 —  October – November 2013
perform and coordinate small-scale contract-
ing works”. On  September , however,
OSSL began to release emails and information
in which it claimed that its services extended
beyond just site-construction-
related activities, to dealing
directly with key members of
the receiving community.
In the first email published
on the Shell whistleblower
website, royaldutchshellplc.
com, OSSL alleges that a Shell
contracts manager for Corrib
“used OSSL to make payments
of cash and gifts to various par-
ties in Erris and beyond” and
“gave instructions regarding the
purchase of various items to be
gifted to local householders with
a view to advancing the project
in a particularly difficult part of
the construction program”. The
email, from OSSL and addressed
to the ‘contracts manager’ is
dated  August . It goes
on to claim that another mem-
ber of Shell Ireland subsequently
“disguised” the nature of these
purchases, and demanded that
the relevant invoices be “falsi-
fied and diverted to Roadbridge
[the main contractor on Corrib]
so as to avoid any connection
with Shell directly”. Some of
these items are stated by OSSL
to be cookers and televisions,
and OSSL claims that it was
ordered to transform the con-
tents of the invoices to instead
represent ‘safety wear’. The
identities of ‘Project co-operators’, ie local
landowners who were engaging or who had
“Shell was using OSSL to win hearts and minds
in Mayo to progress the project but sud-
denly things changed, and tracks needed
covering”
Desmond Kane, OSSL
S
EVENTEEN years ago this month,
the Petrolia drilling rig hit a natu-
ral gas field  miles off the west
coast of Mayo. According to Briain Ó
Catháin, MD of Enterprise Energy, who made
the find, “It was one of the biggest well-tests
that Enterprise had ever done”. For Ó Catháin
and other Irish people working in oil and gas
around the world, it represented great hope
that finally they could come home to work in
the emerging Irish industry.
Ó Catháin, now heading the successful oil
company, Petroceltic, did not get to see the
Corrib project to fruition. Following Shell’s
takeover of Enterprise and planning difficul-
ties with Corrib, Ó Catháin moved on. With
hindsight, it was a good move.
Shell might now feel a little unfortunate to
have inherited the project in . It came
as part of the larger Enterprise portfolio, and
by this time it was already encountering dif-
ficulties. Following a lengthy oral hearing, An
Bord Pleanála inspector Kevin Moore rec-
ommended that permission to build a gas
refinery on a bog be refused: “From a stra-
tegic planning perspective, this is the wrong
site; from the perspective of Government pol-
icy which seeks to foster balanced regional
development, this is the wrong site; from the
perspective of minimising environmental
impact, this is the wrong site; and conse-
quently, from the perspective of sustainable
development, this is the wrong site”.
Shell sought and was granted a meeting
with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in Government
Buildings on the  September . At the
meeting Tom Botts, CEO of Shell E&P Europe,
received assurances that the Government
would seek to facilitate the project, and
that a re-submitted application would be
processed “with all possible speed”. After
amending proposals relating to the disposal
of peat, planning permission
was granted for the Bellanaboy
gas refinery on the original site.
Corrib was back on track – or so
it thought!
A decade later and still no
gas is flowing from Corrib into
the now-complete Bellanaboy
refinery. The project is set to
eventually cost quadruple the
original $ million estimate,
but the reputational dam-
age internationally for the oil
giants Shell and Statoil may be
much higher.
Corrib has been beset by
problems and controversies
over the last ten years and, most
notably the jailing of five land-
owners in , who came to
be known as ‘The Rossport ’.
As of the time of writing, Shell’s
onshore tunnelling operations
are suspended, following the
death of a German maintenance
engineer on the ‘Fionnuala’ tun-
nel-boring machine, some 
metres below Sruwadaconn
estuary.
As if Shell had insufficient
headaches at the moment, the
latest controversy in the long
running Corrib saga has come
from a most unlikely source.
OSSL, a small services provider
in the oil and gas industry, was
taken on early in the project to provide per-
sonal protective safety equipment and “to
Shell and OSSL dispute whether inducements
were given to Gardaí and named individuals.
By Risteard Ó Domhnaill
NEWS shell TO sea
The invoice,
drawn up ve
years after
the event,
and less than
one month
after the
settlement,
outlines
how two
consignments
of alcohol
costing
€29,500
were
purchased
in Northern
Ireland by
OSSL
“
A lone
Erris
farmer
looks
out over
Broadhaven
Bay,
landfall
of the
Corrib Gas
pipeline,
Pic: John
Monaghan
Bogs and booze
in Bellanaboy and
Belmullet