BP plans off Shetlands, Libya meet opposition

August 3, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

LONDON

Plans by BP to begin drilling for oil off Britain’s Shetland isles and the Libyan coast within weeks are facing growing opposition in the wake of the disastrous Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Environmental campaigners and some lawmakers are calling for a U.S.-style ban on deepwater drilling while the potential dangers are evaluated — but they face an uphill battle to overcome a lack of political cohesion and the world’s insatiable demand for energy.

Even before BP successfully plugs the leaking Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, the London-based company is gearing up to begin exploratory drilling in the Gulf of Sirte off Libya and off the Shetland Islands north of Scotland.

Both fields could prove lucrative for the scores of companies, including BP, with drilling rights and likely will provide crucial new global gas and oil reserves as supplies of less-risky land and shallow- water reserves decline.

But there is concern about the haste in proceeding before a full investigation into what caused the most serious environmental disaster in U.S. waters, particularly given questions about whether Mediterranean states are equipped to deal with a spill of such a magnitude.

“A moratorium could be the right approach for potentially dangerous drilling ... to give Europe time to define a new and specific strategy for the Mediterranean, especially in light of the risk exposed by the Deepwater Horizon spill,” Italian Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo told the Financial Times, backing up similar suggestions by the EU’s energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger.

Italy is one of a handful of EU member states, including Malta, Greece and Crete, that are within just a few hundred miles of BP’s rig in the Gulf of Sirte.