Greenland releases oil spill response plan

Greenland’s home rule government is attempting to head off criticism from environmental groups by releasing its plan to respond to any oil spills that could result from offshore drilling.

The document, published Aug. 15 on the Greenland government’s website, offers a speculative glimpse at how oil spills onto Arctic sea ice might be cleaned up.

Greenland’s Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum says standard spill cleanup procedures like burning and the use of chemical dispersal agents will work on ice, but will take longer than in open water.

It’s also possible to collect the ice and dispose of it, the report says.

If ice conditions make it impossible to finish the cleanup, the ice would be tracked by satellite until it’s possible to resume operations.

Greenland says spills onto ice are “very unlikely” because it’s illegal to drill for oil during the ice season.

“The drilling of wells in Greenland must stop at least two months before the sea freezes up so that there is time, if necessary, to drill a relief well and to abate and clean up after a potential oil spill,” the bureau says.

The strategy also lays out three tiers of oil spills:

• small spills that can be cleaned up by oil-rig crews;

• medium-sized ones that require cleanup equipment based in the towns of Aasiaat and Kangerlussuaq and the capital, Nuuk;

• and large ones that would require crews and equipment from Southampton, England, that would arrive by air freighter within 52 hours.

The plan was drawn up with help from the British company Oil Spill Response Limited, which would be called in in the event of major spills.

OSRL is also part of an alliance of like-minded organizations called the Global Response Network, which responds to massive oil spills like the one that devastated the U.S Gulf Coast last year.

Ben Ayliffe of the environmental group Greenpeace told the Associated Press he doubted the plan would do much to contain any spills.

Scottish oil company Cairn Energy began drilling test wells in Baffin Bay this summer, prompting protests by Greenpeace, which sent activists clambering up the side of an oilrig in an unsuccessful effort to derail the drilling. Greenpeace also demanded the release of Greenland’s spill plan.

At the time, Greenlandic officials refused, citing concerns protestors could get in the way of a cleanup operation.

But now Greenland says a legal finding by the Danish ministry of foreign affairs allows it to take action against protestors in a five kilometre radius around any drill site.

Cairn so far has found no oil, although drilling will continue next year.