Anadarko front man, Alan Seay, has announced that the company has delayed the start of the Raglan ultra deep-sea drilling for “technical reasons” – Yeah Right! The start of drilling is now running days late held up by the presence of the Oil Free Seas Flotilla in the drilling zone, 110 nautical miles west of Raglan.
Raglan Maori are looking at issuing a trespass notice on oil drilling company Anadarko nearly a week after its drillship the Noble Bob Douglas arrived in their customary fishing waters.
Tainui Awhiro hapu environmental spokeswoman Angeline Greensill said the hapu was considering legal action after the arrival of the gargantuan drillship on Tuesday.
“They are actually within our customary fishing area of the whole west coast, so we’re just contemplating going out ourselves. They need to be served notice that they are trespassing on our rohe moana (ocean boundary).”
Mrs Greensill, a former Mana Party candidate, said discussions were under way between west coast Maori on how best to protect their traditional food source.
She complained Raglan Maori were not consulted before the Government issued Anadarko a license to prospect for oil in 1500 metres of water.
Speaking on RadioLive this morning, Prime Minister John denied there was a large number of people in New Zealand worried about the safety of deep-sea drilling.
“There are people who are genuinely confused by the data and what they’re told,” he said.
This was after more than 3000 people showed up at coastlines across the North Island yesterday, to show their opposition to deep-sea drilling in New Zealand.
“You can’t say there’s no risk,” Key said.
“But I think that risk is extremely remote.
“Technology has changed a lot, we have higher standards in New Zealand. I’ve seen what it would actually take for there to be a major problem, and there’s an awful lot of things that would have to go wrong at the same time.”
Key refused to say whether or not the military would be called in to push the protest boat back outside the exclusion zone.