Here are your questions, answered.
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In an announcement made Monday, Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) provided an update on its Alaska exploration activities, specifically the Burger J exploration well, located in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea. Fossil fuel is invisible in most of the Lower 48, where you only really think about it at the gas station.
Once these designs are set in motion, they play out over years because they require large sums of money. It depends on a variety of factors. But those fluctuations happen for a reason, and there’s very little to suggest oil prices will recover soon. That massive quantity could have added a significant oil supply, building on the momentum established by the shale oil boom. Dozens of projects have already been put on hold. Opinion polls show consistent and strong public opposition. Shell said the amount of oil and gas found in the Burger J well is “not sufficient to warrant further exploration”.
Shell’s departure is especially a blow for company employees and contractors who have worked on the Arctic drilling program over the last seven years.
So this is a PR move?
But industry efforts to drill for oil and natural gas in the Arctic are unlikely to end with Shell’s decision to abandon the Chukchi Sea. Local politicians like Seattle Councilman, Mike O’Brien, were also key motivators in Shell’s about face. Its operations in the Arctic have produced a series of freakish accidents. Giving up has got to hurt at a company that prides itself on scientific and technical prowess.
“Something that might be a giant oil field and make sense if it were onshore just doesn’t cut it offshore”, said Berman, who is with UAA’s Institute of Social and Economic Research.
The Senate version of the Stop Arctic Ocean Drilling Act of 2015 was introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) on July 16, 2015. Shell, Exxon Mobil Corp. and others laid their exploration plans when oil traded for about $100, more than double the price today. In 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission asked publicly traded companies to voluntarily report their financial risks from climate change.
Over the past year, ExxonMobil and Chevron’s earnings have slumped by more than 50 percent; their stock prices (as well as those of Shell, ConocoPhillips, and BP) dropped by as much as one-third in the first eight months of 2015. It has been a bad couple of years for Royal Dutch Shell. Andreassen quickly clarified that the moment of silence was “to reflect on the complexity of being in the Arctic and whether you’re for or against a few of the decisions that take place”.
Due to the Arctic’s extreme conditions, cleanup would be hard.
Both the Chukchi and the Beaufort seas could be included in the federal government’s next five-year plan for offshore leases, which covers leasing through 2022.
How environmentalists are reacting. Future politicians who might want to reverse such a declaration would face a long, arduous and uncertain process.
A dramatic emphasis on Arctic drilling, of course, reopens debate on the pros and cons of development, arguments that have remained largely unchanged since interest commenced in the 1960s. Second, the United States would send a signal to others nations about reconsidering the value of fossil fuels.
Regions like the Arctic “are one of the areas that, if we’re going to be able to do this, we need to examine”, he said. Higher prices could make hybrids, electric vehicles, and mass transit more attractive than conventional cars.
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RUSI Newsbrief, 29 Sep 2015By Klaus DoddsUS President Barack Obamas comments on a visit to Alaska in September were noticeable for what they did and did not reflect upon.
