Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)

I have not been made aware of the comments to which the Deputy refers in her question.

The development of the Corrib gas field, which is situated some 70 kilometres off the coast of County Mayo, has received the necessary statutory approvals, consents and licences for the development of the field and work on the project has commenced. The developers expect that first gas will flow in early 2007. I do not, therefore, envisage any change to the content of these approvals which have been granted on the basis of independent advice in all cases.

The Deputy will be aware that An Bord Pleanála granted planning permission for the terminal in its current location in October 2004. This decision is at present subject to two claims for judicial review.

In January 2001, the developers submitted to my Department a plan of development for the Corrib gas field. It states that, in terms of facilities engineering, the area in which Corrib is located is characterised by a harsh marine environment, being directly exposed to the Atlantic fetch, a lack of existing hydrocarbon production infrastructure and the presence of active fishery industry interests.

Section 4 of the plan of development sets out the proposed concept — an onshore terminal — and the alternative offshore concepts considered. The alternative offshore concepts were considered and eliminated in the plan of development due to a number of considerations, including the following: the water depth and hostile nature of the environment at Corrib do not favour the use of a fixed steel jacket or guyed tower — the latter has not been used outside the benign environment of the Gulf of Mexico; the floating production concepts are similarly not ideally suited to extended field life in the prevailing harsh environment, with large bore high pressure gas export risers being a particular design issue; and remote control buoy technology has not been developed for the extreme environmental conditions experienced at Corrib and development of an acceptable, reliable system could not be guaranteed within the proposed project timescale. These considerations also include that all the proposed manned facilities options incur high operational expenditure and have increased adverse safety implications, particularly with respect to offshore transfer of personnel; the high capital cost of all the floating or fixed platform options combined with the requirement for extensive gas transport infrastructure rendered the options sub-economic with predicted Corrib reserves and envisaged gas sale prices; and the relatively dry nature of the Corrib gas, eliminating the need for offshore processing, and high reservoir productivity, reducing the number of wells, allow the use of much simplified production facilities with high reliability. This permits the practical adoption of sub-sea production technology for Corrib.

In December 2000, my Department requested from the developers the results of its alternative concept studies. These were examined and reviewed in January 2001 by the consultant petroleum engineer advising my Department. He advised the Department that the developers of the Corrib gas field should not be required to change or consider changing the Corrib development scheme.

The House will appreciate that, given that the Corrib gas field development scheme has received all appropriate consents, I am not in a position, nor would it be appropriate, to initiate a process aimed at the fundamental change to the concept envisaged in the Deputy's question.

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