Company misled Scottish Parliament say Greens

The company planning to carry out ship to ship oil transfers in the Firth of Forth was responsible for spilling around 35,000 gallons of oil in the Gulf of Mexico - but failed to disclose the information when providing official evidence to Parliament, the Scottish Green Party said yesterday.

In written evidence to parliament the company, SPT Marine, claimed an "excellent" record on ship to ship oil transfers by only referring to incidents dated after an oil spill in 1995.

The Greens said they had uncovered the incident, for which the US and the Texas Natural Resource Trustees sought 1.6 million US dollars in compensation, and are now calling the Scottish Parliament to declare the written evidence inadmissible and to make a statement on whether or not the company has misled Parliament. They have also asked the Scottish First Minister to urgently intervene to stop the Forth ship-to-ship transfer project going ahead following McConnell's assurance to the Chamber last week that the decision would be made based on a "scientific basis".

The Greens say that Scottish Ministers have "failed to make simple amendments to existing legislation to ensure that they, and not Forth Ports plc, make the final decision on the Forth proposals". Jack McConnell is now being urged “to move swiftly to ensure that Scotland's environment is protected.”

Mark Ruskell MSP, Green Speaker on the Environment, said:

"I'm shocked and disappointed that this company appears to have tried to hoodwink the Parliament. Not only did they fail to show up at the committee to give verbal evidence, they provided misleading written evidence that hid the fact that the company has been involved in a devastating oil transfer spillage in the US.

"This new revelation underlines the fact that the Firth of Forth is being exploited by a clique of unaccountable, self-regulating corporations while Labour and LibDem Ministers sit on their hands. The Environment Committee must now seek a full explanation from SPT Marine as to its conduct and selective provision of information, as well as pointing out to Ministers why there is an even greater need to strip Forth Ports of its decision-making power in the light of a blatant conflict of interest."

Though it is now over 10 years since the incident, Greens argue that SPT Marine's failure to disclose this key information shows the company is running scared and that their claim to an "excellent" record is misleading.

For their part, SPT Marine, a Sunderland based company previously called Melbourne Marine, issued a statement saying,

"Ship-to-ship (STS) transfer has an excellent safety record. There was an incident in 1995 which we sincerely regret resulted in a spill of 850 barrels in the US Gulf. The spill was not directly attributable to STS, but was a navigational incident between two vessels under way and preparing for an STS operation.

"For the proposals on the Forth, all vessels will be double hull vessels and the operations will be conducted at anchor and not under way."