How important is it to engage with local populations when developing controversial oil and gas  projects? Royal Dutch Shell and the Norwegian Government’s Statoil learned to their cost that it is very important. They didn’t engage and it cost them 12 years and €2.6bn

Gas from the Corrib Gas project was originally expected to flow from the field in 2003. The project is now likely to be 12 years behind the original schedule and the outlay will be €3.4bn, more than four times the initial estimate of €800m
The Corrib gas field was discovered off the west coast of Ireland in 1996. Following that discovery a consortium, led by Enterprise Energy Ireland Ltd., applied for permission to develop the field. In 2002 the Royal Shell Group acquired Enterprise Energy Ireland Ltd. and its interest in the Corrib Gas field. The Shell Group, through its subsidiary Shell E&P Ireland (SEPIL), took the lead in the development of the project on behalf of its partners (Statoil and Marathon)

The first announcement of the project was an item in the Catholic Church Parish Newsletter in early April 2000 telling of the ‘coming bonanza’. Enterprise Energy Ireland (EEI), as the project leader was then, held a few presentations in local pubs. Once the community became aware of the nature of these events the public meetings ended except for some set pieces by the Rural Environment Protection Scheme (REPS), which were well guarded by numbers of police: in general, especially after the oral hearings of 2002, Shell would only have meetings with sympathisers or with one or two people at a time. Irish Government Minister Fahy and officials and experts had a public get-together with the community in a hotel, which was videoed without their consent. The more they tried to advance the cause the more obvious the loopholes and dangers became.

Initial enthusiasm for the project turned gradually to serious concerns, especially when in June 2005 Shell sought a committal order for the five main protestors. They were jailed on 29th June 2005 for civil contempt of court after refusing to obey a temporary court injunction, forbidding them to interfere with work being undertaken by Shell on their land. These men became known as The Rossport 5

Defending his company’s stance on the imprisoning Shell Ireland’s CEO Andy Pyle said: “The fact is that we’ve gone through a process, and we have five people who don’t like the outcome.”

There were protests all over Ireland during the period of the men’s imprisonment with filling stations of Shell and its junior partner Statoil being picketed and blockaded by both political activists and ordinary members of the public. The protests intensified to such an extent that after 94 days Shell applied to the High Court to have the injunction lifted

On release “The Rossport 5” issued the following statement
“We remind Shell and their Irish government partner that imprisonments have historically and will always fail as a method to secure the agreement of Irish people.”

“We now call on our supporters to intensify the campaign for the safety of our community and families.

Ongoing, there was minimum contact between the promoters of the project and the community other than some ‘megaphone diplomacy’ until representatives from “Pobal Chill Chomain”, who had come up with a compromise to the conflict, travelled to Norway in 2008. The compromise was to relocate the refinery to an on-land site in Glinsk. The community leaders travelled to Norway with Labour Party president Michael D Higgins, Green Party councillor Niall O Brolchain and Sinn Fein councillor Noel Campbell. The group met Statoil Hydro and outlined their compromise proposal.  Statoil commented afterwards that the chances of changing the location of the refinery were close to zero.

The jailing of the Rossport 5 changed middle–ground opinion, prompted people to learn more about the project and heightened local safety and environmental concerns. The perceived failure of, firstly Enterprise Energy Ireland Ltd. and latterly Shell to address these concerns led to mistrust and serious doubts about the information being provided on the safety of the project.

Andy Pyle, Chief Executive of Shell E&P Ireland, has acknowledged that it did not listen enough to local concerns: “mistakes have been made. We regret the part that we played in the jailing of the five men last summer. For the hurt that this caused the local community I am sorry. The Corrib gas partners are fully committed to the project, however, we can only succeed in partnership with the local community.”

A complaint was made to the OECD and although The Irish and Dutch OECD national contact points (NCPs)…found that the Shell-led “consortium” had “shown a willingness” since 2005 to “address health and safety concerns, of which the revised route for the onshore part of the pipeline seems the clearest proof”, the two years between the complaint and the ruling caused more delays and allowed the opposition to the project consolidate their positions. See below.

Specific Instance against Royal Dutch Shell, Statoil and Marathon Oil Corporate for the violations of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Companies
(Extract)
Because of the truncated and ‘project-split’ nature of the Corrib Development, meaningful public participation as envisaged under this OECD principle has not been possible. The local receiving community has not been in a position to examine, understand and comment on the cumulative and interactive nature of the environmental impacts of the development because these have been unknown.

Only components of the project have been presented at any one time – first, planning permission for the refinery which was granted in 2004, followed by the Pollution Control Licence for the operation of the refinery which was granted in 2007 and, more recently, applications for consents for the construction of a high-pressure production pipeline through a marine and peat environment. This latter process has, as yet, an indeterminate conclusion point.

The full, integrated Development, with all of its cumulative and interactive impact, has never been presented for public consultation and participation.

As well, the enterprises have refused, many times, to provide the community with information on the potential health and safety impacts of their activities. In 2000, Enterprise Energy Ireland didn’t inform the community about the route and the characteristics of the pipeline: “We had no notice at all from them that here was the pipeline route”; “There were no word of pressure in the pipe”.

Concerning the pipeline, according to people’s testimonies: “You got information at your own cost from the Internet and contacting people in other countries. You got no information from Enterprise. At their ‘presentation days’ if you asked one of them a question they’d say, ‘oh I can’t answer that, I’ll put you on to the next guy’. And then the next guy mightn’t be there that day. You constantly do this. They never give a straightforward answer. ‘We’ll take it away and have your answer the next day’. And the next ‘presentation day’, the same thing. Nothing went in. It was just a one-way sound. We talked but they didn’t listen”.

The project publicity machine consistently states that it is open to dialogue and consultation, the reality is the opposite. When the Rossport 5 were released from jail Shell engaged in talks through Peter Cassels as mediator appointed by the Minister Noel Dempsey. While the mediation was on-going and at a time when Shell publicly apologised for jailing the Rossport 5, Andy Pyle, the SEPIL M.D., in an article in the Western People (a local newspaper) declared that mediation with the Rossport 5 would not result in a change to the project.

Conclusions
Would a better community engagement program from day one have brought “The Rossport 5” on side? That’s hard to predict but the stance taken by the original promoters and inherited and continued by Shell is most certainly a demonstration of how not to engage with a community for a project of this complexity and value.
References
http://irishoilandgas.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/shell-meets-its-match-in-the-rossport-five/
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/rossport-5-issue-statement-223304.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossport_Five