Savoonga, Alaska - Shell Oil will present an ambitious proposal for the federal government this week, looking for permission to drill up to 10 exploratory oil wells
Region prohibits the ice is jammed believed to hold vast oil reserves, potentially sufficient to power 25 million cars for 35 years. And with the production of North Slope of Alaska in sharp decline, the oil industry is eager to tap new wells offshore.
Shell has led the way, working for five years to convince regulators, environmentalists, native Alaskans and numerous clues that could manage the procedure safely, defend polar bears and other wildlife, safeguard air top quality for residents and respond speedily to any spill in the region. Even so, BP Deepwater Horizon disaster last year put a chill on new offshore drilling.
new application for Shell pose a test for President Obama, who pledged to put safety very first following the BP spill. But he also reiterated his support for offshore drilling amid voter concerns over gas prices rising.
The environmental groups say that a spill in Arctic waters might be inaccessible even a lot more catastrophic than the accident of the Gulf of Mexico. Republicans, meanwhile, are threatening to excoriate the president to turn his back on energy security, if he says no to Shell.
"Americans are suffering the amazing costs at the pump" said Rep. Cory Gardner, a Republican from Colorado in the Committee on Energy and Commerce. "So the president has to justify to the American folks why they are not replacing oil imports from Saudi Arabia to the oil produced in the United States."
Whatever the government decides an individual is angry. "If the Obama approves drilling in the Arctic, will demonstrate that they have learned absolutely nothing from the tide of the Gulf," said Brendan Cummings, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued to quit Shell.
Government officials say only that thoroughly examine the new proposal from Shell. "We should continue to adopt a cautious approach in the Arctic, which is guided by science and the voices of North Slope communities," said Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for the Department of Interior, which oversees most of the process.
The policy extends to the most remote villages of Alaska, where the support of Alaska Natives, or at least consent, it is essential to win far more licenses. With this in mind, Pete Slaiby, Shell's top executive in Alaska, was glad-delivered last week in Savoonga, a village on an island in the Bering Sea. Became raffle tickets, bought a trinket and congratulated the Yupik hunters to spear two bowhead whales.
A hunter waved a copy of the film "An Inconvenient Truth", and launched into an attack on oil as a cause for rising temperatures are melting the Arctic ice. Other hunters pressed Mr. Slaiby the concern that migratory walruses rely on food that suffer the noise, if drilling began north of here.
Mr. Slaiby said Shell was worried about climate alter too, and promised that the company would take careful precautions to safeguard wildlife. "We will not succeed here if we deprive people of their livelihoods," he said. "If the oil companies are performing well and individuals living around them are not, is a recipe for disaster."
Shell has already spent $ 3.7 billion on leases of 10 years at sea and the preparations for the investigation, despite the fact that the firm still has to drill one hole. Shell will formally present its new proposal - to drill up to 10 wells over the next two years in remote northern waters of Alaska in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas - in the coming days. If the program is approved inside nine months or less, the exploration could start next year.
As in the past, executives realize they will need to fight the battle on numerous fronts and legal policy. "It is like having a bunch of pins in hand, and attempting to make certain that not a single casualty," said Brian Malnak, Shell vice president of government affairs.
Possibly the most challenging obstacle this year will be to convince the government that Shell could protect the Arctic from a devastating stroke. An agency of the Interior Department lately estimated that a "hypothetical" bursting of an oil well in the Chukchi Sea would release 1.four million barrels of oil during a period of 39 days before a relief well could be drilled. A leak of this magnitude would severely test the capacity of ships, barges, skimmers and a tanker spill containment that Shell plans to deploy around their equipment, though the company promises to add any equipment deemed essential by regulators.
Shell proposes to use two drill ships, each and every capable of drilling a relief properly to others in case the type of explosion that destroyed the rig Deepwater Horizon.
Alaska, as soon as accounted for one third of oil production in the nation, but its fields are now in sharp decline. The reduced production threatens the continued secure use of the Program Trans-Alaska Pipeline, also known as TAPS, which needs a steady flow of oil to prevent corrosion and leakage.
The potential Alaskan Arctic holds 27 billion barrels of oil. "If we open the Arctic to oil exploration," said the governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell, "we can fill the TAPS line in a way to preserve for one more 50 to 100 years." Increased production from the Arctic would likely be a decade away, nevertheless.
Environmentalists argue that drilling risks are too wonderful. Warn that hurricane force winds, high seas, and freezing cold and ice makes cleaning a spill much far more difficult than in the Gulf, and they say that oil operations could impede the migration and reproduction of mammals marine.
"We believe there want to be much more spill drills, far more testing, much more inspections and drilling equipment to stop explosions prior to they start off," said Marilyn Heiman, director of the U.S. Arctic Program of the Pew Environment Group .
In his presentation at Savoonga, Mr. Slaiby said that Shell and other organizations had drilled safely in Alaska's Arctic waters in 1980 and 1990, without having a stroke or main harm to wildlife. He said that Shell intended to drill here wells had been considerably shallower than nefarious Macondo BP and as a result the possibility of a blowout much more remote.
"We never told people that what we do entails risk," Mr. Slaiby said, "but the risks are different from those in the Gulf of Mexico."
Region prohibits the ice is jammed believed to hold vast oil reserves, potentially sufficient to power 25 million cars for 35 years. And with the production of North Slope of Alaska in sharp decline, the oil industry is eager to tap new wells offshore.
Shell has led the way, working for five years to convince regulators, environmentalists, native Alaskans and numerous clues that could manage the procedure safely, defend polar bears and other wildlife, safeguard air top quality for residents and respond speedily to any spill in the region. Even so, BP Deepwater Horizon disaster last year put a chill on new offshore drilling.
new application for Shell pose a test for President Obama, who pledged to put safety very first following the BP spill. But he also reiterated his support for offshore drilling amid voter concerns over gas prices rising.
The environmental groups say that a spill in Arctic waters might be inaccessible even a lot more catastrophic than the accident of the Gulf of Mexico. Republicans, meanwhile, are threatening to excoriate the president to turn his back on energy security, if he says no to Shell.
"Americans are suffering the amazing costs at the pump" said Rep. Cory Gardner, a Republican from Colorado in the Committee on Energy and Commerce. "So the president has to justify to the American folks why they are not replacing oil imports from Saudi Arabia to the oil produced in the United States."
Whatever the government decides an individual is angry. "If the Obama approves drilling in the Arctic, will demonstrate that they have learned absolutely nothing from the tide of the Gulf," said Brendan Cummings, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued to quit Shell.
Government officials say only that thoroughly examine the new proposal from Shell. "We should continue to adopt a cautious approach in the Arctic, which is guided by science and the voices of North Slope communities," said Kendra Barkoff, a spokeswoman for the Department of Interior, which oversees most of the process.
The policy extends to the most remote villages of Alaska, where the support of Alaska Natives, or at least consent, it is essential to win far more licenses. With this in mind, Pete Slaiby, Shell's top executive in Alaska, was glad-delivered last week in Savoonga, a village on an island in the Bering Sea. Became raffle tickets, bought a trinket and congratulated the Yupik hunters to spear two bowhead whales.
A hunter waved a copy of the film "An Inconvenient Truth", and launched into an attack on oil as a cause for rising temperatures are melting the Arctic ice. Other hunters pressed Mr. Slaiby the concern that migratory walruses rely on food that suffer the noise, if drilling began north of here.
Mr. Slaiby said Shell was worried about climate alter too, and promised that the company would take careful precautions to safeguard wildlife. "We will not succeed here if we deprive people of their livelihoods," he said. "If the oil companies are performing well and individuals living around them are not, is a recipe for disaster."
Shell has already spent $ 3.7 billion on leases of 10 years at sea and the preparations for the investigation, despite the fact that the firm still has to drill one hole. Shell will formally present its new proposal - to drill up to 10 wells over the next two years in remote northern waters of Alaska in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas - in the coming days. If the program is approved inside nine months or less, the exploration could start next year.
As in the past, executives realize they will need to fight the battle on numerous fronts and legal policy. "It is like having a bunch of pins in hand, and attempting to make certain that not a single casualty," said Brian Malnak, Shell vice president of government affairs.
Possibly the most challenging obstacle this year will be to convince the government that Shell could protect the Arctic from a devastating stroke. An agency of the Interior Department lately estimated that a "hypothetical" bursting of an oil well in the Chukchi Sea would release 1.four million barrels of oil during a period of 39 days before a relief well could be drilled. A leak of this magnitude would severely test the capacity of ships, barges, skimmers and a tanker spill containment that Shell plans to deploy around their equipment, though the company promises to add any equipment deemed essential by regulators.
Shell proposes to use two drill ships, each and every capable of drilling a relief properly to others in case the type of explosion that destroyed the rig Deepwater Horizon.
Alaska, as soon as accounted for one third of oil production in the nation, but its fields are now in sharp decline. The reduced production threatens the continued secure use of the Program Trans-Alaska Pipeline, also known as TAPS, which needs a steady flow of oil to prevent corrosion and leakage.
The potential Alaskan Arctic holds 27 billion barrels of oil. "If we open the Arctic to oil exploration," said the governor of Alaska, Sean Parnell, "we can fill the TAPS line in a way to preserve for one more 50 to 100 years." Increased production from the Arctic would likely be a decade away, nevertheless.
Environmentalists argue that drilling risks are too wonderful. Warn that hurricane force winds, high seas, and freezing cold and ice makes cleaning a spill much far more difficult than in the Gulf, and they say that oil operations could impede the migration and reproduction of mammals marine.
"We believe there want to be much more spill drills, far more testing, much more inspections and drilling equipment to stop explosions prior to they start off," said Marilyn Heiman, director of the U.S. Arctic Program of the Pew Environment Group .
In his presentation at Savoonga, Mr. Slaiby said that Shell and other organizations had drilled safely in Alaska's Arctic waters in 1980 and 1990, without having a stroke or main harm to wildlife. He said that Shell intended to drill here wells had been considerably shallower than nefarious Macondo BP and as a result the possibility of a blowout much more remote.
"We never told people that what we do entails risk," Mr. Slaiby said, "but the risks are different from those in the Gulf of Mexico."
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