The Solitaire arrives in Broadhaven Bay

9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Solitaire9.9.2008
The world’s largest pipe-lay­ing ves­sel, The Soli­taire, arrived off the coast of Mayo, Ire­land, this evening. The Soli­taire is installing the off­shore sec­tion of the Cor­rib Gas pipeline for Shell. The ship is sup­port­ed by a num­ber of Shell sup­port craft, the Irish Police Water Unit and part of the Irish Navy.Stiff oppo­si­tion is expect­ed, with a local school teacher already on hunger strike. Hun­dreds of police offi­cers are in the area, and the main road to the beach has been closed.

Local peo­ple have been alarmed to see so many police offi­cers, and sin­is­ter fig­ures in green rain­jack­ets, who may be police (although the Irish Police, the Gar­da Siochá­na, usu­al­ly wear blue) or could be Shell secu­ri­ty or even mem­bers of the Irish Army.

Inter­net access in the area near the Shell com­pound has been cut off, and the main road to the beach has been blocked.

Oppo­si­tion to the pipe lay­ing oper­a­tion con­sists of a num­ber off envi­ron­men­tal and polit­i­cal activists based in the Sol­i­dar­i­ty Camp, local fish­er­men who are wor­ried about con­t­a­m­i­na­tion of the waters they depend on, and many local peo­ple who are con­cerned that the off­shore sec­tion of the Shell scheme is being put in place while no plan­ning per­mis­sion exists for the onshore sec­tion.

A local school prin­ci­pal has vowed to refuse food until the ship leaves the area. She has parked her car in front of the Shell com­pound. A fish­er­man from near­by Por­turlin who refused to move his crab gear from the path of the Soli­taire has been arrest­ed.

In 2005 a num­ber of local peo­ple were jailed for 94 days for oppos­ing the Shell project as it was then con­fig­ured.

Since then, the project has been dogged by con­tro­ver­sy, with many arrests, court cas­es, injuries, com­plaints to the Gar­da Com­plaints Board and Ombuds­man, and polit­i­cal activ­i­ty both in and out­side the Dáil.

In recent weeks there have been 29 sep­a­rate arrests in thee area around Glen­gad beach, where the pipe is due to make land­fall.

Shell spokes­peo­ple have claimed that the project has not been affect­ed by the protests. They say that recent delays to the project have been caused by severe weath­er.

Some news­pa­pers have claimed that the project, which is being car­ried out by a con­sor­tium of com­pa­nies includ­ing Sta­toil from Nor­way and Marathon Oil from Texas in the Unit­ed States, will ben­e­fit the coun­try, even though all of the nat­ur­al gas will belong to the Cor­rib part­ners and no roy­al­ty will be charged. There is no con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tion for Shell, the scheme’s major share­hold­er and oper­a­tor, to sell any of the gas to Bord Gáis Éire­ann, and so the resource will be sold to the high­est bid­der.

The will be no finan­cial ben­e­fit to Irish con­sumers from the Cor­rib gas field.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ists have warned that the onshore sec­tion of the scheme, which includes a huge refin­ery being con­struct­ed nine kilo­me­ters inland at Bel­lan­aboy, will be expand­ed and used to process gas from oth­er fields off the west coast in the the future. They also say that Shell will use the prece­dent of an onshore refin­ery to strong arm their way into installing sim­i­lar schemes in oth­er places around the world.

The Irish gov­ern­ment, includ­ing Green Par­ty Min­is­ters of the Envi­ron­ment and Nat­ur­al Resources, has backed Shel­l’s scheme. Last month the Gar­da released fig­ures show­ing that 11 mil­lion euro had been spent polic­ing the project since 2006, more than half the amount the force spent on fight­ing organ­ised crime.

Activists on the ground in Mayo have asked for assis­tance. Those not in a posi­tion to trav­el to Mayo can hold sol­i­dar­i­ty protests (this arti­cle could be used as the basis for leaflets) at the Irish embassy or Shell petrol sta­tions. Green Par­ty politi­cians in Britain may have some influ­ence over their coun­ter­parts in the Irish Green Par­ty.

Shell can only hold onto the rent­ed Soli­taire for a lim­it­ed peri­od of time and all efforts to hin­der its progress will seri­ous­ly dam­age Shel­l’s plans. ANY dis­rup­tion pro­vides us with a real oppor­tu­ni­ty to delay the project sig­nif­i­cant­ly.

The chop­py waters of Broad­haven Bay will hope­ful­ly aid us in our actions but we need you too!

Come to Erris!

Con­tact: email rossportsolidaritycamp@gmail.com & phone 0851141170
Train + fer­ry from £21 from most cities www.stenaline.co.uk/ferry/rail-and-sail/

Or take action at home

http://www.allseas.com/uk
Allseas UK Lim­it­ed
Address: Knyvett House The Cause­way
City: Staines, Mid­dle­sex
Post­code: TW18 3BA
Tele­phone: +44 1784 898038
Fax: +44 1784 898030
(own­ers of the Soli­taire)

Irish Embassy and Shell HQ Lon­don
Shell garages across the coun­try.

For more info see indymedia.ie/mayo