Jun 29 – Lloyd’s Report Not Undermined Says GSD
The GSD has said that the Government does not know what to do in order to discredit the Lloyd’s Report, which, says the Opposition, continues to be the only safety report on the proposed LNG Bunkering installations produced in Gibraltar.
Last week, says the GSD, Number Six said that the Lloyd’s Report had been substantially redacted by 80 pages, a claim which, according to the Opposition, is a “blatant lie”. The GSD adds that the Government has also said that the report is based on a single skin storage tank “and that is also untrue.”
The GSD says it will take its time to review the brief statement by the HSL and will respond to it after it has done so adding that this is a three page document responding to a 90 page report.
A statement continued: “Our initial impressions are, however, that nothing in it undermines the findings of the Lloyd’s Report and it just raises more issues than it answers (e.g. what the size of the tanks proposed and will a further land reclamation project be necessary at the Detached Mole in order to re-gasify the LNG there). We also note some selective quoting from the Lloyd’s Report and the inferences that are consequently drawn are wrong. This is particularly so in relation to both the LNG pipeline from the Detached Mole to the North Mole and the kind of LNG ships envisaged in the Lloyd’s Report to transport LNG. Indeed, in relation to the latter, the Lloyd’s Report specifically says that larger vessels represent a difficulty because of shallow waters.
“It has to be emphasised that this document is not a safety report and that the HSL itself admits, as we have continually maintained, that the quantified risk assessments (i.e. the safety reports) will be produced by the developers interested in building the LNG Bunkering facilities. This places into perspective the criticisms of the Government in relation to the report commissioned by Spark.
“The bottom line for us is that the consequences of an accident even if mitigated, which we have always accepted can happen, remain too high for us to accept in these locations so close to residential areas.”
{fcomment}
