
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 6, 1995                   TAG: 9509060145
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: ABERDEEN, SCOTLAND                                LENGTH: Short

GREENPEACE ADMITS ERROR IN ITS DISPUTE WITH SHELL

Greenpeace, which pressured the oil giant Shell into scrapping plans to dump an old drilling platform at sea, admitted Tuesday that part of its campaign was in error.

In a letter to Shell UK Chairman Chris Fay, Peter Melchett, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said the group had wrongly claimed that 5,500 tons of oil remained aboard the platform Brent Spar. That would have been about 38,500 barrels, or 1.6 million gallons.

Fay said the amount of oil aboard the Brent Spar was as little as 50 tons, or about 350 barrels. He said any environmental impact from dumping it would be ``minimal.''

Fay said he respected Greenpeace for acknowledging its error. ``Had we dumped ... it's an awful word when you think about it - had we disposed of the Brent Spar, then perhaps that misinformation would have stayed forever.''

The letter said Greenpeace had tried to take a sample from one of the platform's storage tanks, but it learned recently that the equipment used in the measurement had become stuck in a pipe.

As a result, it took a sample only from the pipe and never got into the tank.

The Brent Spar has been towed to Norway, and Shell is deciding what to do next.

- Associated Press

by CNB