Senior executive admits “hundreds of tonnes of oil” could be trapped in pipeline, as company rejects criticism over lack of transparency

Oil giant Shell has admitted it is uncertain how much oil remains in the offshore pipeline at the centre of the biggest North Sea oil spill in 10 years, after a senior executive admitted there could be “hundreds of tones” of additional oil trapped in the isolated pipeline.

According to reports, Shell technical director Glen Cayley told the Press and Journal newspaper that there were risks of continued leaks from the pipeline.

“We are talking about hundreds of tonnes of additional oil in the pipeline that we need to preserve and keep there,” he told the paper.

“Until we have completely eliminated the leak and secured this pipeline, I would say there is still risk.”

Shell confirmed today that the rate of flow from the leak was now down to one barrel a day, adding that diving teams and remote submersible devices were continuing to work to plug the leak.

The company has said that the leak is in an “awkward place” as a result of surrounding marine growth and as such it is proving difficult to reach.

A spokesman for Shell refused to be drawn on the accuracy of Cayley’s prediction that hundreds of tonnes of oil remained in the pipeline, admitting that the reality was that the company does not currently know how much oil is trapped in the pipeline.

He also rejected accusations from green groups that the company was failing to be sufficiently transparent in its reporting of the leak.

WWF Scotland’s director Dr Richard Dixon yesterday accused the company of “grudgingly” releasing information on the scale of the leak, while Per Fischer, communications officer at Friends of the Earth Scotland, said it “beggars belief that we are still being drip-fed information and that Shell’s initially ‘insignificant’ leak is still causing problems”.

The spokesman for the company told BusinessGreen that it was “committed to transparency” and “engaged in trying to be as open as possible”.

The company had faced criticism after it first discovered the leak last Wednesday, but then delayed publicly announcing the leak until last Friday and only provided figures on Monday, estimating around 1,300 barrels had been released into the sea.

The spokesman insisted the company had informed the relevant authorities as soon as the leak had been discovered and said the delay in confirming the size of the leak was simply the result of engineers being unable to quickly estimate the scale of the problem.

“We were criticised over delays in releasing volume figures, but that was simply because we did not know and we wanted to have confidence in the figures we released,” he said, adding that the company had provided frequent updates on the leak through Twitter and news wires.

However, the delay between Shell’s detecting the leak on Wednesday and publicly confirming it on Friday has fuelled accusations that the company delayed reporting the incident in the hope the spill would prove small enough that it would dissipate without the need for a formal announcement.

“It’s an object lesson in how not to manage a crisis,” said Dr Richard Dixon of WFF Scotland. “This is probably a relatively minor incidence and the story would be dead by now if Shell had not communicated so badly and had announced on Wednesday that they had found a leak and were working on it… Instead things have been dragged out of them, which makes it look as if something shifty is going on, even when it probably isn’t.”