The plan went bust and the explorers walked away.
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While Shell tucks its tail and heads for the hills, Hilcorp Energy is chomping at the bit to swoop in and drill. Most of the actual work, however, is in Prudhoe Bay. Yet, the company has been credited by many being gutsy enough to get out when the getting’s not good, even with billions on the line.
“The decision is purely commercial”, a spokeswoman for Shell told New Scientist.
Environmental campaigners and shareholders have also pressured Shell to drop Arctic drilling.
This week’s announcement from Shell that it would abandon Arctic offshore drilling has hovered at the edge of the proceedings – organizer Nils Andreassen of the Institute of the North asked for a moment of silence Monday morning to “recognize the complexities” of operating in the region. But brutal physical and economic conditions confound easy development.
The next step for many environmental advocates is to establish “some sort of binding policy so that these decisions are not up to oil companies”, said Cassady Sharp, spokeswoman for Greenpeace U.S. in Washington, D.C.
Despite the somber mood and moment of silence at the Arctic Energy Summit, the dream of offshore Arctic oil hasn’t died.
“It’s high-time for Shell, Statoil and other deep sea drillers to quit New Zealand too”. A few are anxious an oil spill would harm protected species while others are concerned about the cost after oil prices more than halved in a year.
Inupiat locals anxious that they would bear the risks of oil development without reaping the rewards.
Industry supporters countered with arguments about national energy needs.
Shell holds a 100% working interest in 275 Outer Continental Shelf blocks in the Chukchi Sea.
Leasing was vastly expanded by James Watt, President Reagan’s famously pro-development Interior secretary. Jay Hammond and many other Alaskans. The company spent about $1 billion to drill a single well this year and plans for a second hole next year at a similar expense have now been abandoned. Shell bid $105 million for one tract that worked out to be $18,497 per acre.
Shell drilled four wells between 1989 and 1991. Shell said the amount of oil and gas found in the Burger J well is “not sufficient to warrant further exploration”.
Oil prices have plummeted in the past year as a bonanza of fracking in the lower 48 has made costly oil from the Arctic Ocean less attractive as a global commodity. In a barely credible attempt to avoid being labeled a climate denier, Shell ended its long-term membership in the climate-denying American Legislative Exchange Council. Chevron in 1991 did the same with its Chukchi well, called Diamond.
Baldino said about 400 people work in Anchorage on the Arctic drilling effort.
In a world where OPEC members control 72 percent of proved oil reserves, the largely unexplored Arctic could be the last great prize.
“This is still the decade of the Arctic,”Andreassen said”.
Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski urges the administration to developing a legitimate, predictable and sensible regulatory system that will encourage oil companies to invest in Alaska, both onshore and off. Arco relinquished the leases to the federal government in 1999.
Shell’s public embarrassment hasn’t been limited to Arctic exploration. “Shell continues to see important exploration potential in the basin, and the area is likely to ultimately be of strategic importance to Alaska and the US”.
Royal Dutch Shell’s decision to end its quest for oil in the Arctic waters off Alaska sparked jubilation among environmental activists, who said Tuesday that they will seize the opportunity to seek an end to all drilling to in the region. A regional effort in 2012 was marked by a series of equipment failures.
Rex Rock speaks at the Arctic Energy Summit.
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“We thought it was the potential to be a multibillion-barrel prospect”.
