Rendering of Arctic Challenger/Superior Energy Services
The Coast Guard is relaxing certification standards for Shell’s oil spill containment barge. The company convinced regulators the Arctic Challenger should be considered a mobile unit. Among other things, that means its mooring system only needs to be able to weather a 10-year storm, as opposed to the more rigorous 100-year standard for fixed platforms.
But the change in certification standards doesn’t mean the barge has been approved to head north. The Coast Guard says there are still a number of fixes that need to be made before the vessel is ready for inspection. Neither the Coast Guard nor Shell could provide information about when an inspection will take place.
Shell had planned to start drilling in the Arctic this week, but persistent sea ice and a number of last-minute stumbling blocks have delayed those plans indefinitely.
The company says sea ice forecasts look favorable starting the first week of August, but Interior Secretary Ken Salazar told The New York Times Tuesday that his agency might not issue final permits for Shell’s summer drilling plans until August 15 – if at all.
Shell spokesperson Curtis Smith says the company won't have time to complete the five exploratory wells it had planned to drill this summer.
“Because of the lingering sea ice alone, we’ve been forced to recalibrate our expectations in terms of the number of total depth wells we can drill in the offshore...
Divers inspected the hull of Shell’s drill ship, the Noble Discoverer, Monday night and determined that the rig never touched bottom when it dragged anchor on Saturday. Coast Guard Lieutenant Jim Fothergill says investigators watched a live feed of the hull inspection from aboard the ship.
“We were able to find no physical evidence of any damage that would have been caused by a grounding.”
Fothergill says regardless, the Coast Guard will still do a full investigation of the incident.
“We want to do our best to find ways to prevent things like this from happening again.”
It could be a while before the results of that investigation are made public. cont...
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, or OSHA, has opened an investigation into an ammonia leak inside the processing vessel Excellence.
Three workers were injured as a result of the leak, which started at the Kloosterboer cold storage dock earlier this month. Two of those workers were from the local shop Alpha Welding. They had come aboard to fix a broken ammonia line. The ammonia line ruptured while they were working, exposing them and an Excellence crew member to the toxic chemical.
The Aleutian Islands herring fishery opened over the weekend. Three boats have registered to fish so far -- two seiners and one gillnetter. The total harvest for both gear types is 1,627 tons, or just over 3 million pounds.
Fish and Game biologist Trent Hartill says Unalaskans may get a good view of the boats fishing - the harvest typically takes place in Unalaska Bay or Captain’s Bay. Locals may also see the boats’ spotter plane flying low around town.
Investigators are trying to determine whether Shell’s drill ship, the Noble Discoverer, ran aground in Unalaska on Saturday.
Bystanders and photographs place the rig less than a hundred feet from shore. But Shell says a preliminary inspection of the hull found no damage.
Coast Guard Lieutenant Jim Fothergill says damage to the hull or propellers is the only sure sign that the ship hit the beach.
“I know they were very close to the beach, but we haven’t determined yet whether they ran aground.”
Shell plans to send divers underneath the Discoverer on Monday morning to get a closer look. The Coast Guard will check the divers’ video footage to determine whether the ship actually made contact with the beach.
Shell Oil has run into a number of problems with its Arctic drilling plans over the last few days. The Coast Guard refused to certify its oil spill containment barge as it stands, the EPA is reviewing the Noble Discoverer drill rig's air permits -- and now, there may be damage to the rig itself.
The Noble Discoverer appears to have run aground in Unalaska on Saturday afternoon.
Despite rain and 35-knot winds, more than a dozen residents came to Airport Beach to watch the Shell's contract tugboat Lauren Foss straining to pull the rig back out to sea.
Longshoreman David Howard was one of the onlookers. Howard says he noticed something wrong with the 500-foot rig earlier in the afternoon.
Shell is facing another unexpected hurdle in its plan to drill exploratory wells in the Arctic Ocean this summer. The company is asking the Environmental Protection Agency to revise its air permit for one of its drill ships. The normal revision process would take months, but the EPA is considering options that would allow Shell to proceed this summer.
Former Unalaska mayor Frank Kelty has been appointed to a board that advises the U.S. State Department on issues related to the Bering Sea fisheries. He fills one of two newly vacated seats reserved Alaskans on the 12-person board. Kelty says the group works with its Russian counterpart on fisheries issues in the North Pacific.
“High seas drift nets, joint enforcement issues, things like that. Fishing in the donut hole in the Bering Sea, and boundaries issues would be something that would be looked at. And I know they’ve been working concert with the Russians on many enforcement issues -- pirate fishing vessels. So, I would think those are some of the issues that would be worked on.”
