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Frattini sounds Malta as BP prepares to drill for oil in our backyard
Italy’s foreign minister Franco Frattini has reportedly sounded Malta and Tunisia over the news that BP is to start drilling for oil off Libya in the coming weeks.
26 July 2010, 12:00am
Karl Stagno-Navarra
Karl Stagno-Navarra
2 min read
Speaking to reporters in Rome, Frattini said that the “BP issue is of evident interest for all States in the Mediterranean basin, and it must be addressed by the Mediterranean Union, at least to have the guarantees that safe technologies will be used.”
Frattini added: “this is not a bilateral issue. Italy, like Malta, Tunisia and other Mediterranean States are interested in the issue. Obviously, based on BP’s experience in the Gulf of Mexico is worrying for us, but we must find the right channels through which we can have peace of mind on what technologies are being used and the safeguards employed.”
Meanwhile, the Maltese government cannot tell us what it is doing to allay fears of a Gulf repeat.
In Sunday's edition of MaltaToday on Sunday, questions are put to the resources ministry as to what it has done to allay concerns and fears on BP’s new drilling operation south of Malta in the Libyan basin.
BP is set top start deep-water drilling off the coast of Libya within weeks in spite of concerns about the UK group’s environmental and safety record after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster, the Financial Times has reported.
At 1,700 metres below sea-level in Libya’s Gulf of Sirte, the well is expected to be 200 metres deeper than the Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico which triggered the worst US offshore oil spill disaster when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 people.
The spot where BP will drill its first exploratory well lies inside the “Line of Death” proclaimed by Muammer Gaddafi in the 1980s in claiming Libya’s total rights over the Gulf of Sirte. It is the area to which, in 1986, Ronald Reagan, the then US president, dispatched naval forces to challenge the Libyan leader’s claims, sinking two Libyan naval vessels and killing more than 30 Libyans.
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Grazie Frattini
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Grazzie Frattini
Alfred Galea •
I don't think that BP is gonna make the same mistakes it made in the Gulf of Mexico coz it would mean the end of BP if anything had to happen again.
John Camilleri •
Frattini is trying to play the Maltese and the Tunisians like a drum. This is nothing but sour grapes by Italy because their own company (ENI) lost out to BP.
