The U.S. Coast Guard began multi-day investigatory hearings on May 20 into Royal Dutch Shell's drilling rig the Kulluk, which went aground near Kodiak Island, Alaska, last New Year’s Eve.
In a clear concession that no oil company is a match for Arctic weather, Shell's president Marvin Odum announced on Feb. 27 that Shell will "pause" it's exploratory drilling operations for the year.
This is wonderful news for one of the most sensitive and remote environments in the world, and it comes only after oil companies were humbled by Arctic weather conditions last year.
After a year of set-backs and accidents by Royal Dutch Shell, the Arctic Ocean got a welcome break when the company announced it will not drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean in 2013.
The rig was at the mercy of the north Pacific’s relentless waves for six days until salvage crews managed to attach a tow line and begin moving it to a safe harbor where they plan to assess how heavily it was damaged.
The Wilderness Society has joined a coalition of Alaska Native and conservation groups in a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s decision to allow Shell to begin offshore drilling in the Arctic Ocean next summer.
This petition to Interior Secretary Salazar was submitted to the Department of the Interior on May 5, 2010 regarding the need to reconsider Arctic Ocean exploration drilling plans for 2010.
ANCHORAGE - The federal government’s Minerals Management Service put its rubber stamp on a plan today that allows Shell Oil to drill in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea as early as next summer. MMS approved Shell’s exploratory drilling plan without a full analysis of its potentially significant effects on wildlife and Alaska Native subsistence, already threatened by climate change, and despite a lack of fundamental scientific information about the region.
A remarkable news item surfaced this past week that Gale Norton, President George W. Bush’s first Secretary of the Interior from 2001-2006, is under a federal criminal probe due to her potentially inappropriate, unethical, and illegal relationship with Royal Dutch Shell over the federal lands that a Shell subsidiary was awarded for oil shale development when Norton was Secretary.
