By TOM FOWLER
Royal Dutch Shell RDSB.LN +0.28% had high hopes for its plans this summer to start drilling the first oil wells in U.S. Arctic waters in 20 years, backed by an Obama administration eager to show it wasn’t opposed to offshore exploration.
But the closely watched, multibillion-dollar project isn’t going the way the company or the government hoped—illustrating the continuing challenge of plumbing for natural riches in one of the world’s most unforgiving locations.
Sea ice in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off the northern Alaska coast was slow to break up this year, leaving the drilling areas inaccessible much later than anticipated. Meanwhile, one of Shell’s two drilling rigs slipped its anchor while waiting in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and almost ran aground. Shell also still isn’t finished working on a spill-response vessel that under new federal regulations must be in operation before drilling can begin.