Neill O’Neill
WORK is to commence in the coming weeks on infrastructure for the €40 million gaswest project, which will for the first time see natural gas pumped directly into Mayo. Contrary to popular belief however, the supply will not be coming from the Corrib gas field, which is not yet operational, but from existing sources, such as the Kinsale Head gas field off Cork and from as far afield as Russia.
At present, approximately 87 per cent of Irish gas is bought on the international market and piped into the country via Scotland, through a series of international under-sea pipelines which continue on across continental Europe, the North Sea and into parts of Asia.
Though a vast amount of our national supply comes from the North Sea at present, these pipelines link Ireland to suppliers from all over Europe who ensure that gas is always readily available for our domestic market.
Such pipelines are the most economically efficient way to transport gas from the world’s largest reserves in Russia to Western Europe, and the proximity of the Russian suppliers and European consumers means that they are also the most feasible supply option when this gas is needed.
The new 149km Mayo-Galway transmission pipeline runs in a north-westerly direction from the existing pipelines on the national grid in Galway towards Bellanaboy where the hope is that it will eventually connect to the Corrib gas supply when this comes on line. This is not due to happen until the end of 2009 at the earliest, and while work is running to schedule on the project at the moment, it could, given the complex nature of the works and the on-going local concerns in the area, be further delayed.
Bord Gáis hope that when the Corrib gas field is active that it will become one of their main sources for the Irish domestic market, as the capacity of the Kinsale Head field is rapidly declining. Shell estimate that the Corrib field holds enough gas to supply 60 per cent of the Irish demand for a period of between ten and 15 years and Bord Gáis admit that the Mayo-Galway transmission pipeline might not have been financially viable for them had the Corrib gas field not existed.
They will buy the gas from Shell at market value price (which is set internationally and linked to the value of oil) and the irony is that gas from the Corrib field, despite being in Irish waters and only 83 kilometres from the Mayo shore, will cost the same to purchase as the gas that is piped here across thousands of miles from Norway or Siberia.
Castlebar will be the first Mayo town to receive gas when they go active on the grid in December this year with Westport following in March 2008. The other Mayo towns of Ballina, Crossmolina, Knock, Claremorris and Ballyhaunis will go live at later dates in 2008 and 2009.
The scores of yellow piping which have appeared on roadsides across the county will be laid over the next six weeks by staff from the South Midlands Construction Company, who are the contractors for Bord Gáis, and the work will be suspended during August to minimise disruption in Westport and Castlebar during the busy tourist season.
