SafetyBeforeLNG - Press Release

Press Release September 17th 2018:

US Fracking Giant's attempts to flout Ireland's legal Boycott of Fracked Gas a game changer that puts the whole Shannon LNG project in doubt

As Ireland bans all fracked gas in the country, importing Fracked US gas into Ireland and storing it is now illegal.

Environmental Group highlighting fact that while it is legal to extract fracked gas outside Ireland's internal waters, it is also highly illegal to transport and store fracked gas once it reaches Ireland's shores.

With the confirmation that US fracked gas exporter, New Fortress Energy, is attempting to bring fracked US gas into Ireland via the proposed Shannon LNG project, we wonder how it plans to do that, considering that it is illegal to search for, take or carry away fracked gas that is situated in Ireland.

The Prohibition of Onshore Hydraulic Fracturing Act 2017 not only banned onshore fracking in Ireland but it also made it illegal for any person to "take" or "carry away" any fracked gas situated in the State and its internal waters.

Any LNG ship in the Shannon Estuary is allowed to bring fracked US gas but it will be illegal for anybody in the country to "search for", "take" or "carry away" any of this fracked gas from the ship or be involved in "storing" or "treating" the Fracked Gas.

We wonder if the company will have done any due diligence on Irish laws that have effectively banned fracked gas in Ireland before it makes it's final investment decision in the controversial Shannon LNG proposal in Tarbert, County Kerry.

This Act goes further than many ill-informed people realise and will have far-reaching consequences on any company thinking it can import fracked gas to Ireland under the radar.

The Act states:

"Notwithstanding anything in this Act or any other enactment or rule of law it shall not be lawful for a person to search for, get, raise, take, carry away or work petroleum by means of hydraulic fracturing".

Fracked gas in the Act is referred to as "petroleum by means of hydraulic fracturing" which means that the Act can be read simply as:

"Notwithstanding anything in this Act or any other enactment or rule of law it shall not be lawful for a person to search for, get, raise, take, carry away or work Fracked Gas "

The ban and boycott

"shall apply in respect of petroleum that is situated in the State including the internal waters"

Once LNG tankers are in the Shannon Estuary, they are in Internal Waters. If any of these ships contain Fracked gas then it will be illegal to transport this gas into the Irish network because the transportation ban makes no distinction on where that fracked gas came from originally .

The Fracking ban in Ireland came about due to strong scientific evidence on the pollution risk to water, the pollution risk to the atmosphere contributing to climate change and the Precautionary Principle and the rights of future generations to healthy and safe environments.

The ban on the transport of fracked gas within Ireland makes the country one of the toughest anti-fracking regimes in the world, outlawing the creation of a dependency on fracked gas bringing harm to powerless communities in America and elsewhere and sending a clear environmental message around the globe.

Everybody knows that fracked gas is dirtier than coal and will have a disastrous effect on the climate.

Ends.

The actual words in the Act (Prohibition of Onshore Hydraulic Fracturing Act 2017 ) are as follows:
Prohibition of hydraulic fracturing
5B. (1) Notwithstanding anything in this Act or any other enactment or rule of law it shall not be lawful for a person to search for, get, raise, take, carry away or work petroleum by means of hydraulic fracturing.
(2) The prohibition in subsection (1) —
(a) shall apply in respect of petroleum that is situated in the State including the internal waters, and
(b) shall not apply in respect of petroleum that is offshore.
Offence and penalty
5C. A person who contravenes section 5B shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable, on summary conviction, to a class A fine or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or both.”.

The Principal Act (Petroleum and Other Minerals Development Act 1960) has the following relevant definitions:

“petroleum” includes any mineral oil or relative hydrocarbon and natural gas and other liquid or gaseous hydrocarbons and their derivatives or constituent substances existing in its natural condition in strata (including, without limitation, distillate, condensate, casinghead gasoline and such other substances as are ordinarily produced from oil and gas wells) and includes any other mineral substance contained in oil and natural gas brought to the surface with them in the normal process of extraction, but does not include coal and bituminous shales and other stratified deposits from which oil can be extracted by distillation;

“working” when used in relation to petroleum, includes digging, searching for, boring for, getting, raising, taking, carrying away, storing and treating petroleum, and cognate words shall be construed accordingly;