By Neela Banerjee, Tribune Washington Bureau –
WASHINGTON—Days after the Obama administration approved Royal Dutch Shell’s oil spill response plan for drilling in the Arctic Ocean off the Alaskan coast, an independent federal report said that Shell’s plan fails to take into account the risks unique to oil production in harsh, icy offshore conditions.
After years of delays, Shell’s plan to drill for oil in the Beaufort Sea as early as this summer has gained momentum as it won necessary permits from the Interior Department.
Shell’s project would be the first time oil drilling occurred in the U.S. Arctic Ocean since the early 1990s. But environmentalists, some indigenous Alaskan groups and members of Congress have argued that there are not enough safeguards in place to contain a well blowout or clean up a spill in rough Arctic conditions.
The report issued Friday by the Government Accounting Office cited Interior Department and Coast Guard officials who said “that a well containment response in Alaskan waters might face certain risks that could delay or impede a response to a blowout.”
The GAO report raised questions about whether wellhead equipment could withstand ice that scoured along the sea floor.
Interior officials told the report’s authors that if a blowout occurred after the drilling season ended in October, the sea’s surface ice could make it difficult for Shell’s icebreakers to get to the accident site and install containment equipment.
In response to the GAO report, Interior officials released a statement Friday saying that “exhaustive reviews of the plans” were conducted before the arctic approvals and Shell will be held accountable for addition reviews and inspection “to ensure that all personnel and equipment are positioned and ready, if needed.”
Shell has spent nearly $4 billion and five years preparing to drill exploratory wells in the Beaufort and nearby Chukchi seas. It said it hopes to begin drilling as early as July 10 and continue until just before the onset of ice in October, with a brief halt in the late summer to allow for a hunt of bowhead whales by local native Alaskans.
Shell has said that the chances of a blowout in the Arctic are smaller in part because pressure in the oil reservoirs is less than in wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
If a blowout did occur, Shell and the oil industry as a whole might not have enough boats and people in place to deal with it, the GAO report found.
Shell officials “told us that additional personnel would be needed to respond to a subsea well blowout. Moving personnel to the site could delay a response, since harbors, airstrips, and hotels necessary to support personnel are limited in number and size along Alaska’s northern shore. The facilities are also generally much farther from the drilling sites than they are in the Gulf of Mexico.”
Shell defended its drilling plans. Said spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh: “We believe our plan, vessels, and equipment are the Arctic standard. In addition to Arctic capping and containment systems, our three-tier response plan was specifically assembled to mitigate environmental impact in the hugely unlikely event of well control incident.”
