31 December 2012
Twenty years after the Braer crashed and gushed tens of thousands of tonnes of crude oil into the seas around Shetland, the multinational oil and gas industry has been accused of failing to learn lessons from the disaster.
Environmental groups pointed out that the world was still suffering “massive scale oil spills with horrendous consequences”. And they warned that venturing into the Arctic to extract more oil would be “devastating” for the planet.
Just before noon on Tuesday 5 January 1993, the Liberian-registered oil tanker, MV Braer, ran aground in hurricane force winds just west of Sumburgh Head, at the southernmost tip of the Shetland Islands. It was carrying 85,000 tonnes of light Norwegian crude oil.
Over the next ten days all the oil leaked into the sea, causing one of Scotland’s worst environmental disasters. Thousands of seabirds were killed, salmon farms were contaminated and fishing was banned for up to seven years.
Compensation payments totalling £45 million were paid out to businesses that had been hurt. If it had not been for fierce winter storms breaking up and dispersing the oil, the damage could have been much greater.