Greens dig in for BP pipeline protest

ENVIRONMENTALISTS have committed to extend for another five years their campaign attacking oil giant BP and its links to one of the most controversial pipelines ever to be built in Europe.

The pledge is a huge blow to BP ahead of its annual meeting next Thursday. Britain's biggest company already faces a protest vote over a new executive incentive scheme that could pay directors six times salary in bonus awards. Shareholder activist Pirc said that as a matter of policy it found the draft awards policy 'excessive'.

BP is one of the major stakeholders in the BTC pipeline linking the Caspian Sea with the Mediterranean.

The one million barrels-a-day pipeline is due to be completed this year and campaigners Platform and Friends of the Earth have raised a series of safety, environmental and human rights concerns.

Platform director Greg Muttitt claimed BP has privately assured banks financing the project that pressure from the green brigade would die away once the oil started to flow.

But he countered: 'We are now gearing up for a longer campaign. We hear from the experts that this thing is going to leak and we are going to be there when it does.'