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Displaying items by tag: Exxon Mobil

Oil exploration company Exxon Mobil will begin exploring underwater areas off Ireland's South West coast this June, with a three-week stint in the area planned. The area they will be surveying is close to recently-discovered areas of rare deep-water coral on the Porcupine slopes.

A notice to mariners on the Department of Transport's website reads: 

The Department of Transport would like to advise that ExxonMobil Exploration & Production Ireland (Offshore) Ltd will be carrying out a site survey off the Southwest Coast of Ireland as highlighted in the attached map.  The seismic vessel “M/V FUGRO MERIDIAN – C6QR4” is scheduled to carry out the work. The vessel will tow 1 x 3km-long streamer, and will have a minimum turning radius of 2 km. The survey vessel will be restricted in her ability to manoeuvre whilst carrying out the survey and all vessels are requested to give this operation a wide berth. The vessel will be listening on VHF CH 16 throughout the project.

The works are expected to commence in early June 2010 and last for 3 - 4 weeks approximately subject to weather.

Latitude                        Longitude

51° 20' 49.351"             12° 35' 32.935"

51° 24' 56.106"             12° 25' 57.046"

51° 18' 55.191"             12° 19' 24.114"

51° 14' 49.282"             12° 28' 59.106"

The full notice is downloadable here as a pdf file, with a map of the area included therein.

Published in Marine Warning

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).