In Melbourne, an Esso spokesperson suggested that following the uptick in good environmental news, its retired oil platforms would be removed — including the long steel support structures or ‘jackets’ — from the ocean.
Esso, owned by ExxonMobil, acknowledged that scientific studies disproved the creation of artificial coral reefs from fuel waste. Esso has plans to remove thirteen retired oil and natural gas platforms from Bass Strait over the next couple of years.
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Despite the positive steps to clean Australia’s oceans, industry regulators are demanding that Esso dredge around the pylons that need to be removed so that they can be cut off below the seabed. FoEA advocates suggested that jacket pylons could be cut to as close as the seabed as possible.
Jeff Waters, FoEA’s Offshore Fossil-Gas Campaigner, stated that:
Victoria needs to use steel to make wind turbines. We can then recycle the platform steel using renewable electricity. What we need now is a world’s best practice, state-of-the-art oil platform recycling yard, which will trap all toxins as the platforms are broken down, cleaned and recycled.
Waters also stated that a…
