Press release - August 3, 2011
Reacting to the news that the cowboy Scottish oil company Cairn Energy has abandoned a well having once again failed to find oil off Greenland, Greenpeace International campaigner Ben Ayliffe said:“The only way to to protect the Arctic from oil spills is to ban drilling. Cairn Energy took a multi-million dollar gamble with the fragile Arctic environment and came up with nothing. Cairn Energy’s announcement today is a small victory for the Arctic – there is now one less well – but no guarantee against future disaster."
Ayliffe added:
“Rather than dangerous drilling for oil in the vulnerable Arctic we should be extracting oil from car companies like Volkswagen by forcing them to make more efficient cars.”
Greenpeace activists have run a sustained campaign of direct action against Cairn Energy’s Arctic drilling over the last five months. Tens of activists including the organisation’s International Executive Director Kumi Naidoo have been arrested in Greenland and Scotland.
Greenpeace used two ships and a number of speed boats to intercept and disrupt to Cairn’s drilling rig as it travelled from Turkey to Greenland, and then boarded and occupied the rig in the freezing waters of the Arctic.
Cairn is still failing to publish their oil spill plan, with the company’s lawyers claiming that release of this plan is not permitted by the Greenlandic authorities. But that claim is refuted by independent legal advice obtained by Greenpeace (1) showing that there is no such impediment to the plan’s publication.
Following a Greenpeace Nordic complaint (2) Greenland's Ombudsman requested the Bureau of Mineral and Petroleum (BMP) "to forward the documents (to the Ombudsman) to which Greenpeace Nordic has been denied access."
This includes the oil spill response plan. (3)
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For more information contact:
• Greenpeace International 24-hour press desk on +31 20 718 2470
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• Greenpeace Video Desk, 
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+31 634738790
Notes:
(1) http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/-Legal-assessment-of-the-extent-to-which-Greenlandic-law-prevents-Cairn-Energy-publishing-its-oil-Spill-Response-Plan/
(2) The complaint details how Greenpeace Nordic has applied for 17 different documents but been given access to only two. Greenland’s Bureau of Mineral and Petroleum refuses to disclose a series of other documents – including Cairn’s oil spill response plan; papers detailing how Cairn will pay for a clean up operation if a spill occurs; and a series of technical reports that would shed light on the risky nature of Arctic oil drilling.
http://www.greenpeace.org/denmark/Global/denmark/Arktis/dokumenter/Klage%20til%20Gr%c3%b8nlands%20ombudsmand.pdf
(3) http://www.greenpeace.org/international/Global/international/publications/climate/2011/GL%20ombudsman%20-%20en%20version.pdf
For a briefing on Cairn Energy:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/CairnEnergy/
For a briefing on Arctic oil drilling:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/publications/reports/ArcticBriefing/