Norwegian oil spill raises Arctic fears: An "environmental bomb"

Wojciech Moskwa, Reuters 13 Dec 07;

OSLO (Reuters) - Favorable winds were set to keep a 23 square kilometer oil slick from reaching the Norwegian shore on Thursday although rough seas hampered a clean-up operation, energy group StatoilHydro said.

Called an "environmental bomb" by newspapers, it stirred debate about the risks of opening up new areas of Norwegian waters for oil and gas exploration, especially in the Arctic where similar spills would have bigger impact.

Norway's second biggest ever spill of some 25,000 barrels of oil occurred on Wednesday during loading onto a tanker at StatoilHydro's Stafjord field. The spillage is about a tenth of the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker disaster off Alaska.

"StatoilHydro's calculations suggest that the oil slick is dissolving and will not reach the coast," StatoilHydro said in a statement. Overnight, wind has pushed the oil slick slowly to the north-east, where it has reached the nearby Snorre field.

Weather permitting, StatoilHydro wants to implement mechanical clean-up measures and should have four vessels in the region of the North Sea spill by Thursday morning, it said.

A StatoilHydro spokesman said that Statfjord oil was light, making it easier to dissolve in the sea waters.

Environmentalists said the spill was a warning against exploration in the far north Norwegian and Barents Seas, where frigid waters and harsh Arctic conditions would make any spill harder to naturally dissolve or to clean up.

"This should be the final nail in the coffin of exploration in the north," Guro Haugen, head of climate and energy at environmental group Bellona, told daily Dagsavisen.

Norway is considering opening up wide swathes of its Arctic waters for oil activity after 2009.

During the night the weather conditions remained unchanged in the North Sea, with near gale conditions in the spillage area and waves of between four and five meters.

StatoilHydro said that according to the Storm Weather Center an improvement of the weather conditions can be expected from Friday night at the earliest.

"Under the prevailing weather conditions, however, the likelihood of the slick reaching the coast is now considerably reduced," StatoilHydro said.