild life, a number of factors prevented serious damage to sea birds and pollution of ecologically sensitive coasts, in particular: the small number of birds present in the area at the time; the weather conditions, which kept the oil in the central part of the North Sea, and the rapidity with which the oil evaporated and dispersed naturally.

If the oil had been of a heavier grade of a more persistent character, or had the incident involving Ekofisk oil occurred at another time of the year, for example, when young flightless auks, together with their moulting and flightless parents, were migrating across the open sea, oil left on the sea surface would undoubtedly have posed a serious threat and, untreated, could have led to serious bird mortality. The Nature Conservancy Council, who sent a task force to Norway, are studying the incident in depth to reassess the priorities required within programmes of research on sea bird ecology and to review the wild life contingency planning, particularly in relation to international co-operation.

During the week of the blow-out and the one following, three Government research vessels also went to the area. The two fisheries vessels, the "Correla" and the "Explorer", undertook a programme of sampling and fish collection in collaboration with two Norwegian vessels. The Warren Spring ship "Seaspring" went to study what happended to the slick and to try out a promising oil collection method. A Nature Conservancy Council ornithologist who had been lent by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds was aboard "Seaspring" throughout and confirmed, as experts had predicted, that few birds would be affected on this occasion. Many samples were taken by each of the vessels and those samples are currently being analysed. I think it is too early to make firm statements but there are strong signs that the overall impact will be slight, due to the high rates of dissipation of oil through evaporation and the action of sea and weather.

My noble friend asked a question as to whether too little is known of bird habits while at sea. It is clear that there is a very detailed knowledge of the distribution of birds around our shores, and I know the great interest that my noble friend takes in these matters, while information on birds at sea is very sketchy. This information is necessary if the Nature Conservancy Council is adequately to advise on the threat to birds posed by a spill in a particular area, and I can assure my noble friend that this is being studied.

Much has been said about the cost of any incident. This point was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, the noble Earl, Lord Kimberley, and by my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder; and the question was asked: Who foots the bill? The operator would be liable for the clean-up costs and for any damage that may have resulted from the incident. Some of these costs may be covered by insurance; other operating costs incurred may not be and so will affect his liability. There is of course the question of corporation tax and whether that can be offset against the costs. These are important questions which are being considered by the Government, but I must stress that the initial responsibility is that of the operator. In fact it is written in his initial licence that he must take all steps to prevent damage to the environment and to the sea through any spill-outs of this kind. But, of course, as my noble friend Lord Ritchie-Calder has said, there is cooperation between the Government and the operators, and the Government are doing all they can to advise and help; but they require operators to submit contingency plans as soon as possible on what steps they wish to take and intend to take.

Lord STRATHCONA and MOUNT ROYAL

My Lords, may I pursue this for one moment with the noble Lord, because I think it is rather an important matter. As I understand it, he is saying that there is some doubt as to whether these costs would be deductible before paying corporation tax. That seems a very odd situation, because surely these are operating costs which would normally be taken before any tax liability would occur. He is really confirming the doubts which have been sown in some people's minds by Press reports. I do not think we can very well deal with this matter tonight, but I would be most grateful if the noble Lord could write to us, because I believe it is very important.

Lord STRABOLGI

My Lords, what I can say quite categorically is that the responsibility falls on the operators. It does not fall on the general Exchequer; it falls on the operators for any clean up operation. They, of course, will seek to cover themselves by insurance and will recover their costs in that way. Whether they will be able to offset this against tax is not something on which I should like to pronounce. All I can say, and all I did say earlier, was that all these matters were being considered between the Government and the operators. I cannot, I think, be fairer than that. But there is also, of course, the present compensation scheme drawn up and operated by the offshore industry, known as OPEL, which will eventually be replaced by an international convention concluded in December 1976.

My noble friend Lady White asked me a number of questions. She asked what measures are contemplated to improve monitoring of offshore-related and ship-generated pollution incidents. Facilities for aerial surveillance are already an essential feature of the Department of Trade's plans, and will be a compulsory ingredient of operators' plans. Infra-red techniques would appear to offer promise for following oil spills. Warren Springs again are actively interested in this technique. The Government are co-operating in oil spill clean-up with the French authorities, who are also interested in this method of following slicks.

My noble friend also asked whether there is a central register of oil spills. The Department of Trade collect reports of slicks derived from coastguard reports, from military and civil ships and aircraft. With regard to the Bonn agreement of 1969, at a recent meeting in Hamburg of officials from the eight North Sea States it was established that all the States will regard the agreement as applying to spills from offshore installations as well as from ships. The timing of the next official meeting will be discussed when Ministers of the North Sea States meet in Oslo in June.

My noble friend also asked about collisions at sea. The vast majority of shipping will be subject to the 1972 Collision Regulations when they come into force. Observed violations of the traffic separation scheme in these international waters would be reported to the Flag State for appropriate action, whether or not that State is a party to the regulations.

My Lords, I think I can say in conclusion that the Ekofisk blow-out has provided a reminder that offshore oil production is a potentially dangerous business. While the human element remains, the possibility of further such incidents occurring cannot be eliminated. The importance of the training and supervision of the people on the spot, as has been mentioned in this debate, cannot be over-emphasised.

We can, I think, take encouragement from the fact that nobody was hurt in the evacuation operation and that the initial indications are that there will be little impact on the environment. But perhaps they were lucky this time; in fact, we were all lucky. The picture may not have been the same had there been a fire or had the incident occurred in an area where there were high concentrations of bird life.

The initial indications are that most of the mechanical clean-up equipment employed did not work well. The United Kingdom appears right at this stage to place its major emphasis on dispersion for oil spill clean-up, provided that the environmental interests are fully consulted on when to utilise this. The Secretary of State for Energy is taking all steps—and I stress all steps—to identify what further measures can be taken to prevent such an incident occurring on the United Kingdom Continental Shelf. He will examine, along with the Secretary of State for Trade and also, as has been announced, possibly with Mr. Red Adair—the world's greatest expert—and of course the industry, its capability to respond, should a blow-out nevertheless occur.