British Geological Survey is engaged in a fight over its plans to shut its rock core facility in Edinburgh and shift the collection to a location in England.
Petroleum Exploration Society of Great Britain (PESGB) members are up in arms about BGS’s quietly made plan, which became public late last year.
It is viewed as a cost-cutting measure, but one that will backfire. It has emerged that it would cost at least £4.3million to move the many thousands of boxes of North Sea cores.
In strategic terms, it could prove a disaster.
In particular, companies in Aberdeen that use the facility will face a massive increase in travel costs, coupled with the sheer difficult of getting to Keyworth, in Nottinghamshire.
Scotland’s universities, most of which have a significant involvement with the energy sector, will lose out, too, and one academic in Aberdeen suggested that moving the cores was the thin end of a wedge that would see BGS exit Scotland completely.
The Scottish Government has been alerted and has expressed concern. The affair has even reached the ear of First Minister Alex Salmond.
BGS, which is publicly funded through NERC (Natural Environment Research Council), claims that is has carried out adequate consultation.
But PESGB rejects this. Moreover, the society has published the results of a survey of its members.
In summary, 77% of members indicated that the core store should remain in Edinburgh, and 89% of active users thought so.
Not only that, PESGB’s survey appears to have put paid to the BGS claim that most users were (that is, had invoice addresses) from down south.
PESGB said: “The responses suggest that this is the first time the core-store users have been properly accessed to solicit their views.
“Concerns included the lack of consultation; threat to damaging the core; the cost of the move; difficulty and cost of access to the new location; impact on carbon emissions, and threat to the education of the next generation of scientists for the energy industry.”
Henry Allen, PESGB’s current president, said: “The views of our members are very clear on this matter and I am extremely concerned about the situation. I am therefore proposing to the BGS and its higher authorities that a steering group should be formed comprising the genuine stakeholders to reconsider the way forward.”
Letters have gone out to BGS, DECC, NERC, Geological Society and Oil & Gas UK. There is apparently also strong support for the archive staying in Scotland from politicians of all parties up to, and including, First Minister Alec Salmond.
Professor Patrick Corbett, of Heriot-Watt University, said: “The rock archive is a valued resource for teaching and research in universities. Courses like petroleum engineering at Heriot-Watt are, to some extent, predicated upon it.
“It not only provides the opportunity for students to view all the world-class North Sea oil and gas reservoirs, but also allows students to assess their potential as sites for safe carbon storage.”
An independent quote has been secured from an oil-industry expert in the field of core transfer.
They have stated that the transfer of the core in the national offshore oil&gas rock archive at Gilmerton, Edinburgh, to Keyworth, would cost £4.3million. The quote consists of a specification as if undertaking the work for an oil-industry operator such as Shell, who they regularly work for using this spec, and includes their recommendations on handling, transferring and storing core.
Energy was told that the figures for the cores involved are not estimates, but are based on the actual figures and were provided by the BGS – a total of 172,410 boxes.
All the boxes are currently stored on shelving (none on pallets) so moving them on to pallets is necessary, too.
“One would imagine that the £4.3million cost of safe transfer would rather blow a hole in the (as yet still unpublished) business case (prepared for BGS by consultants) for their removal south,” said Professor John Underhill, of Edinburgh University.
“More importantly, use of just a fraction of this (£300,000, for example) would allow the existing facility, which has decades of spare capacity, to be upgraded without the risk of damage to the core.
“BGS also claimed the facility was dilapidated – any visitor can see that to be far from the truth.
“Wouldn’t it be a travesty for our valuable reservoirs to leave Edinburgh as friable sandstones and arrive at their destination as worthless piles of sand?”
Prof Corbett said it seems that NERC’s paymaster, the Department of Energy and Climate Change, has failed to take into account just how much this core is used in Gilmerton by the oil&gas industry as a whole and how critical the facility is in generating new exploration and development ideas, plus it is considered critical to training new expertise.
“Moving the cores to a store in Nottingham is not going to promote North Sea exploration,” he added.
In a letter to PESGB last month, BGS defends its position and said the issues surrounding the proposed relocation of the core store to Keyworth had been “well aired”. It attacks Prof Underhill for an article penned in the PESGB journal criticising its tone and branding it inaccurate.
The row is set to continue.