Oil rig runs aground on Sitkalidak Island on New Years Day.

On 21 December 2012 the Shell Oil Exploration Rig Kulluk left the port of Dutch Harbor on Unalaska Island, Alaska, with the intention of reaching the port of Seattle, in Washington State. It did this despite extremely poor weather conditions, apparently to avoid paying a tax bill that would be incurred if the rig remained in Alaska on 1 January, attempting to make the voyage in winds described as 'near-hurricane force'. On 28 December the rig ran into trouble, when one of the vessels towing it, the Edison Chouest Offshore operated Anchor Handling Tug Supply Vessel Aiviq, suffered an engine failure. This lead to a loss of control of the Kulluk, which dragged the two attached vessels, the Aiviq and the Alert 16 km towards the rocks of Kodiak Island over the following four days, before a cable connecting the Aiviq to the Kulluk snapped and the struggle was abandoned to avoid the loss of the towing vessels. The vessel eventually ran aground on 500 m deep rocks of Sitkalidak Island.

The Kulluk on rocks of Kodiak Island. AP.

The United States Coast Guard has formed a unified incident command with companies involved in the salvage operation, including experts brought in from Dutch company Smit Salvage. A total of 630 people and twenty-one vessels, are said to be involved.

The Kulluk is in the Arctic as part of a Shell plan to drill for oil in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas, a project which has provoked considerable controversy with environmental groups concerned that the rigs will not be able to operate safely in Arctic waters, and which has bee dogged by problems from the outset. In February 2012 protestors from Greenpeace occupied the Nobel Drilling vessel Nobel Discoverer, which will be forming the other part of the two-drilling rig operation. In December 2012 the Nobel Discoverer was again detained, this time by the US Coast Guard for safety reasons. A third vessel, the Arctic Challenger failed to meet seaworthiness requirements for some months. 

This new disaster has renewed calls for the US Department of the Interior to rescind Shells permits to drill in the Arctic. The event will also cost the company severely in financial terms, as it will be forced to reimburse all costs incurred by the recovery operation, as well as the original tax bill, estimated at US$6-7 million, since the vessel never made it out of Alaskan waters. 

Shell has issued no statement other than to confirm that there was no loss of life in the incident, that the rig was not leaking any oil, and that it will cooperate fully with the US Coast Guard.

See also Amnesty International reports on the 2012 Bodo Oil Spill, Greenpeace activists occupy drilling ship in New Zealand, Oil spill off the coast of Nigeria, The UN reports on oil pollution in Ogoniland, Nigeria and Drilling for oil on the Ningaloo Reef.

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Greenpeace activists occupy drilling ship in New Zealand.

Early on the morning of Friday 24 February 2012 seven activists from the environmental group Greenpeace, including actress Lucy Lawless (better known as Xena the Warrior Princess) boarded the Liberian registered drilling exploration ship Noble Discoverer in the Port of Taranaki 0n North Island, New Zealand, as a protest against plans to search for oil in the Alaskan Arctic on behalf of the oil giant Shell. The ship had been chartered from its owners, Noble Drilling, after Shell was granted a license to prospect for oil in the Chukchi Sea, of the coast of Alaska, by the US Interior Department in August 2011.

Greenpeace activists atop the drilling derek on board the Noble Discoverer. Image from Greenpeace.

Greenpeace objects strongly to oil exploration in the Arctic, where ecosystems are thought to be especially vulnerable to oil spills, and where any major oil spill would be next to impossible to clean up. They point out that the cleanup operation after the blowout on the BP chartered oil rig Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico involved over 6000 ships and managed to recover only 17% of the oil spilled. The US Coast Guard has stated that such a cleanup in Arctic waters could not be attempted.

They also point out that Arctic environments are particularly vulnerable to the threat of global warming, and that the best means to protect them would be to cease exploration for new hydrocarbons and switch to alternative forms of energy generation as quickly as possible.

The New Plymouth Police, within whose jurisdiction Taranaki falls, have described the action as illegal, but have agreed to leave the protestors, who reportedly have several days worth of supplies, in place for the time being, stating that safety is their paramount concern. Shell have expressed 'disappointment' at the Greenpeace action, which they say endangers the lives of both the protestors and the crew, and have said they have offered to discuss their plans for drilling in the Arctic with Greenpeace.

This is the second Greenpeace action against Shell this week, on Monday (21 February 2012) protestors scaled the National Gallery in London, where Shell were hosting a reception, and unscaled a 40 m² banner reading "It's No Oil Painting", also in protest against the planned Arctic Drilling.

The location of the Chukchi Sea, where Shell hope to drill for oil. AP.

See also Chevron & Ecuadorian government seek to use arbitration to settle Amazon damages case, Chevron exploration rig still burning in the Niger Delta, BP takes legal action against Halliburton over Deepwater Horizon disaster, Oil spill off the coast of Nigeria and Russian oil rig capsizes and sinks in under 20 minutes in the Sea of Othotsk.