Environment

Greenpeace Documents North Sea Methane Leak From Blowout

Using an underwater remotely operated vehicle, activists on board the Greenpeace ship Esperanza documented a large methane leak in the North Sea caused by a major blowout during an oil drilling operation 30 years ago.

Greenpeace vessel lowering a remotely operated vehicle
A remotely operated vehicle is lowered into the water from the Esperanza. The vehicle was launched into the UK part of the North Sea to investigate a methane leak at the seabed.
Credit: Greenpeace.

Activists on board the Greenpeace ship Esperanza documented a large methane leak located in the British exclusive economic zone in the North Sea. Using an underwater remotely operated vehicle, they were able to film two of the gas-emitting craters at approximately 100 m water depth on the seafloor (at positions 57°55.30’N, 001°37.87’E and 57°54.81’N, 001°38.72’E) that are between 50 and 15 m in diameter and up to 20 and 9 m deep, respectively. The leak was caused by a major blowout during an oil drilling operation 30 years ago and is still emitting methane.

“Like many places across the North Sea, climate-destroying methane has been leaking here for decades, yet the oil and gas industry, instead of closing the leak and monitoring it, continues to drill holes in the sea bed, while decision-makers turn a blind eye. We are in the middle of a climate crisis fueling fires, floods, and inequality across the world, and this leaking methane is a climate change multiplier,” said Sandra Schöttner, marine biologist and oceans campaigner with Greenpeace Germany, who is leading the scientific work onboard the Esperanza.

In 1990, the Swedish Stena Drilling Company, on behalf of Mobil North Sea (now Exxon Mobil), accidentally tapped a gas pocket with the drilling platform High Seas Driller while searching for oil, causing a blowout that resulted in several craters on the seabed. An international team of scientists previously had been to this site and estimated in 2015 that up to 90 L of methane per second were being released. The leaking borehole has been returned by Exxon Mobil to the British state, who, in 2000, determined that further monitoring was not required, believing that the reservoir would soon be depleted. But 30 years later, the greenhouse gas continues to escape into the atmosphere.

According to a recent independent study, an estimated total of 8,000–30,000 tonnes of methane per year escape from gas leaks from more than 15,000 boreholes in the North Sea—adding to the 72,000 tonnes of methane that normal operations of platforms in the North Sea release every year.

The Greenpeace ships Esperanza and Rainbow Warrior are on a month-long documentation and peaceful protest tour to document the impacts the extraction of fossil fuels is making in the North Sea.

Greenpeace Methane Leak Investigation