A former Irish offshore oil and gas trade union representative has called on the Government to re-establish a State-owned hydrocarbon company with Norway’s help.
Padhraig Campbell, who spent many years working in the oil and gas industry and was a Siptu trade union representative, says that Ireland needs to “get real” about its natural resources.
Oil and gas exploration should “work in conjunction” with renewable energy development to reduce dependency on imported hydrocarbon energy, he said.
In February 2021, the Cabinet approved a ban on licences for new oil and natural gas exploration, with the then Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan stating his department "no longer accepts new applications for exploration licences for natural gas or oil, nor will there be any future licensing rounds".
The "decision will send a powerful message, within Ireland and internationally, that Ireland is moving away from fossil fuels towards a renewable future," the Green Party minister said at the time.
“By keeping fossil fuels in the ground, we will incentivise the transition to renewable energy and put ourselves on a pathway to net-zero [carbon emissions] by 2050,” Ryan said.
The government said that existing authorisations would not be affected, with applications for authorisations and activities remaining subject to technical, financial and environmental assessments as appropriate.
Campbell, who was involved in the Campaign for Protection of Resources, said there was still “huge potential in oil and gas in the western Atlantic margin”, and a better tax and royalty regime in Ireland since changes announced by Labour minister Pat Rabbitte in 2014.
Given the uncertainty over energy created by the US/Israel invasion of Iran and Lebanon, the reality of Ireland’s hydrocarbon dependence has to be faced, he said.
Campbell noted that EU countries such as the Netherlands “drill away and produce”.
Norway’s help should be sought to set up a State-owned hydrocarbon company – an idea first floated by late Labour energy minister Justin Keating in the 1970s – while development here would still focus on renewables, Campbell said.
He said that offshore hydrocarbon work “shouldn’t be conflated with the move to electric cars, solar panels, wind and hydro-electric energy”.
“Norway has a very large renewable sector, although they are one of the world’s leading oil and gas producers,” Campbell pointed out.
Writing in The Irish Independent last week, economist David W Higgins said that Ireland’s 2021 decision to ban further oil and gas exploration “now feels unwise” and argued that Ireland’s ban on both nuclear energy and new offshore drilling should be lifted.
“The Barryroe oil field off the coast of Cork is estimated to hold around 300 million barrels of recoverable oil. There are also hopes for a second site near the Corrib gas field in Mayo,” he wrote.
“When Corrib runs dry in the coming years, it will leave us heavily reliant on UK gas pipeline flows. Drilling is always a risky business, but so is energy dependence,” Higgins wrote.
“There have been 160 drilling projects in Ireland since the 1970s and only four have turned into commercial operations. But to set a policy that bans anyone from trying? That’s a policy of scarcity, not abundance,” he wrote.
Read The Irish Independent here
