Oil company ordered to clean up after itself

WELLINGTON: The High Court has ruled against a Singaporean firm which wants to disconnect its oil production vessel from the abandoned Tui oil field in offshore of Taranaki and leave capped pipelines on the ocean floor.

The High Court said oil companies had to tidy up before they left.

The High Court in Wellington heard an urgent appeal by the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) on Monday and issued its decision on Tuesday.

It heard New Zealand company Tamarind Taranaki (TTL), a subsidiary of Malaysianbased Tamarind Resources, went into liquidation in November after a failed $300 million drilling campaign at Tui and that the oilfield was likely to be decommissioned.

The company’s Singaporean partner, BW Offshore, wanted to remove its processing and storage ship Umuroa from the Tui field in accordance with a 2017

EPA decision.

The Environment Court backed the company’s stance, but the EPA said changed circumstances meant that 2017 decision should not stand.

In the decision released on Tuesday, the court ruled the EPA should be allowed time to consider how disconnection should take place, with the potential closure of the oil field. It said companies involved in oil mining needed to end their activities with the environment in mind, before departing the scene.

The High Court hearing took place by phone under the Covid19 lockdown measures.

Justice Francis Cooke said the earlier Environment Court decision was mistaken in accepting BW Offshore’s (BWO) argument that there were ‘‘clear limits over what it could be expected to do in relation to the decommissioning of the oil mining activities overall’’.

‘‘The right question was whether the new circumstances meant that it was now appropriate for the EPA to consider disconnection as part of the wider circumstances, including potential decommissioning of the whole operation, and address all the potential implications for the environment and existing interests that arise,’’ he ruled.

‘‘Protecting the environment from pollution is, at least in the sense described by the Court, a bottom line.’’

‘‘TTL is insolvent. It does not have the ability to attend to dealing with the financial cost of dealing with the infrastructure that will be left on the seabed.’’

He said BWO’s responsibilities were clear.

‘‘BWO is, literally, interconnected with TTL, not only commercially, but more importantly environmentally,’’ he added.

‘‘Parties engaged in significant oil mining activities need to ensure that those activities are appropriately brought to an end from an environmental point of view (as well as the point of view of the other existing interests contemplated by the Act) before departing the scene.’’

Climate Justice Taranaki spokeswoman Emily Bailey welcomed the decision but called on the Government to tighten regulations requiring oil and gas companies to decommission their operations with the environment in mind.

Ms Bailey said she was concerned BWO would attempt to leave during the Covid19 lockdown.

‘‘These are exactly the situations communities have warned about for generations. We cannot let these companies come in and just take what they want and leave us a hugely expensive and complicated mess to clean up.’’

‘‘We call on the Government to ensure the appropriate legislation is put in place urgently.’’— RNZ