Federal regulators in the US have given Royal Dutch Shell the final permit required for the petroleum company to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska’s northwestern coast for the first time in more than 20 years, raising the ire of environmentalists.
According to the Wall Street Journal and Associated Press (AP), the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement announced Monday that it was granting Shell permission to drill below the ocean floor after the company confirmed that it had purchased a piece of equipment, called a capping stack, designed to prevent a potential well blowout.
Previously, the agency had only allowed Shell to drill the upper sections of two wells in the Chukchi Sea because the capping stack was stuck onboard a vessel that needed to be repaired near Portland, Oregon. Since that equipment has now arrived, Shell will be able to drill into oil-bearing rocks located approximately 8,000 feet below the ocean floor.
“Activities conducted offshore Alaska are being held to the highest safety, environmental protection, and emergency response standards,” said Brian Salerno, director of the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement. “We will continue to monitor their work around the clock to ensure the utmost safety and environmental stewardship.”
Environmentalists: fight is far from over
Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said it was possible that the company could complete a well by the end of the summer. The company has until the end of September to drill before ice accumulation makes it too difficult to drill, and would not go into detail about how much progress it had made so far, calling that information “proprietary” and “not something we would release.”
However, as the AP, Discovery News, and other media outlets pointed out, environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club oppose the awarding of the permits and the drilling as a whole, claiming that the industrial activity will harm native creatures such as polar bears, walrus, and whales that are already being threatened due to rising temperatures and sea ice loss.
Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, said that granting the permit was “the wrong decision” and vowed that the fight was “far from over.” The people will continue to call on President Obama to protect the Arctic and our environment.”
Likewise, Greenpeace USA Executive Director Annie Leonard told Politico that it was “deeply hypocritical” of the Obama administration to approve the permit just days before the president was to embark on a tour of Alaska intended to highlight the growing issue of climate change.
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