The most recent public relations drive by Crogga in the Isle of Man Courier raises many contentious issues if we go beyond the pretty pictures and irrelevant personal history of the chief executive officer.

[Crogga paid for a four-page advertisement in February 3’s Isle of Man Courier.]

Crogga have repeatedly said they will sell any gas ‘to the Isle of Man’ at a guaranteed below-market price of 80p per therm, while their own predictions are for an average market price of 178p per therm.

We now see in the small print that this 80p ceiling cost promise applies only ‘up to a maximum of 5% of total field production’.

The term ‘up to’ could of course mean as little as 1%, and tells us nothing about what the pricing will mean for the gas bills of Isle of Man customers.

Giving an impression of less than half price gas to ‘the Isle of Man’ puts the onus on Crogga to produce real-world bill estimates for domestic households and businesses.

All gas beyond the price capped amount will come at a price determined by the wholesale market, so there is no validity to Crogga’s suggestion that they can in any way protect Isle of Man consumers from future price spikes.

References to gas as ‘clean energy’ and as a transition fuel are quite misleading.

Gas does indeed produce less greenhouse gas than oil or coal, but that does not make it ‘clean’ in the context of climate change.

In any case the island started its transition many years ago and nations cannot go on indefinitely using this smokescreen of assisting the transition to renewables which needs to accelerate, not continue as business as usual.

The piece refers to ’Manx natural resources helping Manx people and employing Manx people’, easy to say but much harder to substantiate.

The gas is ‘Manx’ only because it lies beneath our territorial waters.

Once it enters the wholesale gas market it is indistinguishable from any other source and can be sold on for burning wherever purchasers reside.

As for jobs for Manx people, what sort of jobs, how many? We already know the drilling is being contracted to off-island companies.

In terms of carbon footprint, it is disingenuous to make out that a new gas field installation, with its own carbon footprint and well head leakages, can possibly be better than simply continuing to import any residual gas needs from existing infrastructure.

The headline claim of providing ‘energy independence’ is not credible.

The government’s Climate Action Plan is quite clear that the gas-powered power station turbines at Pulrose will be decommissioned by around 2030.

They are also investing in a second interconnector cable to come online at the same time, so that our electricity will be imported, and will largely be what they term ‘carbon neutral,’ thus reducing our power generation carbon emissions to near zero. Crogga’s proposal is that they will rule out the ‘need for further imports of electricity’. Both of these scenarios cannot be true.

Taking into account the planned renewable generation already in Manx Utilities’ future energy scenarios, it is blindingly obvious that gas will form only one part of the energy sector and cannot possibly claim to provide blanket energy independence.

The publicity quotes possible figures for government income from gas sales, hedged about with qualifiers such as ‘could amount to’ and ‘the Crogga economic model suggests’. The figures quoted for VAT revenues to our Government are not a new extra source of income, no matter where the gas originates, the VAT levied remains the same.

We have a right to know if our Treasury can validate any of these figures.

Furthermore, allowing a new gas field to aim to maybe start production a mere 4 or so years before the second interconnector comes into operation reveals a worrying disconnect at the highest levels of our government in terms of climate action and energy policy.

Having gone into the public domain with such financial detail, Crogga have clearly relinquished any right for them or our government to subsequently invoke commercial confidentiality. I have politely put my views, asking for comment on whether I am in fact right, to the two most relevant ministers, Mr Thomas at Infrastructure, who issue the licence, and Mrs Barber at Environment, who are responsible for overall energy policy, but they have declined to respond to my queries at all.

The whole project has so many exaggerated and contentious statements that surely the situation is crying out for government to publicly either support or modify the various statements by Crogga.

P Christian

Isle of Man Friends of the Earth

Onchan

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