Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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Question 409: To ask the Minister for Communications, Marine and Natural Resources the reason the Corrib gas refinery will not be treating and cleaning gas offshore, as is being done in Kinsale and elsewhere throughout the world; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10523/05]

Noel Dempsey (Meath, Fianna Fail)
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The Corrib gas field is a sub-sea development with gas processing at a terminal onshore. Offshore processing for the Corrib gas field is not the preferred development option as it would mean that production would be weather-sensitive, a serious drawback in the hostile environment at Corrib, and there would be greater capital and operational expenditure compared to a sub-sea development. The Deputy will accept the increased capital and operational expenditures that would be needed could make the development uneconomic and that there would be increased safety concerns as the offshore facilities would have to be manned.

In January 2001, the developers submitted to my Department a plan of development for the Corrib gas field. This 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, onshore terminal, and the alternative offshore concepts that were considered. The offshore alternative concepts were eliminated in the plan of development due to a number of considerations. 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. Remote control buoy technology has not been developed for the extreme environmental conditions experienced at Corrib. Development of an acceptable and reliable system could not be guaranteed within the proposed project timescale.

Furthermore, all the proposed manned facilities options incur high operational expenditure and have increased adverse safety implications, particularly with respect to offshore transfer of personnel. 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 price. The relatively dry nature of the Corrib gas, eliminating the need for offshore processing, and high reservoir productivity, educing 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.