Today, we published an advert in the Telegraph outlining a long list of disasters that have already befallen Shell and which demonstrate that Arctic drilling is a risk too far. The list is copied here and contains references for the facts referred to in the advert.
If you don't trust Shell with the Arctic either, join the campaign to Save The Arctic.
1, On New Year’s Eve Shell’s Arctic oil rig, the Kulluk, ran
aground off Alaska in gale-force winds.
The company had earlier admitted it was only moving the rig in December
- despite the extreme weather conditions– because it wanted to leave Alaskan
waters to save six million dollars in taxes.
2. Shell’s other Arctic drill ship, the Noble Discoverer, also
ran aground, then later caught fire. It is now the subject of a criminal
investigation by the US Coast Guard, which has found serious issues with the
ship’s safety management and pollution control systems.
3. On January 8th the Obama Administration launched a 60 day
review into whether Shell should even be permitted to drill in the Arctic, following
the series of mishaps that have befallen the company’s ill-fated investment. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said he is
concerned about the series of blunders surrounding Shell’s recent Arctic
drilling.
4.Two days later Shell was cited by the US Environmental
Protection Agency for violating pollution regulations on the Noble Discoverer. The
company now faces possible fines or worse for breaching “multiple permit
violations”.
5.Last year, in response to questions from the UK
Parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee, Shell’s head of emergency response
admitted that the company had not yet costed a clean-up operation in the Arctic,
leaving shareholders exposed to potentially huge financial losses. A similar cavalier attitude by BP before the Deepwater Horizon disaster ended up costing the company at least $38bn.
6.In July, US authorities announced that a key vessel in Shell’s
oil spill response fleet hadn’t been allowed to sail to the Arctic because it
did not meet US Coast Guard safety standards.
7. In September, after repeatedly failing to receive Coast
Guard approval for its containment barge, Shell was forced to postpone
exploratory drilling operations until 2013 and settle instead for beginning to
drill two non-oil producing preparatory wells. It was later revealed that the oil spill containment system was badly damaged in the September testing. A Federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement representative disclosed that the sub-sea capping stack was “crushed like a beer can”.
8.The last company to make a substantial investment in Arctic oil drilled 8 wells off Greenland, every one of which came up dry. Cairn Energy threw $1 billion at the Arctic , and in return dropped out of the FTSE 100.
