Despite dire predictions that the Bristol Bay red king crab fishery might not open this season, the allowable harvest that Fish and Game announced Wednesday is actually slightly higher than last year.
“The legal and mature male abundance didn’t actually change much from last year," says area management biologist Heather Fitch. "However the average weight went up a little bit, so that’s how we ended up with about the same TAC [total allowable catch].”
For the past month, Shell has been drilling topholes in the Chukchi Sea. Now, they're doing preparatory work in the Beaufort, too.
The drill rig Kulluk went into action this afternoon and will spend the rest of the month developing two 1,500-foot casings in the Beaufort. Shell plans to extend those topholes down into hydrocarbon layers next summer.
Shell has only until the end of October to do its preparatory work in the Arctic. While Shell had hoped to complete several exploratory wells this year, the company experienced a series of setbacks including permitting problems, construction delays, and aggressive sea ice. In the Beaufort, Shell also had to wait on the subsistence whaling season to wrap up. Kaktovik's whale hunt ended just this week.
Shell may have abandoned its hopes of hitting oil in the Arctic this year, but the company is now cleared to do preparatory work in the Beaufort Sea. The U.S Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement gave Shell the go-ahead today to drill a pair 1,500-foot boreholes in Alaska’s northern waters. They’re already doing similar work in the Chukchi.
According to spokesperson Curtis Smith, these casings will serve as the foundation for Shell’s exploratory program next summer.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just issued its fisheries report card for 2011, and Alaska is on the honor roll. Last year, 2.3 billion pounds of seafood worth $1.3 billion crossed the state’s docks.
About a third of that fish came through Unalaska. The city has long been proud of its reputation as America’s number #1 fishing port. But as KUCB’s Alexandra Gutierrez reports, Unalaska got a bit of bad news in an otherwise rosy assessment of Alaska’s fisheries.
Shell won’t be striking oil in the Arctic this summer. The company disclosed today that its oil spill containment bell, a critical piece of response equipment, is damaged and won’t be operational before the end of the drilling season. Without the containment system, Shell can’t drill into the oil-bearing layers beneath the Arctic seafloor. The company will continue to drill “top holes” – the first 1400 feet of the well – which they can return to next year.
Shell has paused its drilling operation in the Arctic just a day after starting. The Noble Discoverer drill rig cut into the Chukchi Sea floor Sunday morning but had to disconnect from the well site Sunday evening to get out of the way of a massive island of sea ice bearing down on the area.
“It’s about 30 miles long. It’s about 12 miles wide,” Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith says. “It’s moving about 0.3-0.5 knots. It varies in thickness of course, but in its thickest area it’s about 25 meters (82 feet) thick, so that’s pretty substantial.”
After months of delays and mishaps, Shell Oil has started its controversial drilling program in the Arctic. The Noble Discoverer drill rig cut into the Chukchi Sea floor Sunday morning.
“It’s the first time a drill bit has touched the seafloor in the U.S. Chukchi Sea in over twenty years," says Shell spokesperson Curtis Smitih. "Of course, it also marks the culmination of our six year effort to begin drilling for potentially significant oil and gas reserves in the Alaska offshore.”
After months of delays and mishaps, Shell could start drilling in the Arctic over the weekend. The company had hoped to begin earlier this week, but stormy weather in the Chukchi Sea has delayed preparations.
“We’ve seen some really heavy winds and high sea states in the area," says Shell spokeperson Curtis Smith. "We’ve performed operations, but not all of them. That’s moved us into this weekend. If we continue with the progress we’ve been making, we can be moored up to all of our anchors within 24 hours and then drilling can start.”
With an eye toward Arctic development, a group of investors, government officials, and journalists toured Unalaska this weekend.
The group spun off from the three-day Arctic Imperative summit in Girdwood. After the conference ended, they spent more than a week touring communities with strategic importance for Arctic business, like Wainwright and Barrow. Unalaska was the last stop on the tour.
