News and information on Shell Plc
Anchorage Daily News January 30, 2014
Royal Dutch Shell’s announcement that it wouldn’t drill in 2014 is the latest twist in the oil giant’s long history in Alaska.
Here are some recent developments:
• March 2005: Shell dominates a federal offshore oil lease sale for the Beaufort Sea with $44 million in winning bids.
• February 2008: Shell is top player in federal offshore lease sale for the Chukchi Sea with almost $2.2 billion in winning bids, returning to an area it relinquished in 1996.
By ALAN BAILEY: Petroleum News: December 20, 2013
Shell CEO Peter Voser said Dec. 11 that he anticipates oil production from the Alaska Arctic offshore to start during the second half of the next decade, if the company makes a discovery. For several years the company has been engaged in an exploration program on the outer continental shelf of the Alaska Chukchi and Beaufort seas but has yet to drill an exploratory well into a potential hydrocarbon zone.
Voser is leaving Shell in March and his remarks about his company’s Alaska plans came as part of an interview, posted on the Shell website, in which he commented on Shell’s business strategy and some of the issues facing the company as he prepares to hand over the management reins to his successor at the top.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has fined Royal Dutch Shell affiliates $1.1 million for emitting too many pollutants into the air during the 2012 drilling season offshore in the Alaska Arctic. The agency announced late Thursday afternoon that it had settled two enforcement cases, once involving the Noble Discoverer drilling ship’s work in the Chukchi Sea and the other involving the Shell-owned Kulluk drilling rig in the Beaufort Sea.
— [email protected]: Published: September 5, 2013
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has fined Royal Dutch Shell affiliates $1.1 million for emitting too many pollutants into the air during the 2012 drilling season offshore in the Alaska Arctic.
The agency announced late Thursday afternoon that it had settled two enforcement cases, once involving the Noble Discoverer drilling ship’s work in the Chukchi Sea and the other involving the Shell-owned Kulluk drilling rig in the Beaufort Sea.
— [email protected]: Published: June 6, 2013
Anchorage — Against the backdrop of Royal Dutch Shell’s troubled 2012 attempt to drill in the Arctic Ocean, a top Interior official — and former Alaskan — heard the gamut of views Thursday about whether and how oil companies can safely drill offshore in the Alaska Arctic.
No drilling at all, said the Sierra Club.
Clear and consistent standards, said the oil companies and industry groups.
The Department of the Interior for the first time is crafting specific rules for oil and gas exploration and production offshore in the Arctic. While Shell was operating under special conditions, such as a ban on drilling into oil-rich zones without a spill containment system, those requirements don’t automatically extend to other oil companies.
Around Dec. 7, Shell made the decision to leave that month, weather permitting, Churchfield said. The timing stemmed from concerns Shell had about the prospect of millions in state property taxes that could be assessed if the Kulluk were in Alaska at the first of the year, Churchfield told the panel. But the decision to go in December put the Kulluk and Aiviq into a fierce storm.
Published: June 1, 2013
Over nine days of testimony that wrapped up last week in Anchorage, witnesses told a Coast Guard panel investigating the Dec. 31 grounding of a Shell drilling rig about equipment failures, fuel problems and human error during the troubled voyage and frantic but failed effort to save the Kulluk. Now it will be up to the Coast Guard panel to determine just what caused the Kulluk to crash onto the rocks south of Kodiak Island.
In the hearing, part of a broader formal marine casualty investigation, boat captains, Royal Dutch Shell executives, a Coast Guard officer and others involved in the troubled tow of the Kulluk added new dimension and detail, along with informed theories, to what’s already known about the near-disaster. Some described how it could have been much worse.
The Kulluk, a 266-foot diameter, 30-year-old circular drilling rig, had been mothballed in Canada for a dozen years before Shell bought it in 2005 for an untold sum and invested $292 million in upgrades and retrofitting. The 514-foot-long Noble Discoverer is even older, built in 1966 and converted into a drilling ship 10 years later.
February 11, 2013
By LISA DEMER — [email protected]
In another costly setback for Royal Dutch Shell’s controversial Alaska Arctic endeavor, both drilling rigs used offshore during last year’s oil exploration season will be towed out of the water on massive vessels to Asia for further inspection and repair, Shell announced Monday.
The decision suggests the Kulluk and the Noble Discoverer — Shell’s only drilling rigs for the Arctic — need major work and calls into further question whether Shell will be able to resume drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas this year. Two federal investigations are under way into Shell’s Alaska operations.
Updated 20 January 2013
By JENNIFER A. DLOUHY — Hearst Newspapers
WASHINGTON — When Shell started buying leases to drill in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in 2005, the company was betting on Americans’ thirst for any oil locked under those Arctic waters, which could replace declining crude production from Alaska’s North Slope and other onshore resources.
Flash forward eight years, and the scenario has changed dramatically.
Now, energy companies are extracting ever more oil from dense rock formations in south Texas, North Dakota and other states, making the need to tap offshore frontiers less urgent.
By SHANNYN MOORE: 5 Jan 2013
Royal Dutch Shell’s Alaska operations could have used a dose of “local knowledge” to prevent their latest debacle: the grounding of the oil rig Kulluk. That phrase, “local knowledge,” should ring a bell for Shell. The company was the one of the largest contributors to a group opposing the restoration of Alaska’s Coastal Zone Management program.
Why did Shell spend so much money to keep coastal Alaskans away from the table? Don’t they value the experience of local people along the Beaufort and Chukchi coasts? Oh, that’s right. When you’re drilling in their back yards, you only want silent partners.
Published: October 11, 2012
By LISA DEMER — [email protected]
Anchorage — Better ice forecasting in the Alaska Arctic. More Coast Guard resources. More jobs for North Slope residents. A share of oil revenue for Alaska. Streamlined permits and regulation.
Those are some of the ideas presented Thursday to a U.S. Senate panel holding a field hearing in Anchorage on what was learned from this year’s offshore drilling by Royal Dutch Shell in the Alaska Arctic.
The overflow crowd also heard specifics on what happened to a Shell oil spill response system damaged during testing.
By LISA DEMER
Anchorage Daily News
Published: July 16th, 2012 10:21 PM
Last Modified: July 16th, 2012 10:35 PM
For two hours before a big Shell drilling ship stopped near shore Saturday afternoon, a Dutch Harbor resident noticed it slowly moving in that direction, an observed time that contradicts with the much shorter period of uncontrolled drifting in Shell’s account of the close call.
James Mason, a journalist who has lived in Dutch Harbor for a year and runs an online local news site, said he glanced at the Noble Discoverer out the window of his home a few times that afternoon and also was eyeing it as he tooled around town. He lives on Standard Oil hill overlooking the airport and Unalaska Bay, where the ship was moored.
COMPASS: Other points of view
By RICK STEINER
Published: July 16th, 2012 07:03 PM
Last Modified: July 16th, 2012 07:03 PM
After years of complaining that the environmental community, North Slope residents and the Obama administration are delaying its Arctic Ocean drilling projects, it is now apparent that Shell itself is not ready to drill.
Its oil spill response barge still has significant unresolved issues, and Shell recently asked for a variance to its air permit, proposing that it now be allowed to emit several times the amount of hazardous substances already permitted. If it wants a variance to important federal environmental regulations, Shell should have to go through the full public review and comment process prescribed by law.
By DAN JOLING; Associated Press
Published: 11/29/11 11:48 am | Updated: 11/29/11 11:48 am
Nine Alaska Native and conservation groups have challenged a federal air permit granted by the Environmental Protection Agency for a second Shell Oil drilling rig intended for Arctic waters.
The groups last month appealed an air permit for the Discoverer and its support vessels. Environment law firm Earthjustice on Monday appealed the EPA permit for the drilling vessel Kulluk.
Shell hopes to use the vessels to drill in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas during the open-water season next summer.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
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