offshore

With Catalonia urgently needing to grow its green energy sector to meet climate change goals, are large-scale wind farms the answer?

The European Parliament passed this Thursday a text, promoted by the Greek MEP Kostas Chrysogonos, which explicitly reports the Castor case and the thousand earthquakes suffered by the locals in Valencia and Catalonia’s Ebro Delta. This business project, consisting of an offshore facility that had to store 1.3 billion cubic metres of reserve gas for Spain, failed after causing over 1,000 small earthquakes. The European Parliament called this Thursday to “include the victims of collateral damage linked to prospecting, surveys and the operation of offshore facilities” in the potential beneficiaries of future compensations. “It is very important that all those affected by offshore oil and gas operations, which are proved to be in detriment of the environment and of the activities of other persons be compensated”, Chrysogonos said to the Catalan News Agency, after slamming the “scandal” which is the Castor case.

The Spanish Minister of Industry, José Manuel Soria, presented this Friday his “irrevocable resignation” after his involvement in U.K. Lines, an offshore firm set up by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. “All political activity should be exemplary, including when it comes to providing explanations”, Soria said in an e-mailed statement this Friday. “When that is not the case, you have to take responsibility accordingly”, he added. Soria referred to the “succession of mistakes committed during the last days” in relation to his confusing explanations regarding his business activities before 1995, when he started his political career. Soria also gave uphis seat in the Spanish Parliament and quit the presidency of the currently governing People’s Party (PP) in the Canary Islands, his home region.

Indignation at the Castor Project has increased due to the €1.35 billion payment issued by the Spanish Government to Escal UGS, the company behind the controversial offshore gas platform. The amount will be charged through gas bills to consumers over the next 30 years, starting on April 2016, making individual citizens pay the private-business bailout, partially funded through €1.4 billion worth of bonds from the European Union. This business project failed after a gas injection caused almost 1,000 small earthquakes in Southern Catalonia and northern Valencia. The Spanish Executive has been forced to compensate the company due to clause 14 of the 2008 Royal Decree, according to which the state would pay for the bailout in the event of the project failing to come to completion. 

On Friday, the Spanish Government approved the €1,350 million compensation to Escal UGS, the company behind the controversial Castor Project, a submarine facility built to store 1.3 billion tonnes worth of gas reserves off the Ebro Delta coast. This project failed after it was found to have caused almost 1,000 small earthquakes. This amount will be financed through increased tariffs to gas consumers over the next 30 years, resulting in public compensation for a private investment. The Spanish Government is obliged to pay the developer Escal UGS, because of a clause in the 2008 Royal Decree whereby the State would agree to compensate the company should the project be unable to be completed. An appeal of this law was rejected by the Spanish Supreme Court last October. The Spanish Government has argued that this solution is cheaper than operating the project. The Catalan Government however, which had opposed the project from the start, has appealed this decision to the Constitutional Court.

A series of earthquakes measuring between 2 and 4.2 on the Richter scale have been affecting the coast of southernmost Catalonia and northernmost Valencia in the last few weeks but particularly since last weekend. All the evidence suggests that the Castor offshore gas reservoir is behind the earthquakes. In 2009, the Spanish Government approved the building of an underground gas reservoir located under the sea bed, some 20 kilometres offshore from the Ebro Delta and Vinarós, using the cavity in the rock from a former oil field. Madrid approved the project without an earthquake risk report, despite a formal petition from the Catalan Government. Now, geologists, the Spanish Industry Ministry and the company admit that the injection of gas into the rock could be triggering the earthquakes. Activities have been stopped and the Public Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the case.

The project’s aim is to design maritime platforms able to produce hydrogen, generated with the help of green energies. The platforms could be used to provide service to oil tankers or to fix even fish farming, among others potential uses.