|
ing as an industry consultant.
Boyd believes it is critical for the state's economy that drillers find offshore oil fields to replace fading onshore giants Prudhoe and Kuparuk.
Shell's most immediate target is a previously abandoned prospect it calls Sivulliq, an Inupiaq word meaning "first one." The prospect lies under more than 100 feet of water about 16 miles offshore. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which is closed to oil drilling, is just east of Sivulliq.
Shell already knows the prospect likely contains hundreds of millions of barrels of oil, having joined in a Unocal-led drilling partnership that found what was then called Hammerhead in the mid-1980s.
Using two enormous drill ships, Shell hoped to sink three new holes on the prospect this year to clarify how much oil Sivulliq holds.
Fox says today's technology is much more advanced, with directional drilling to pinpoint the most likely oil pockets and data streaming to allow Shell's best minds to make adjustments from their offices in Anchorage or Houston.
As with past offshore drilling in the Arctic, Shell's plans rile some people.
Environmental groups, the North Slope Borough and the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission, which represents whaling villages, went to court to challenge the federal approval of Shell's Beaufort exploration.
They also filed appeals to block air pollution permits the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued to Shell to run its diesel-burning drill rigs and support ships. The EPA's Environmental Appeals Board in Washington, D.C., is weighing whether to free up Shell's permits.
The borough and the whalers worry that noise from seismic testing, the drilling ships and icebreakers that escort and protect the rigs will drive bowhead and beluga whales off their normal migratory paths and farther to sea.
If this happens, the already perilous whale hunts will become even more dangerous for crews forced to range farther offshore in small aluminum or sealskin boats to find whales, say lawyers for the borough and whalers. And if they make a kill, the meat could spoil in the time it would take to tow the behemoth home for butchering on the beach.
Subsistence is central to Inupiaq culture and spirituality, and bowhead meat and blubber is a vital foodstuff for people susceptible to diabetes if they decrease their traditional diet, according to court papers seeking to block Shell's drilling.
"The imminent threat of death or serious injury resulting from the deflection of the bowhead migration is likely," the papers say.
The objections are much broader, however, than the bowhead whale, says Itta, the borough mayor.
He says the Minerals Management Service did a poor job of assessing the risks not only to the bowhead but to the entire Arctic ecosystem -- a view shared by environmental groups such as the Alaska Wilderness League, the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council. They've asked the court for a more in-depth environmental study.
Shell also gave Arctic Slope Regional Corp., the Native corporation for the North Slope, the contract to handle spill response -- a source of jobs for villagers.
Even if this drilling season is lost, Shell's Fox says people shouldn't look for the company to abandon the Arctic again. The company plans to move ahead with offshore seismic surveys this summer.
"We believe we have an inside track here because of our previous efforts," Fox says. "It's a very promising arena for us."
|
|
