Arctic Oil Drilling Given Final Approval by Obama Administration
On Aug. 17, 2015 Shell received the final approval from the US Department of Interior to begin conducting exploratory oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea off the Northwest Alaskan coast. Shell had obtained and paid for the leases to drill during the previous administration of President George W. Bush.
In 2012, Shell attempted exploratory oil drilling activities in the Arctic, but was forced to discontinue its drilling program due to a series of accidents, including the loss of control and grounding of one of its oil drilling rigs.
The annual window of opportunity to drill in Arctic waters is short due to weather conditions, and normally takes place between July and October. Shell’s Arctic drilling operations this year are already behind schedule after a ship carrying emergency well-plugging equipment was damaged by an underwater shoal while in the Arctic. The ship had to return to harbor in Portland for repairs and was prevented from leaving Portland harbor for nearly two days in late July by Greenpeace activists who blocked the ships passage by repelling off the St. Johns Bridge.
Environmental activists were angered by the Obama administration’s approval of drilling in the Arctic. According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the drilling will “despoil our last pristine ocean and spew massive amounts of carbon pollution into our atmosphere… This wrong-headed decision also will expose the Arctic to the likelihood of catastrophic spills in ice-choked waters more than 1,000 miles from a Coast Guard base and other critical clean-up infrastructure.” The US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management forecast “a 75% chance of one or more large spills occurring” over a 77-year oil extraction scenario.
Source: procon.org
