The first incident was sparked in May by sighting of an oily sheen on the waters of Corio Bay at the end of the company’s Geelong refinery jetty.
“EPA analysis of samples taken on the day showed a match from oil coming from a jetty pipe flange,” confirmed EPA acting chairman Bruce Dawson after officers investigated.
The second incident occurred in June, with a large visible plume emanating from the refinery’s Sulphur Recovery Unit stack during routine maintenance work. Shell reported an air quality problem to the EPA, followed by reports from the public over health concerns from the emission.
“The licence requires no visible emissions from this stack,” Dawson said.
“While this was an unintentional breach of the licence conditions, EPA’s investigations revealed that further maintenance planning and precautions could have helped to avoid the situation.”
According to Dawson, the issues indicated Shell was not paying full attention to its environmental obligations.
“Shell’s licence places important requirements on Shell’s performance. EPA expects compliance with the conditions,” he said.
“Significant investment is needed in the refinery and its operations to ensure these types of incidents can be avoided in the future. Shell needs to continue to place an emphasis on improving the environmental performance of the refinery.”
Alan Greaves, Shell acting refinery manager, defended his company’s position.
“We take our environmental responsibility very seriously and our vastly improved performance during the past three years is testimony to our efforts,” he said.
“We’re also investing tens of millions of dollars on improvements to further protect our environment. The changes can’t happen overnight, but they are certainly well under way and we are working hard to complete them. We regret any impact these incidents caused, particularly in relation to the plume, which occurred during routine maintenance. We plan extensively for this sort of work, however sometimes the unexpected happened and it did,” he said.
Shell has 28 days to pay the fine or take the matter to court.
