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Oil Found under Thames

Current Affairs: Energy

Oil Found under Thames

Biggest find since the 1970s North Sea bonanza

Argentina claims Sovereignty over Canvey Island

Article originally published in GTG March 2010 – The GTG: years ahead of the curve!

London, Fri Feb 26th:
Pimlico Oil PLC’s share price has gone through the roof after the company announced that its exploratory drilling rig Pimlico Alpha has struck oil off the north bank of the Thames just 50 yards from Tate Britain.

Initial indications are that the field could hold as many as 2 billion barrels of high quality crude, making it the most significant UK find since the North Sea Brent field in the 1970s.

The shallowness of the river promises to make the drilling operations a good deal easier and less expensive than the North Sea, although it will be necessary to demolish about 2 square miles of Westminster to build an oil storage and distribution hub, with pipelines running outwards across east and west London.

But all parties agree that this would be a small price to pay for guaranteeing Britain’s energy supplies and it’s hoped demolition of buildings around Millbank will start before the summer.

Disputed Islands

One potential problem is the long-running dispute between the UK and Argentina’s Spanish-colonial government over sovereignty of Canvey Island and adjacent islets, the most likely location for a deep water oil terminal to service supertankers.

Known to every Argentine school child as the Islas Canvinos, the disputed islands continue to be a serious bone of contention between the UK and Argentina. The dispute last led to open hostilities during the corned-beef wars of the early 1980s. Argentina’s rather tenuous claim dates back to 1555 when the islands were included as part of the dowry from Queen Mary to her husband Phillip II of Spain. Argentina (of course) has a policy of claiming any territory that, like itself, might once been visited by at least one marauding conquistador.

The UK has consistently rejected this, as have the islanders who voted in 1983 to remain a part of Essex.

Footnote: Britain has received welcome support from the London-based Inca Government in Exile who continue to campaign for the return of their homeland and the eviction of all Spanish colonialists from Argentina.

Argentina’s claim on the other hand has been boosted by support from South America’s most popular stand-up comic, Presidento Hugo ‘Chavy’ Chavez of Venezuela, and they have promised to take their claim to the United Nations.

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