Posts Tagged ‘Arctic’

25 November 2010

The US has designated a “critical habitat” for polar bears living on Alaska’s disappearing sea ice.

The area – twice the size of the United Kingdom – has been set aside to help stave off the danger of extinction, the US Fish and Wildlife Service said.

The territory includes locations where oil and gas companies want to drill.

Environmentalists hope the designation will make it more difficult for companies to get permits to operate in the region.

“This critical habitat designation enables us to work with federal partners to ensure their actions within its boundaries do not harm polar bear populations,” said Tom Strickland, assistant secretary for fish and wildlife and parks.

Any proposed economic activity in the area, which covers 187,000 sq miles (almost 500,000 sq km) must now be weighed against its impact on the polar bear population, Mr Strickland said in a statement.

Most of the designated habitat is sea ice and includes some of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, where the oil company Shell wants to drill.

Shell was due to start drilling in the Arctic earlier this year, until the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico brought the plans to a temporary halt. It is now aiming to start drilling in 2011.

Environmentalists welcomed the move.

“Now we need the Obama administration to actually make it mean something so we can write the bear’s recovery plan – not its obituary,” said Kassie Siegel from the Center for Biological Diversity.

Ms Siegel urged the US government to impose a moratorium on oil and gas drilling in bear habitat areas.

Environmentalists also want the polar bear to be listed as an endangered species. Currently the US interior department describes them as “threatened” or likely to become endangered because the sea ice on which they live and hunt is melting.

SOURCE

NOVEMBER 24, 2010

By SIOBHAN HUGHES

WASHINGTON—The U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday designated 187,000 square miles of offshore sea ice and other areas as critical habitat for polar bears, a move that could make it harder for Royal Dutch Shell PLC to begin drilling in Alaskan waters next summer.

The Interior Department issued the final rules as Shell has been lobbying the Obama administration to by the end of the year approve its plans to drill in Alaska waters, especially the Chukchi Sea. The Chukchi and the Beaufort seas are home to the nation’s two big polar-bear populations, the Interior Department said, and thus provide critical habitat for species that the U.S. government has listed as threatened.

A critical habitat designation doesn’t automatically prohibit development. But the status does force the U.S. Interior Department to consult its U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and get a determination about whether any activity it is authorizing will destroy or adversely modify a critical habitat.

“Industrializing the Chukchi sea adversely modifies that area as critical area for the polar bear,” said Brendan Cummings, who specializes in the issue at the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. “I don’t see how Interior can move forward with allowing oil development to occur in the Chukchi Sea and be consistent with what this designation should entail.”

Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh said that the company was reviewing the designation. “It’s our commitment to protecting the environment and the way of life on the North Slope,” she said. “As new consultations take place, we will continue to work with stakeholders and regulators to determine if additional mitigation measures are needed.”

Shell has already spent at least $3 billion on leases, equipment, training and oil-spill response planning in connection with plans to drill in the Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas. It had hoped to begin drilling this summer, but President Barack Obama halted those plans in May when he shut down drilling across a wide swath of U.S. coastal waters in response to the BP PLC oil spill.

The Interior Department also said that it would not treat “existing manmade structures” as critical habitat, a departure from last year’s proposal. Environmentalists say that the change represents a weakening of protections for polar bears.

“Sadly, the critical habitat designation for polar bears is biased to exclude all human structures, including oil and gas facilities, notwithstanding that many of these structures are completely surrounded by critical habitat,” said Doug Inkley, a senior scientist for the National Wildlife Federation, in a statement.

Write to Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@dowjones.com

WSJ SOURCE ARTICLE

Report from US environment group warns that ice, freezing temperatures and high seas would overwhelm any clean-up attempts

Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent

Thursday 11 November 2010 10.31 GMT

The Trans-Alaska oil pipeline. Photograph: Doug Wilson/Corbis

The next big offshore oil disaster could take place in the remote Arctic seas where hurricane-force winds, 30ft seas, sub-zero temperatures and winter darkness would overwhelm any clean-up attempts, a new report warns.

With the ban on offshore drilling lifted in the Gulf of Mexico, big oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell are pressing hard for the Obama administration to grant final approval to Arctic drilling. Shell has invested more than $2bn to drill off Alaska’s north coast, and is campaigning to begin next summer.

But the report, Oil spill prevention and response in the US Arctic Ocean, by the Pew Environment Group, warns that oil companies are not ready to deal with a spill, despite the lessons of the BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

“There is a lot of pressure by Shell to drill this summer,” Marilyn Heiman, director of the US Arctic programme at Pew said. “But the oil companies are just not prepared for the Arctic. The spill plans are thoroughly inadequate.”

It took BP three months to bring its ruptured well under control. The former chief executive, Tony Hayward, admitted this week that the company had to improvise its response plan as it went along.

Trying to clean up a spill in the extreme conditions of the Arctic would be on an entirely different order of magnitude. “The risks, difficulties, and unknowns of oil exploration in the Arctic … are far greater than in any other area,” the report said.

The consequences for the Arctic’s environment would be dire, it said, wiping out populations of walrus, seal and polar bear and destroying the isolated indigenous communities that depend on hunting to survive.

Getting to the scene of a spill would be a challenge. The nearest major port, Dutch Harbor, is 1,300 nautical miles away from the drilling areas in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas, and what few air landing strips exist are not connected to any road system. There are no coast guard vessels in either sea, and the nearest coast guard station is 950 miles by air away in Kodiak Alaska.

Response teams would confront gale-force winds, massive blocks of ice and turbulent seas, total darkness for six weeks of the year, and extreme cold. Cranes would freeze and chemical dispersants, such as those used to break up the BP spill, might not work.

Then there is the ice. Left undetected, a pipeline leak could spread oil beneath the surface of sea ice. Ice floes could carry oil hundreds of miles away from the source. At freeze-up, oil can become trapped within ice within the space of four hours, remaining there until spring. If it becomes trapped within multi-year ice, oil could stay in the environment for years, or even a decade, the report said.

Pew and other environment groups this week ramped up their campaigns on offshore drilling, taking out full-page advertisements in gulf newspapers calling on the Senate to pass tougher offshore drilling regulations when it returns for its lame-duck session next week.

An oil spill bill passed in the house last summer, but has stalled in the Senate amid strong objection from the oil industry to provisions that would lift the current $75m cap on liability.

There is also increasing concern that the interior secretary, Ken Salazar, will lift the hold placed on Arctic drilling permits after the oil disaster in the gulf.

The report does not call for a complete ban on Arctic drilling, but it recommends far more extensive study of the potential environmental impacts of a spill before industry is allowed to go-ahead. “We need to take a surgical approach and see what areas should and should not be allowed,” said Heiman.

The report also says that any spill response has to be tailored to the extreme Arctic conditions, and that oil companies be required to real-life test runs of their containment efforts.

“We can’t be training them the moment the oil hits the water and the ground like we did in the Gulf,” Heiman said. “There is much more work that needs to be done to protect the Arctic.”

GUARDIAN ARTICLE

“There is a lot of pressure by Shell to drill this summer,” Marilyn Heiman, director of the US Arctic programme at Pew said. “But the oil companies are just not prepared for the Arctic. The spill plans are thoroughly inadequate.”

U.S. Coast Guard Ice Breaker Healy in U.S. Arctic Waters

© USGS

Oil Spill Prevention and Response in the U.S. Arctic Ocean: Unexamined Risks, Unacceptable Consequences details major gaps in response planning and Arctic marine ecosystem science. Government and industry oil spill response plans fail to account for the region’s remoteness and harsh conditions and fail to protect the fragile Arctic marine ecosystems and food webs that support walrus, polar bears and other marine mammals found nowhere else in the United States.

Report

Oil Spill Prevention and Response in the U.S. Arctic Ocean: Unexamined Risks, Unacceptable Consequences

Download PDF >

About the Report Authors >

REPORT DETAILS

The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive analysis of the difficulties of drilling for oil in the Arctic Ocean. The report identifies several major challenges to responding to and cleaning up oil spills in the Arctic. These challenges include remoteness (almost no roads or docks, minimal response manpower), extreme conditions (shifting sea ice, fog, 20 foot seas, hurricane force winds) and the reality that standards are not in place to ensure that a catastrophic spill can be contained and controlled or that fragile Arctic shorelines will be protected.

• The Arctic Ocean is a vital ecosystem for unique species found nowhere else in the US: polar bears, ice seal species, walrus, bowhead whales, and myriad fish and bird species. This ecosystem and its iconic species already are under strain from climate change. Even a moderate-sized spill that occurs in an area where sensitive or threatened species are concentrated could have devastating effects.
• Approximately 8,000 people live in this area, and depend on marine mammals and fish for as much as 60 percent of their diet. A reduction in the availability or safety of subsistence foods could have a profound impact on both the economy and culture of Arctic communities.
• Shifting sea ice, high seas, brutal winds and sub-zero temperatures could shut down spill response any time of the year. Even if drilling were limited to open-water season, a blowout that occurred late in the fall could continue for eight or nine months if a relief drill could not be completed before the ice pack moved in.

Policy Recommendations

Policy Recommendations:Oil Spill Prevention and Response in the Arctic Ocean

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Policy Recommendations Overview >

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS OVERVIEW

The Arctic Ocean presents unique challenges to oil and gas drilling that should not be underestimated. Before exploration and production drilling proceeds in Arctic waters, the Department of the Interior and other agencies must assure that there are requirements in place to control and contain a spill in Arctic marine conditions and to protect the fragile ocean and coastal ecosystems. The key issues that must be addressed include:

1. the need for research and data collection to provide an understanding of Arctic species, ecosystems and environmental conditions, and the impacts of oil spills in that environment;
2. the need for candid risk assessments and imposition of risk prevention measures;
3. identification of the response gap (shortfalls in spill response systems) and spill prevention measures that must be in place to mitigate that response gap.
4. enhanced and vigilant oversight by government agencies and citizens to reduce the possibility of oil spills.

Media Coverage: Arctic Oil Spill Report

“Almost everyone can agree that, however bad the Deepwater Horizon oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico was, a major spill in an icy Arctic sea would be worse. How much worse? A new report commissioned by the Pew Environment Group tries to examine that question, and the answer is: Get ready for a cleanup that could take years.”

– LOS ANGELES TIMES

“Retired Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the U.S. incident commander for the BP oil spill, said the Pew report makes valid points about response limitations in the Arctic.

“Traditional oil-spill containment equipment used elsewhere could fail in the Arctic, said Allen, who reviewed the report. ‘You can’t boom an oil spill when the water’s frozen,’ he told Reuters in a telephone interview.”

– REUTERS

“There is a lot of pressure by Shell to drill this summer,” Marilyn Heiman, director of the US Arctic programme at Pew said. “But the oil companies are just not prepared for the Arctic. The spill plans are thoroughly inadequate.”

– THE GUARDIAN

SOURCE

November 11, 2010, 5:43 pm

By LESLIE KAUFMAN

An image of a an oil-spill response vessel from a Shell commercial promoting Arctic drilling.

Now that the moratorium on deepwater oil and gas drilling has been lifted by the Obama administration, the battle for the Arctic is heating up again.

The suspension on deep-sea drilling was of course a reaction to the disastrous blowout in the Gulf of Mexico that produced the biggest offshore oil spill in the nation’s history, gushing from April to July. The moratorium was lifted last month, about six weeks before a Nov. 30 expiration date.

As soon as it was lifted, my colleague Cliff Krauss reported last week, Royal Dutch Shell began lobbying eagerly to get final approval for its long-delayed plans for exploratory drilling in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea. The petro-giant is paying for national advertising as part of a campaign to convince the public and the government that it is taking the kind of safety precautions that would prevent the kind of catastrophe that unfolded in the gulf from happening in the Arctic.

Yet the Arctic is well known to be more fragile ecologically than the gulf. And on Thursday, the Pew Environmental Group released a detailed report brimming with charts and maps that explores the question of how well the government and industry would be equipped to deal with a blowout and spill there. The report concludes, not so well. And here are some word-for-word highlights on why:

• The Arctic Ocean is a unique operating environment, and the characteristics of the Arctic OCS [outer continental shelf] — its remote location, extreme climate and dynamic sea ice—exacerbate the risks and consequences of oil spills while complicating cleanup.
• Oil spill contingency plans often underestimate the probability and consequence of catastrophic blowouts, particularly for frontier offshore drilling in the U.S. Arctic Ocean.
• The impact of an oil well blowout in the U.S. Arctic Ocean could devastate an already stressed ecosystem, and there is very little baseline science upon which to anticipate the impact or estimate damage.
• Oil spill cleanup technologies and systems are unproved in the Arctic Ocean, and recent laboratory and held trials (including the Joint Industry Project) have evaluated only discrete technologies under controlled conditions.
• Certain environmental and weather conditions would preclude an oil spill response in the Arctic Ocean, yet an Arctic spill response gap is not incorporated into existing oil spill contingency plans or risk evaluations.

So the researchers concluded that far more study is needed of the Arctic marine ecosystem. Modeling should be devised to project the trajectory of oil flow in sea ice conditions should a spill occur, they added.

And deployment exercises should be conducted to determine how effective a spill response would be in such a remote, sparsely populated region “before introduction of new offshore oil spill risks,” the report said. (The study includes a detailed critique of Shell’s planning scenarios in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.)

In other words, the study’s message is that the Arctic is not ready for such deepwater drilling operations.

That conclusion did not go down well with Arctic drilling proponents. “I disagree with Pew’s insistence on an unspecified moratorium on Arctic development, because the perfect set of conditions simply never occurs,” Senator Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska, said in a statement. “I’ll continue to push the Obama administration for responsible Arctic development now to help meet America’s energy, national and economic security.”

SOURCE ARTICLE

BY A FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA

John,

I don’t have time to spend writing much of an article for you on Alaska and Shell’s drilling plans, but I will make an observation that I am sure the WWF has considered, but then maybe not.

California gray whales migrate to the Beaufort and Chukchi seas every summer to feed. These areas are their summer feeding grounds. Literally. Gray whales are interesting because unlike other baleen whales the gray whales are bottom feeders. They scoop up large amounts of mud off the ocean bottom and then strain it through their baleen plates for shrimp, crustaceans, small fish, etc.

Any large oil spill in the Arctic would most probably end up producing a large amount of oil that settled to the ocean bottom in the form of tar balls, etc. We have seen this the Gulf of Mexico and elsewhere.

So, the gray whales would ingest these ‘tar balls’ in the process of feeding. In fact, they could ingest a large amount of ‘tar’ in the feeding process. This stuff is toxic, it is hydrocarbons, and I have little doubt large amounts ingested by a whale would be fatal. How much they could ingest is likely unknown.

So, it is reasonable to conclude that a large oil spill in the Arctic Ocean could decimate the California gray whale population. If the spill were extensive enough it might even drive the species to the brink of extinction.

Has anyone thought of this?  Is this considered in the government’s environmental impact statement? I have seen no mention of this.

I don’t see Shell running around the Arctic with specialized ships that don’t exist trying to vacuum up trillions of tar balls, etc., that could cover tens, hundreds, or even thousands of square miles (kilometers) of ocean bottom. They don’t have the money or technology to do that. They will opt for paying a large fine that is miniscule in comparison to clean-up costs.

So, an oil spill in the Arctic is going to have some very serious consequences that probably cannot be reversed. Is every body comfortable with that fact? Because there will be a large spill in the Arctic, soon or later.

Link to 220 page report on gray whale and walrus feeding habits in the Chukchi Sea by the US Geological Survey and prepared for MMS

By Andrew Ward in Stockholm and Sylvia Pfeifer in London

Several of the world’s biggest oil companies are vying for access to Greenland after a gas discovery this week raised expectations for offshore exploration around the Arctic island nation, in spite of environmental concerns over drilling in an area known as “iceberg alley”.

UK-based Royal Dutch Shell and Statoil of Norway are among those bidding for licences as the Greenland government seeks to cash in on what experts believe could be among the world’s largest untapped hydrocarbon reserves.

However, the prospect of an oil rush 400km north of the Arctic Circle is alarming environmentalists, who warn that an oil spill in such cold and remote waters could prove more devastating than the rupture of BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico.

Critics say Arctic drilling is fraught with risks from drifting icebergs to hostile weather in one of the world’s most pristine wildernesses. Yet, as global oil companies scramble for fresh reserves to meet rising demand, analysts say the region is too rich in resources for the industry to ignore. Wood Mackenzie, the consultancy, estimates there could be 20bn barrels of oil and gas in Greenland – part of the Arctic-wide reserves the US Geological Survey believes could account for a quarter of the world’s undiscovered oil and gas.

FULL FT ARTICLE

Comment by former Shell employee on the article: Shell, Statoil to Conduct Seismic Studies in Chukchi Sea

It is my understanding that Statoil, which just received permission from a Federal court to proceed with seismic exploration studies in the Chukchi Sea, was at one time wholly owned by the Norwegian government. Today it is a privatized company but the Norwegian government still holds a majority of the stock in the company. It is my understanding as well that Statoil is the last of the three Norwegian oil/gas production companies established by Norwegian government policy in the early 1970′s to develop their oil and gas resources in their sector of the North Sea. As such it is the ‘flagship’ oil company of Norway and responsible for the development of Norwegian oil and gas resources, which are quite substantial.

My question is this: If Statoil were to be involved in a major blowout incident in the Arctic that was beyond the capacity of the company to deal with financially, is the Norwegian government, the majority shareholder, on the hook for the balance of any cleanup costs? I bet nobody has an answer for that question.

Shell is a completely independent company. Statoil is not. It seems to me that if Statoil is ever involved in a major incident, like BP’s or some of Shell’s past incidents, there is the possibility of a serious diplomatic ‘dustup’ over cleanup costs and the manner in which the company deals with the situation.

And how would the Norwegian government deal with a situation where an incident and the subsequent financial burden of cleanup threatened the long term financial stability of that country’s ‘flagship’ oil company?

It seems to me the US government is sailing into uncharted diplomatic waters when it allows state-controlled oil companies to explore and produce in US territorial waters. There are issues here that need to be resolved. It is also readily apparent that the Dept. of the Interior and MMS are in over their heads on these matters. Perhaps it is time to seek some competent and professional assistance from the US State Dept.

I would presume however, that when it comes to operating in the cold, difficult environment of the Arctic it is Statoil that has far greater technical and managerial competence than Shell Oil USA, which has never operated a production project in the Arctic, and is mostly a Gulf of Mexico based company. In fact, it is a good bet Statoil’s competence exceeds that of BP and Exxon. So, perhaps Statoil is actually the preferred operating company in US Arctic waters. Shell, et al, could probably learn a thing or two from Statoil.

It also seems to me that the only oil companies that should be allowed to operate in Arctic regions are the ‘majors’, simply because only they have the financial where-with-all to deal with a major accident and its aftermath.

And it also seems that the oil industry should be required to establish an ‘incident/accident’ fund of several billion dollars, similar to that being contemplated in the Gulf of Mexico (to great public fanfare). All operators would contribute to this fund. This fund would insure that there would be readily available financial resources to react immediately to a major ‘Arctic environment incident’. The oil industry has never operated accident/incident free anywhere in the world, and they most certainly haven’t been able to do so in the Alaskan Arctic. There will be a major offshore incident if production is allowed in the Arctic. So, it seems that a ‘damage control’ plan should be established and funded prior to development, and prior to the ‘incident’. If these companies have billions to spend on leases they most certainly have the cash to contribute to the establishment of such a contingency fund.

RELATED ARTICLES

Statoil rewrites the rulebook: Sept 2007

Statoil wants to drill off Greenland: 25 November, 2009

forum magazine – Statoil’s clean sweep on safety

Another article on Statoil. Maybe the WWF would be interested in this and perhaps lobby for the imposition of Norwegian safety standards in the Arctic offshore! They have the ear of the White House, so why not raise the issue?

Why Norway’s offshore drilling is safer: 3 May 2010

This recent Guardian article on oil rig safety issues also mentions Statoil: BP threatened with legal case over safety of all its oil rigs

Norway’s offshore oil drilling safety record: 4 May 2010

For Big Oil, the N-word is “nationalize”: 27 May 2010

The real driving force in the Norwegian oil industry for safety, the environment, etc. is the Petroleum Safety Authority. I have included a link to their web site. They have their regulations on-line. PETROLEUM SAFETY AUTHORITY NORWAY

I have attached a link to an article in off-shore technology about BP’s proposed development of the Liberty Field in Alaska. It is interesting because of the use of extreme extended reach drilling technology. The cost of building a gravel island directly above the field was prohibitive. BP didn’t even consider some sort of man-made platform.

BP slows down plans for Liberty oil field: 6 July 2010

Six lessons from the BP oil spill: 10 July 2010

BP America, BPXA may be fined $500m for repeated violations: 1 April 2009

Poisoning the Well: Jan 1997

Frontier Discoverer (The Frontier Discoverer was originally built as a log carrier and was converted in 1975 to a Sonat Offshore Drilling Discoverer Class turret moored drillship.)

Shell plans to drill its first test well in the Chukchi Sea in the summer of 2010 or 2011, using the Frontier Discoverer drill ship. The company also plans to drill a second well in the Beaufort Sea with the same vessel later in the summer, according to Pete Slaiby, general manager for Shell Exploration and Production’s Alaska operations.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell still plans to start exploration drilling next year in Alaska’s potentially oil-rich Chukchi Sea in spite of a new legal setback, a company manager in Alaska said on Monday.