Alaska News

Shell's exploration plan deemed complete, starting 30-day decision period

Federal regulators on Friday launched a 30-day clock for a verdict on Royal Dutch Shell's Chukchi Sea exploration plan.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management notified Shell that its plan to use two rigs to drill exploration wells in the remote Chukchi has been "deemed submitted," meaning that it is complete. BOEM now has 30 days to approve Shell's exploration plan, reject it or require modifications to it.

Shell intends to resume drilling in the area where it started a well in a trouble-plagued 2012 season. The company plans to return the Noble Discoverer to the Chukchi but also send a second rig to the area, the Polar Pioneer, to drill additional wells on Chukchi leases. Shell plans to complete the well started three years ago and five additional wells, an exploration-drilling program that is expected to require multiple open-water seasons.

The Polar Pioneer, owned by Transocean and contracted by Shell, replaces the Shell-owned Kulluk, the conical drill ship that grounded in the Gulf of Alaska on Dec. 31, 2012, and was damaged beyond repair. The Kulluk drilled the top portion of a well on a Shell lease in the Beaufort Sea, but the company's exploration plans now focus only on the Chukchi, where expected oil resources are larger.

The "deemed submitted" decision also launches two separate but partly concurrent public-comment periods. Members of the public have 10 days to comment on issues that BOEM should consider when completing an environmental assessment of Shell's revised exploration plan, and 21 days to comment on the exploration plan itself.

BOEM's action on Friday, though just one of several regulatory steps needed before Shell is allowed to drill again, was "welcome news," the company said in a statement.

"The execution of our plan remains contingent on achieving the necessary permits, legal certainty and our own determination that we are prepared to explore safely and responsibly. We continue to work on securing the final permits needed to continue exploration," the statement said.

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Several environmentalists said they were disappointed with the finding and accused the Obama administration of being in a hurry to approve Shell's drilling.

"The department's rush to allow Shell back to the Arctic is foolhardy, misguided and wrong," Niel Lawrence, Alaska director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said in a statement. "We need to heed the warnings of 2012, when Shell demonstrated so clearly that it is the gang that cannot drill safely."

Shell's plan to drill in Arctic waters off Alaska and, ultimately, create a new far-north offshore oil-producing province has been grist for a high-profile debate.

Greenpeace protesters this week climbed aboard the Polar Pioneer as it was being carried in the Pacific Ocean toward Puget Sound, a destination the ship is expected to reach within a few days.

Though the boarding occurred in international waters, Shell is asking a federal court for preliminary and more permanent injunctions ordering the protesters off the Polar Pioneer and the Blue Marlin, the ship carrying the drill rig, and barring anyone associated with the environmental group from interfering with any of the 28 ships the company is mobilizing for a possible drill season this year. Shell won injunctions against Greenpeace in 2012, though only for activities in U.S. waters.

At a hearing Friday afternoon, Shell's attorney told U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason that she has the authority to put a stop to Greenpeace's activities in international as well as U.S. territorial and exclusive economic zone waters.

Protections for all of Shell's vessels are needed wherever they travel, attorney Jeffrey Leppo told Gleason, the judge who handled the case in 2012.

If Shell's oil-containment barge, currently in Bellingham, were to be delayed or damaged, for example, "that would be catastrophic," Leppo said. "It isn't just the drill rigs that are essential. All of these other things are essential."

But Michael Moberly, attorney for Greenpeace USA, the branch of the organization targeted by Shell's complaint, said the court's jurisdiction does not extend to international waters -- an area that he said is becoming a public forum.

Additionally, citizens have the right to move freely to watch and document activities such as Shell's planned Chukchi drilling, Moberly said. Such observation was lacking in 2012, when the crew of the Discoverer committed environmental and maritime violations that resulted in seven felony convictions and $12.2 million in penalties and community payments, he said.

"That went unreported until someone blew the whistle at the end of the season," he said.

Gleason said she would have a decision within a few days on Shell's request for a temporary restraining order against Greenpeace. She set an April 28 date for a hearing on the company's request for a more permanent preliminary injunction against the organization.

Yereth Rosen

Yereth Rosen was a reporter for Alaska Dispatch News.

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