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Feds Give Shell Permission to Drill for Oil in Alaska for First Time in 20 Years

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<> on July 9, 2015 in Shishmaref, Alaska.The federal government on Monday gave Royal Dutch Shell the final permit it needs to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska’s northwest coast for the first time in more than two decades.

The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced that it approved the permit to drill below the ocean floor after the oil giant brought in a required piece of equipment to stop a possible well blowout.

The agency previously allowed Shell to begin drilling only the top sections of two wells in the Chukchi Sea because the key equipment, called a capping stack, was stuck on a vessel that needed repair in Portland, Oregon.

Since the vessel arrived last week, Shell is free to drill into oil-bearing rock, estimated at 8,000 feet below the ocean floor, for the first time since its last exploratory well was drilled in 1991.

“Activities conducted offshore Alaska are being held to the highest safety, environmental protection, and emergency response standards,” agency Director Brian Salerno said in a statement Monday. “We will continue to monitor their work around the clock to ensure the utmost safety and environmental stewardship.” (Read more from “Feds Give Shell Permission to Drill for Oil in Alaska for First Time in 20 Years” HERE)

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Storm Impedes Salvage of Shell Drilling Ship Grounded in Alaska

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska – High seas and strong winds prevented crews from boarding an oil drilling ship to check for any damage after the large vessel went aground off an uninhabited island in the Gulf of Alaska.

A Coast Guard plane and a helicopter flew over the Kulluk on Tuesday, but severe weather did not permit putting marine experts on board the drilling rig, which had grounded on a sand and gravel beach in stormy seas.

Federal on-scene response coordinator Capt. Paul Mehler said the Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig is carrying about 143,000 gallons of diesel and about 12,000 gallons of lube oil and hydraulic fluid, and appeared stable.

“There is no sign of a release of any product,” Mehler said during a news conference.

A team of company, Coast Guard and local officials said they were mobilizing spill response equipment and preparing a plan in the event of a spill in the Partition Cove and Ocean Bay areas of the island. The area is home to at least two endangered species, as well as harbor seals, salmon, and sea lions.

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Shell’s Safety System Problems Plague Arctic Plans

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Photo credit: Daquella manera

Safety equipment that Shell Oil volunteered to put into place for drilling off the coast of Alaska is complicating the company’s quest to reach oil-bearing rock during the short open-water drilling season this year.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC announced Monday that a containment dome being tested off the coast of Bellingham, Wash., was damaged Saturday night in its final test. Time needed to repair the damage, on top of delays from ice and waiting for the Alaska Natives’ whaling season to end, figured into a decision to cancel plans to complete exploratory wells this year in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.

“We can see that we’re better off optimizing this year around top holes and next year drilling into hydrocarbons,” Shell Oil President Marvin Odum told The Associated Press. “That’s the way we get the best out of a multiyear approach.”

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar last month cited Shell’s failure to obtain certification for the Arctic Challenger, the oil spill response barge that will carry the containment dome, as the prime reason the company has not been able to drill into hydrocarbon zones this year.

Shell Alaska spokesman Curtis Smith said Monday the dome is one of several precautions against a major spill.

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Prepping to fight Shell Oil production: Biologists commence study of Chukchi Sea life

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Photo credit: thomas toohey brown

A group of researchers has embarked on the first comprehensive study of marine life in the eastern Chukchi Sea near Alaska. Their findings will be used by the Department of the Interior to help decide whether to grant future leases for offshore oil exploration and drilling in the region, and to regulate transportation and future fishing.

“We are going up there to look at the oceanography, plankton, fish and crab in the region,” said Michael Sigler, a marine biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fisheries service in Alaska.

Little baseline data has been collected in the region, which is currently little-trafficked and fished due to its remoteness and its ice-choked waters. As ice cover throughout the Arctic decreases, however, these pursuits are likely to increase.

Although surveys have been conducted in both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas since 1959, U.S. fishery research in the Arctic has been infrequent and limited in scope, according to a statement from NOAA. A similarly comprehensive survey of the northern Bering Sea was not conducted until 2010. [Images: Creatures of the Bering Sea]

The new study is primarily meant to gather data for scientists and to avoid negative impacts of oil exploration in the region, Sigler told OurAmazingPlanet. (Royal Dutch Shell has been granted a lease to drill exploratory wells in the area, and the company hopes to begin in the next few weeks, according to the Reuters news service.)

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Welcome to Barrow, AK: Coast Guard Finally Establishes Presence in the Arctic

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Barrow, Alaska – When the United States Coast Guard arrived in this remote corner of the Arctic this month to begin its biggest patrol presence in the waters north of Alaska, only one helicopter hangar was available for rent, and it was not, to put it mildly, the Ritz. Built by someone apparently more familiar with the tropics than the tundra, the structure had sunk several feet into the permafrost, with the hangar entrance getting lower as the building sank. Squeezing two H-60 helicopters into the tiny space? Think of parallel parking a stretch limousine. And for this — the only game in town, take it or leave it — the owner demanded $60,000 a month, a price that made Coast Guard leaders gasp.

“Not perfect, but you’ve got to learn to do it somehow,” Josh Harris, a Coast Guard aircraft mechanic, said as he stood surveying his first and not entirely straight attempt at towing in an aircraft.

In the land of the midnight sun, the Coast Guard’s learning curve is steep indeed.

The effort, called Arctic Shield, began this month as a pilot project combining search and rescue responsibilities with disaster response and maritime safety enforcement. It will presumably only expand, Coast Guard officials say, as global warming melts these once ice-locked waters.

With air operations based here in the nation’s northernmost community, more than 300 miles past the Arctic Circle, the assignment is expensive, logistically complicated to supply and far from backup should things go wrong.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: Juliancolton2