Ocean dumping plan for Brent Spur facility cancelled - October 1995.

Ocean dumping plan for Brent Spur facility cancelled - October 1995.

In 1995, Royal Dutch Shell made an offshore dumping plan to abandon its aging oil storage facility, Brent Spar, located in the UK North Sea oil fields. The facility is 147 meters high, 29 meters in diameter, weighs 14,500 tons, and has the capacity to store approximately 30,000 tons of oil, and Shell proposed to sink it to the bottom of the North Sea at a depth of 2,500 meters. However, the environmental group Greenpeace strongly opposed the proposal, pointing out that about 100 tons of oil mud remained in the facility, which could have a serious impact on the marine ecosystem.

Greenpeace's opposition was massive, and was strongly criticized by European countries, especially Germany and Norway. In Germany, a boycott of Shell products spread, leading to an approximately 30% drop in gasoline sales. This led to social pressure on Shell, which ultimately forced the company to abandon its ocean dumping plan.

The British government initially approved Shell's plan, but changed its policy in response to opposition from the environmental movement and other countries. Shell revised its plan and chose to transport the facility to the Norwegian fjords to be dismantled and recycled on land. Shell was forced to respond to the estimated cost of hundreds of millions of pounds to dismantle the facility onshore.

The case became an important case of corporate social responsibility for waste disposal and was widely reported as an international environmental crime. The case became symbolic of the growing awareness of marine environmental protection and influenced the subsequent tightening of regulations on marine waste dumping.