WASHINGTON — One of Shell Oil’s two Arctic drilling rigs is beached on an island in the Gulf of Alaska, threatening environmental damage from a fuel spill and calling into question Shell’s plans to resume drilling in the treacherous waters north of Alaska in the summer.
The rig, the Kulluk, broke free from a tow ship in stormy seas and ran aground Monday night. The Coast Guard was leading an effort to keep its more than 150,000 gallons of diesel fuel and lubricants from spilling onto the rocky shoreline.
At a news conference in Anchorage on Tuesday afternoon, Capt. Paul Mehler III, the federal on-scene coordinator, said that a reconnaissance flight showed the Kulluk was upright and stable, with no significant motion.
“The results are showing us that the Kulluk is sound,” Captain Mehler said. “No sign of breach of hull, no sign of release of any product.” He said the response team hoped to get salvage experts aboard the ship to get a better picture of damage.
On Saturday, the Coast Guard evacuated the Kulluk’s 18 crew members due to weather safety concerns.
“The extreme weather conditions and high seas continue to be a challenge.” said Susan Childs, Shell’s incident commander. “Our priority right now is maintaining the safety of our response personnel and evaluating next steps.”
The Kulluk was used by Shell for exploratory oil operations in the Beaufort Sea earlier this year.
Shell also used the Noble Discoverer, another drill ship, in the Chukchi Sea, and it was reported last week that the Coast Guard cited it for crew safety and pollution-equipment violations during a November port call in Seward.
Great video of crew rescue here from Weather Channel.
This is pretty much the visible face of peak oil. Companies like Shell simply don’t go to this much risk to procure a resource that is abundant. It’s the ‘low hanging fruit’ concept – the easy stuff (like Spindletop) gets used first, then we scour the globe and find oil in unexpected places like the Middle East, then we scour further and find it in the North Sea and Alaska, then we drill offshore, and then we start fracking and using tar sands. Each step gets harder and harder (and more expensive), and now we’re like the farmhand straining on a ladder to reach the last apple.
And speaking of the Arctic:
Light Absorption Speeding Arctic Ice Melt
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/light-absorption-speeding-arctic-ice-melt/
Is anyone at all confident that a major oil spill will not happen if we drill in the Arctic? Two groundings before drilling even starts, not a good omen.
Drill baby, drill!