The Whiddy Island oil terminal reopened yesterday nearly 20 years after the Betelgeuse disaster. At the official opening of the terminal in Bantry, Co Cork, the Irish National Petroleum Corporation (INPC) announced that a fund of £1 million was being put aside to help compensate shellfish farmers in the bay in the event of a future oil spillage. The Whiddy terminal was effectively destroyed in 1979 when the tanker Betelgeuse exploded at the jetty with the loss of 51 lives. Since then, the terminal has been used as a storage facility but never returned to full production.
At a news conference in Bantry, the INPC said compensatory funds had been set aside for local shellfish producers and a procedure put in place which would allow for independent adjudication in the event of an oil spillage.
In the mid-1970s several oil spillages caused serious disruption to local fishermen, particularly mussel producers. The INPC said the measures now in place were an attempt to restore confidence and assure producers that all reasonable efforts were being taken to ensure the bay will be pollution free.
In the event of a spillage, a consultative group comprising fishermen, members of the local authority and the company will adjudicate on any claims.
The terminal has been opened at a cost of £18 million using a single point mooring system. This allows huge tankers, such as the one which brought 70,000 tonnes of crude oil to Whiddy at the weekend, to transfer its cargo via floating lines rather than a fixed jetty.
At a news conference in Bantry yesterday, the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, said the investment programme would allow Whiddy to maximise its contribution to the oil industry and enable it to store the required 90-day national reserve of crude oil. This requirement was introduced after the last oil crisis when the State was left short of supplies by the major petroleum distributors.
The prospect is that new jobs will be created at Whiddy and that the terminal will be restored to a fully operational facility.
Besides storing the national oil reserve, it will be used as a trans-shipment centre for oil to other ports in Europe. The INPC says the new level of investment should lead to a decrease ultimately in the cost to motorists at the petrol pumps.