Category: Arctic

SEATTLE A Royal Dutch Shell PLC drilling rig that will search for oil in the Arctic left its temporary base in Seattle on Monday for the trip north to Alaska as dozens of activists in kayaks tried to stop it, authorities said. Live television showed the rig being towed out of its terminal at the Port of Seattle with kayakers fanning out in an arc as it moved into the Puget Sound. Twenty-five people were detained by the Coast Guard for violating a safety zone around the vessel and were fined $500 each, Coast Guard spokesman George Degener said. The rig paused at Bainbridge Island, west of Seattle, and several tweets indicated it had beached. Degener said the reports were incorrect and the rig was changing towing configuration. Seattle City Council member Mike O’Brien was among the activists who paddled out to oppose Shell’s plans to resume drilling for […]

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SEATTLE—Law enforcement detained dozens of protesters Monday for trying to block a Royal Dutch Shell RDS.A -0.03 % PLC oil rig from departing the Port of Seattle for drilling off Alaska—the latest development in a weekslong standoff in which environmental activists have been joined by an unusual ally: the city itself. Monday’s action took place after the Polar Pioneer and its support vessels attempted to leave the port about 6 a.m. to begin exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea and were intercepted by protesters in kayaks, Coast Guard officials said. About two dozen people were detained, including Seattle City Councilman Mike O’Brien, as more activists prepared to try to block the 400-by-292-foot drilling vessel from reaching the open sea, said Coast Guard Lt. Dana Warr. Lt. Warr said the agency is enforcing a 500-yard safety zone around the vessel, and that violators face misdemeanor citations. Shell officials said that […]

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graph of Alaska crude oil production, as explained in the article text Alaska’s crude oil production has declined from 1.8 million barrels per day (MMb/d) in 1991 to 0.5 MMb/d in 2014, and it is expected to continue declining through 2040. Almost 75% of Alaska’s crude oil production from 1990 to 2012 was from the Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River fields in the central North Slope, which respectively produced 4.9 billion and 1.7 billion barrels of crude oil over this period. Crude oil production in Alaska is sensitive to the challenging environment—including variable ice conditions and limited time without ice coverage—as well as pipeline economics . However, recent conditional approval granted to Royal Dutch Shell to begin exploratory drilling in the Burger Prospect in the Chukchi Sea may help to offset future declines in crude oil production from other state and federally managed resources in the region. U.S. Energy […]

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A divided federal appeals court on Thursday rejected an effort by a coalition of environmental groups to revoke federal approval of Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s oil spill response plans related to drilling on Alaska’s remote Arctic coast. By a 2-1 vote, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, which is part of the Department of the Interior, acted lawfully in approving the plans, which relate to Shell oil leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas from 2005, 2007 and 2008. It rejected arguments by environmental groups such as the National Audobon Society, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club, that the approval was “arbitrary” and “capricious,” based on Shell’s unsupported assumption that it could recover 90 percent to 95 percent of any oil spilled. Many environmental advocates oppose drilling in the Arctic on concern that any spill might prove […]

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Seattle activists opposed to Arctic drilling have vowed to launch a kayak blockade to prevent the departure of Shell’s drilling rig , and said they have hundreds of protesters standing to hit the water as soon as the Polar Pioneer departs. “Our effort is to create as large a flotilla as we can to make it impossible for them to get permission to leave,” Bill Moyer, executive director of the Backbone Campaign, an environmental justice organization, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday. Although Shell has not announced a departure date, activists with ShellNo said on its website that the rig could leave for Alaskan waters as early as Wednesday. There it will drill exploratory wells approved by the U.S. government last month. ”Work continues as planned in preparation for the Polar Pioneer’s departure to Alaska,” Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said in an email. “The rig and its crew will depart […]

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Alaskan energy coalition says it’s frustrated by non-state activists protesting Shell work planned for its territorial waters. UPI/Brian Kersey ANCHORAGE, Alaska, June 3 (UPI) — With pressure building on Shell’s port activity in Seattle, an Alaskan energy coalition said the state’s economy won’t be held hostage by external activists. "We don’t like our economy being held hostage by activists from another state," Anne Seneca, president of the Consumer Energy Alliance-Alaska, said in a statement. With federal approval in hand, Shell said it may start its drilling campaign in the arctic waters off the coast of Alaska as early as this summer. Shell’s drilling rig, Polar Pioneer, is stationed at the Port of Seattle ahead of the program’s start. In mid-May, a flotilla of kayakers took to the waters off the coast of Seattle to protest Shell. Advocacy group Friends of the Earth launched a legal challenge against the federal […]

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WASHINGTON Michael Brune is pleased that activists in kayaks are training for another "Paddle in Seattle" to confront an expected Royal Dutch Shell rig on its way to the Arctic to explore for oil. What makes the head of the Sierra Club just as happy is the effect Shell’s Arctic ambitions are having on his own environmental organization. Sierra’s funding drive against the resumption in Arctic drilling has taken in three times more money than usual campaigns by the nation’s oldest green group, said Brune, though he wouldn’t reveal specific amounts. And the group’s petition opposing President Barack Obama’s decision in favor of Shell last month has collected more signatures than any appeal in two years. "Our members are outraged because they believe fighting climate change is a moral challenge and they ask how the president can reconcile this move with his goals on climate change," Brune said. "All […]

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Alaska’s governor tells his Washington state counterpart that Arctic drilling off the state coast "will happen." Photo courtesy of Emily Johnston/350 Seattle SEATTLE, May 29 (UPI) — After a tour of a Shell drilling rig in Seattle, Alaska Gov. Bill Walker said oil is the lifeblood of the state’s economy and arctic drilling "will happen." Walker toured the Polar Pioneer drilling rig parked at the Port of Seattle before meeting with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee to discuss Shell’s plans for the arctic waters off the Alaskan coast. "Responsible offshore drilling in the Arctic will have significant economic impacts in Alaska, and I am encouraged by the advancements I saw today," Walker said in a statement. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray expressed opposition to Shell’s lease for a port terminal for use for its drilling plans offshore Alaska. With federal approval in hand, Shell said it may start its drilling campaign […]

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Faced with intense opposition from environmentalists, the director of the US Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management defended the administration’s conditional approval of Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic this summer, a decision she indicated was based on both federal statute and, partly, national security. "There are certain regulatory requirements and [Shell] had met all of those requirements," BOEM Director Abigail Ross Hopper said in an interview with Platts on Wednesday. "We don’t have the ability to push things back, we can either approve or deny or approve with conditions. [Shell] met all the regulatory requirements … there’s not a basis upon which to reject it." The majority of environmental groups are pushing for an effective ban on US Arctic drilling, a path some felt President Barack Obama may have been moving toward when in late January he designated 9.8 million acres in the Beaufort and Chukchi […]

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