Scotland Oil Spill: Shell-Owned Gannett Alpha Platform

Scotland Oil Spill August 15, 2011: Worst in Decade

An oil spill in the North Sea has dumped several hundred tons of oil into the waters off the coast of Scotland. The Scotland oil spill resulted from a leak in the Gannett Alpha drilling platform, which is owned by Shell.

The Gannett Alpha platform is 112 miles off the coast of Aberdeen, Scotland.

Shell Keeps Oil Spill Secret at First

Shell is being criticized for underplaying the severity of the oil spill. Indeed, Shell said nothing at all about the spill at first. The oil spill has been going on for days, and a slick is visible over a 60 square mile area of the ocean.

This one spill has already dumped several times as much oil as is seen in an entire year along the UK continental shelf. While the Shell oil spill isn't expected to reach shore, thousands of sea birds are already at risk.

While Shell probably took its cue from BP, whose Macondo spill in the Gulf of Mexico saw that company pilloried, someone needs to tell Shell that the anti-BP backlash was largely driven as much by its tin ear toward popular concern as by the spill itself.

In a nutshell, BP was hated because it didn't seem to care what happened to the Gulf Coast. Shell faces a similar result by appearing to know that UK residents will care. If you break the cookie jar, hiding it won't help.