Airport key for oil and gas industry off coast

Date Published: 17-Jan-2013

BY CIARAN TIERNEY

The potential of Galway to develop as a major service hub for oil and gas fields off the West coast would be jeopardised if the city’s airport is allowed to close down, a leading international oilman has warned.

Former Statoil Director Stein Bredal, who visited the city on a fact-finding mission in 2011, told the Galway City Tribune this week that the region’s huge potential as an energy hub would be called into question if the Carnmore facility is forced to close.

The Airport Board have until February 11 next to come up with a viable business plan to convince Galway City Council to come up with €50,000 in funding which would allow the facility to stay open.

Mr Bredal said the region had the potential to create hundreds of service jobs if the requirements of oil and gas exploration firms are taken into account during the revamp of Galway Harbour and any future plans for the airport at Carnmore.

Just over a year ago, he extended an open invitation to the then Mayor of Galway, Hildegarde Naughton, to visit Stavenger in Norway to see what could be done in a port city of a similar size, where there are now thousands of people employed in the oil industry.

“If you close down the airport it would be a retrograde step for the oil and gas industry,” he said this week. “Stavanger is now the fastest growing airport in Norway and you have people flying in, related to the oil business, every day.

“A lot of people working here might fly in from Monday to Thursday and they see the airport as a very vital piece of infrastructure. It would be preferable if Galway actually had a bigger airport, where jet aircraft could land. It would also be good to have a ‘helipad’ to allow helicopters servicing the oil rigs to land.”

His comments were echoed by Galway-based oil and gas consultant Padraig Campbell, a former oil rig worker, who said it would be a shame to lose the airport at a time when there was huge jobs potential in the oil, gas, wind, and wave energy sectors.

“There are vast resources right on our doorstep and it would be lunacy to let the airport go,” said Mr Campbell. “There is huge potential for a deep water port and for ancillary services, such as an airport. Aberdeen was only a small airfield with a few pre-fabs in the 1970s and it’s now a full-scale international airport, thanks to the oil and gas industries.”

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.