mikudagur 5. mars 1997síða 29

tíðindablaðið sosialurin, mikudagur 5. mars 1997 Tema guest editorial-.-.................................. Could take time By Jeremy Gresswell - Energy Correspondent, Aberdeen Press and Journal, Scotland | times wonder what you the Faroest f the British. In trade. we Í SO really think general »pear to be viewed as the less er of the two evils when com pared with Denmark but, when it comes to ati. we are seen as greedy and grasping Í am ol relerring to the debate to draw the Continental Chelf bound courst ver wher« iy between the tw« island communities i dispute that seems to have been going ol seems now to be a priority in the Faroe Islands, it would be wrong to assume that the UK is starting to treat the issue with any degree ol urgency That would be asking too much For one thing. we have a general election in May. when the Labour Party appears near iv certain to oust the Conser vative administration after some 18 years in power Even if the polls are adrift in terms of the percentagt ol votes each party might capture, La bour is now so far ahead of the Tories that they must surely sweep them aside This would mean a different crop of politicians who are cer tain to unsettle the Civil Ser including those at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office who are currently re sponsible for handing the Brit ish side of negotiations with Denmark There has been some debate vice Welcome! in the UK ol late about how much blood-letting ther« might be in the various de Civil servants are just partments supposed to be impartial, but this seems unlikely given th« length of time the Tories under Thatcher and Major have been in power Sø unless agreement is miraculously reached in the next few weeks between West minster and Copenhagen, then everyone will probably be in for and that includes the many multi-nationals now keen tc ex re the White Zon« a long wait would have r h a settling d: wn process first br fore it really starts to make det 18S1Ion5 and the re is á VICW that many of its policies will be little different to those curt ently in plact It has often been said that the Labour administration in power at the time the North Sea was parcelled up was in too much of a hast« deal and gave too much away to Norway. Labour would not wish to repeat the same »mis take . It is all very well current UK Energy Minister Lord Fraser ol Carmyllie saying on December 17 last that a White Zone agreement would be reached though he didn't say when. He simply will not be around to have any kind af say after th« election and. in any case, it is a matter for the Foreign Office though líaison with the De partment ol Trade cannot be ruled out But I admit to being totally baffled by to get á Fraser's references to the median line and I quote »Negotiations continue, but i know how strong interest is in the area and every effort will be made to open this to (explor tion licence) applications (by oil companies) at the earliest date been agreed with the Faroese: Turn to a dictionary and one discovers that the word median means half-way | after the median line has Ihis ís what it has always meant to British ind Faroese fishermen i common sense line drawn be tween the two communities his ís the basis of the Geneva Convention guidelines which led to the equitable com promise over where to draw th« fishery boundary between Far oe and the UK Shrewd as he is, I fear Lord Fraser may have misused the word, as Britain stubbornly refused to acknow ledge the simple formula, pre ferring something more com plex giving it a far larger slice of the cake that the Faroese naturally believe it is entitled to From time to time, I have highlighted just how bizarre this would be. Imagine Faroese fishermen denied their own grounds by UK in stallations and their associated has so far access to 100m safety exclusion zones Would this then lead to Brit ain tabling a demand for re negotiation of the fishery boundary to bring it into line with the mineral fence Were that to be the case, then it would be virtual war out there in the Faroe-Shetland Channel resources Á € Ææ, No wonder your political cartoonists have had a field day with us. the Brits. Frankly. we deserve it But íf Lord Fraser really meant what he said, then surely an agreement could be rached very quickly, though Rockall. which the UK claims sovereignty over, could prove a sticking point It is far from clear what if anv influence the multi-nat ional oil companies will have on the outcome. Thay have, of been lobbying to get a deal and are very keen to set their teeth into the White Zone Keenest of all must surely be BP. with Shell a close second They have the licenses for what is generally regarded as the UK Atlantic Frontier and the best finds just if course juiciest acreage 10. januar 1995: Tíðindi vilja vera vid, at politíkararnir skulu yvirtaka marknasamrúðingarnar millum Føroyar og Bretland Jeremy Cresswell made so far are tantalisingly close to the White Zone Foinaven is about to come onstream. Now more than a vear late and S200million over budget, BP hopes for first commercial oil towards the end of March, barring further pro blems. Schiehallion will be next. though the start dato has been pushed back into 1998 Both are close to the White Zone. but not as infuriatingly close an Conival, about which nothing has been disclosed by BP since its discovery was rumbled by myself in October 1994. However, the field has found itself onto oil and gas charts and is widely believed to be a huge gas/gas conden sate deposit But Conival appears to have been the last big find, though various operators have »tight holes« in their portfolios. In fluential oilfield publication Drilling Weekly judged 1996 to be a poor one in terms of At lantic Frontier exploration and expressed the hope that 1997 turned out to be better for the oil industry's sake In that case. Mobil had better pull the rabbit out of the hat with its ambitious project to drill two wells in the Faroe Shetland Channel at a water drpth of around 1,500 metres using the world's largest semi submersible drilling rig Problem is that the Jack Bat es was seriously damages on February 23 when it struck an uncharted submerged objert while under tow. It remains to be seen what the impact on the programme will be as the rig has to go into a shipyard for upgrade work anyway. S0 it may be possible to deal sith the repairs in parallel and start the first well as planned… in May Jack Bates is a vision of what might be and it will be working just about as close to the White Zone as it is possible to get. Its very presence so close to the Faroes must surely a source of much encouragement... and frustration