Shell’s Tunnel Boring Machine parts delayed by lock-on

First seg­ments even­tu­al­ly deliv­ered to tun­nelling compound,11 seg­ments to come

On Thurs­day night Shel­l’s efforts to move parts of a Tun­nel Bor­ing Machine (TBM) crit­i­cal to the Cor­rib gas project hit anoth­er delay as pro­test­ers blocked the main gate of the refin­ery site with a con­crete lock-on.

Two pro­test­ers from the Ross­port Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp locked them­selves into a 400kg rein­forced con­crete bar­rel from 7.30pm until the Gar­da protest removal team fin­ished cut­ting them out at about mid­night. By this stage about 20 peo­ple had gath­ered at the gates in sup­port, but this was out-num­bered by a force of about 50 to 60 Gar­daí which was clear­ly already planned to mobilise to move the TBM.

For the hour or two before the Gar­dai cor­doned off the area around the lock-on, cam­paign­ers chat­ted drink­ing tea and eat­ing scones. It was sat­is­fy­ing to hear that as the lock on was being set up at Shel­l’s main refin­ery gate, Gar­daí were search­ing the ditch­es on the Augh­oose road (where most of the recent lock-ons have hap­pened).

After the lock-on had been dealt with the Gar­daí swept up its remains to clear the way for the TBM parts, then pro­ceed­ed to clear the sec­tion of road out­side the refin­ery with the usu­al law­less push­ing and shov­ing. After a delay of over 2 months since the first deliv­ery was attempt­ed, Shell and the Gar­daí final­ly man­aged to deliv­er some of the TBM parts to the Augh­oose tun­nelling com­pound two miles away.

The two lock-on pro­test­ers were released from Bel­mul­let Gar­da sta­tion at about 4am this morn­ing each charged with sec­tions 8&9 (obstruc­tion and refus­ing to obey the direc­tions of a Gar­da when sus­pect­ed of com­mit­ting a crime) of the pub­lic order act, and join 5 more cam­paign­ers due to appear in court in Bel­mul­let on Novem­ber 14th.

In a recent let­ter to local res­i­dents Shell have said that they intend to start tun­nelling in the com­ing weeks, but it is thought that there are still 11 sec­tions of the TBM yet to be deliv­ered before they can begin. There are signs that delays will con­tin­ue — with­out any help yet anoth­er lor­ry deliv­er­ing TBM parts went off road ear­li­er in the week out­side Ban­gor — after mak­ing its deliv­ery how­ev­er.

After a lie in today we head­ed down to remove the wind­mill — last ves­tige of the sum­mer camp 2012. The pre­vi­ous week had been a mas­sive mov­ing effort to clear out the field and pack the camp infra­struc­ture away for the win­ter. The house up the hill at Barr na Coil­leadh Pul­lath­omas is now the main camp base again for the win­ter. Come vis­it and check out the view for your­self!

See rossportsolidaritycamp.org for info about stay­ing at the camp,
email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com or
ring 085 1141170 to let us know you’re com­ing or for oth­er info.