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Argentina blocks pipe shipment believed bound for Falklands
(2/11/2010 - OGI: London) The Argentine Foreign Ministry has reported preventing a freighter carrying a cargo of seemless pipe from sailing from the southern Argentine port of Campana.
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry said today that the Thor Leader was boarded and kept from sailing with the cargo of pipe that it believes was destined for the Isla Malvinas (Falkland Islands).
"Evidence exists that indicate that the freighter was to be used to supply material linked to oil industry activities that the United Kingdom is illegally promoting in the Malvinas Islands," the ministry said in a prepared statement. "The Argentine government had protested on 2 February the renewal of British authorizations for oil explorations in areas of the Argentine continental platform illegally occupied by the United Kingdom."
Technip, which was shipping the pipe on the Thor Leader, today denied the Foreign Ministry charge that the pipe was enroute to the Falklands to be used in exploratory drilling for oil. It said that it was destined for the Mediterranean where the pipe was to be delivered to several customers, none of them with operations in the Malvinas.
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The Thor Leader. |
Nevertheless, Argentina's undersecretary of ports halted the shipment on the grounds that the freighter had called at Port Stanley in the Falklands without clearance by Argentine port authorities.
The tensions between Argentina and the UK have been building for several months as UK companies prepare to carry out exploratory drilling offshore the disputed islands. Desire Petroleum is, in fact, set to commence drilling before the end of this month with the semisubmersible drilling rig Ocean Guardian at a site in the North Falkland Basin.
The dispute between Argentina and the UK over sovereignty over the islands, which has come to violence and brief wars before, began in 1833, when the UK occupied them.
Click below for earlier reports:
Ocean Guardian to drill 2 Falklands wells for Rockhopper
Argentina protests Falkland exploration activities
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