Despite a mammoth security operation mounted by hundreds of Gardai and IRMS security to facilitate the transportation of a Shell tunnel boring machine from Dublin Port to Aghoos, Co Mayo. Shell to Sea activists managed to delay the convoy with three actions on its route; two lock-ons and the blocking of Bellacorrick bridge with a van. The convoy included four lorries transporting specialist tunnelling equipment bound for the Sruwaddacon estuary where one of the longest raw gas subsea tunnels in western Europe will be built to link the pipeline to the inland refinery at Bellanaboy. The TBM is 140m long and weighs almost 500 tonnes. It was built in Schwanau in Germany by Herrenknecht. The TBM is comprised of 14 sections. The front part contains the 28-tonne cutter head which will drill under Sruwaddacon Bay next year. The cutter head consists of 21 14" cutter discs, 32 scrapers and six buckets and requires two 400kw motors to turn it.http://www.indymedia.ie/article/102208

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Fionnuala.mov

by ThePipeThe Film

Shell's Corrib pipeline tunnel boring machine 'Fionnuala' gets stuck at Glenamoy cross, 31st July 2012