Shell burned by book

A controversial book has drawn attention to Shell’s international pollution record and the state of its refinery in Durban.

A controversial book has drawn attention to Shell’s international pollution record and the state of its refinery in Durban.

The South Durban Community Environmental Alliance (SDCEA) this week said details of the multinational oil company’s continuing pollution incidents were documented in a new book, .

Copies of the book were to be presented to Shell Southern Africa’s management at the South African launch.

”Shell’s oil refinery in South Africa is an apartheid relic that is presently crumbling. The plant has had more than 17 major incidents since January 2001, impacting directly on the people in south Durban, and they have a right to call for government to shut it down,” Bobby Peek, a Durban resident and winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, told .

SDCEA spokesperson Steven van Wyk said the pipelines from the SA Petrol Refineries (Sapref) plant in Durban to the Island View storage depot, where products were stored before being shipped out of the country, were about 40 years old.

“In developed countries it is the practice to replace such pipelines every 20 years. In Durban they have merely been patched,” Van Wyk added.

The SDCEA said pollution incidents at the Sapref plant in less than four years included: the largest underground petrol spill in Shell’s history in June 2001, an incident in which 25 tons of toxic tetra ethyl lead, a neurotoxin, leaked in March 2001 and an incident in which 15 000 litres of marine fuel oil spilled into Durban harbour in December 2001.

Asked if the leaks of so many chemicals did not cost Shell money, Van Wyk told said the financial losses to Shell were small, in some cases “not even measurable,” but the damage to human health and the environment was great.

In response to the report, Shell Southern Africa spokesman Lutz Kranz said that the company had not “read the book and/or studied its contents. Shell SA will make an official response to the issues raised in the book after a full investigation”.

“The allegations in the book concern Shell as an international company and not just in this region,” Kranz added. “We will look at all the aspects globally, because we take environmental and social issues very seriously”.