May 24, 2012: 9:19 AM ET
This summer, the energy giant will begin exploring off the icy coast of Alaska — after years of resistance by environmentalists. The payoff could be the largest U.S. offshore oil discovery in a generation.
By Jon Birger, contributor
In Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the U.S., it’s hard to tell where the land ends and the frozen Arctic Ocean begins. The average temperature stays below freezing for eight months of the year. Photo: CORY ARNOLD
FORTUNE — Pete Slaiby is eating breakfast with an Eskimo businessman at a Mexican restaurant across the street from the Arctic Ocean when two Coast Guard admirals happen to walk in. It’s 8 a.m. on a Tuesday in late March. Outside the temperature is an extremity-tingling, -35° F. Look 100 yards north, and it’s not at all clear where the snow-covered land ends and the ice-covered ocean begins. Slaiby, Royal Dutch Shell’s vice president for Alaska, rises to give the Coast Guard brass a warm welcome before they grab a nearby table. “Welcome to Barrow,” he says wryly as he sits back down to his plate of huevos and reindeer sausage.