David Norris (Independent)

I am not just some left-wing crank talking about this matter. The United Nations Special Rapporteur's report on Nigeria published in 1998 accused both Nigeria and Shell of abusing human rights and failing to protect the environment. It condemned Shell for a "well armed security force which is intermittently employed against protestors". This is what we are dealing with. This is the heart of darkness.

Let us consider the dangers. Shell places advertisements and gets the media involved. It stated that the gas coming from the head to Bellanaboy is treated gas. I agree that chemicals will be injected into it, for example, anti-freeze and corrosion inhibitor. However, it is still untreated gas and is just as dangerous. While it can claim to add chemicals, they are not chemicals that will alleviate the situation.

The gas will pass through the pipe at enormous pressure. Has anybody considered that this activity will take place over a bog? We had a bog slide a year or two ago. It is a highly unstable environment. They talk of floating a pipe on a concrete platform, which would be absolutely useless. A US army corps of engineers manual on foundations in soft ground suggests that considerably more than a simple concrete raft would be necessary.

I have received a letter from a learned gentleman with a PhD in this area in which he suggests that in particular conditions, for example a cold and foggy day in February with the soil and sea temperatures at approximately 5° centigrade, a pipe burst could result in an enormous explosion from a hemispherical cloud 272 m across and 136 m high.