TWO of Scotland’s leading oil experts have launched a blistering attack on plans by oil giant Shell to leave platform legs higher than the Eiffel Tower and storage cells taller than Nelson’s column in the North Sea when they decommission the Brent oilfield.

Professor Alex Russell, chairman of the Oil Industry Finance Association, and Professor Peter Strachan, of Robert Gordon University, say in a new paper that the structures will take hundreds of years to disintegrate, leaving a “potentially hazardous” legacy for future generations.

And they say UK Government agreement for Shell’s plans should not be granted without agreement from the Scottish Government, or the Scottish people.

“The plum economic contracts for topside recycling should be an issue Holyrood has an influence over, so that ways and means are found for decommissioning to be done as close as possible to where the oil platforms are situated,” their report said.

“Given the prospect of Scotland’s fishing and shipping lanes – who knows where Trident submarines meander around – being threatened by the presence of ghostly concrete towers for 1,000 years, the future decommissioning of topsides being undertaken outside Scotland smacks of rubbing salt into the wound.

“If the Scottish Parliament truly had devolved power then logically control over all economic activity in Scotland’s borders would be the prerogative of Holyrood.

“The promised unfettered devolution of control to Scotland by successive UK Prime Ministers (Cameron, Brown and Blair) is a myth without such transfer of power.”

Their criticism comes as Shell prepares to start the decommissioning of four platforms in the Brent field – Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta – with plans expected to be submitted to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) department by the end of the year.

The authors say 154 wells will have to be securely plugged after control equipment is removed – a process that has already been completed for Delta.

However, they are critical of the dozens of Eiffel Tower-sized gravity base structures (GBSs) being left on the seabed: “To be fair to Shell they have made strenuous efforts to clean out the storage cells, but they acknowledge that the safest option based on scientific evidence is to leave the possible radioactive sludge entombed in the thick walled concrete pyramids.”

Once Shell’s plans are submitted, there will be a consultation period, after which the plan will be sent to OSPAR – the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic – which has 15 member countries plus the EU.

“OSPAR (decision 98/3) have a clear policy of requiring operators to restore the seabed to its original debris-free state once oil production has ceased,” say Russell and Strachan.

“Shell point to concessions granted by OSPAR to other operators of GBS platforms to leave the GBSs in place with appropriate warnings to shipping and fishing interests.

“Once one concession is granted that becomes the precedent for similar concessions and in the blink of an eye OSPAR policy has been shredded and the exception to a policy can easily become the norm.”

Speaking exclusively to The National, Russel said the Scottish Government had to intervene: “They claim we have devolution of power, but we don’t have it. If we cannot take decisions on what is left in our territory for up to 1,000 years what kind of power is that we supposedly have.

“Who is supposed to monitor these structures for up to 1,000 years… Shell probably won’t be here in 100 years, so they are passing on huge potential liabilities to generation after generation of Scottish people – it’s completely unacceptable.”

WWF Scotland director Lang Banks said: “The industry pushed the boundaries of science and engineering to access North Sea oil and gas in the name of profit. Having made massive profits, it’s only right that it should push those limits once again to clean up their potentially hazardous legacy and protect the marine environment.”

Greenpeace UK chief scientist Dr Doug Parr added: “The oil industry should understand that failure to adequately decommission North Sea oil infrastructure would be both an environmental and reputational failure. In this case the main outstanding issue is the toxic contents of the storage tanks, and we have been clear with Shell that the responsible course is to remove the contents and deal with them.”

A Shell spokesperson told The National that after 10 years of preparatory work, its plans for decommissioning Brent would be submitted before the end of the year.

“The programme will include detailed recommendations (in line with the regulator’s comparative assessment process) for closing down and making safe the four platforms and subsea infrastructure, and follows rigorous engineering studies, expert input, consultations and scientific assessments, including extensive discussions with more than 300 non-governmental organisations, academia and local communities.

“A 60-day public consultation period will then commence and Shell would encourage all interested parties who have an interest in the Brent field to respond during the consultation period.”