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| Shell Oil ship slips anchor; incident raises questions about Arctic drilling plan |
One of the ships that Shell Oil plans to use to drill in the Arctic
slipped its mooring and drifted close to one of Alaska's Aleutian
Islands, the latest in a string of incidents to arise around the
controversial project.
The Noble Discoverer was
about 175 yards from shore in Unalaska Bay when it slipped its mooring
Saturday and drifted towards shore near Dutch Harbor, Coast Guard Petty
Officer Sara Francis said.
"There are no reports of injuries, pollution and damage to the Noble Discoverer," she said Sunday night.
The incident raised
concerns of a possible grounding near Dutch Harbor, though Francis said
there was "no damage to the hull or evidence it ran aground."
The Noble Discoverer, right, which Shell Oil plans to use for Arctic drilling, slipped its mooring Saturday.
The Noble Discoverer is one of roughly two dozen ships that Shell is sending to the Beaufort and Chukchi seas in the Arctic to drill exploration wells in the harshest climate in the world.
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Pete Slaiby, the vice president of Shell Oil in Alaska, told CNN
recently the drilling in the arctic would be the "most complex, most
difficult wells we've drilled in company history."
Proponents say if Shell
finds oil with its Arctic drilling, it could create thousands of jobs;
opponents -- Alaska's Inuit Eskimos and environmentalists -- say an oil
spill could pollute the waters and damage the economy.
"Our subsistence for the
winter, it all comes from the ocean, the fish and whale. It's going to
ruin our ocean," 79-year-old Abagail Nashupuq of Point Hope told CNN
recently.
Nashupuq has spent her
entire life in the small northwest fishing village of Point Hope, which
sits about 90 miles from where Shell plans to drill one of its
exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea.
Shell has been forced to
postpone drilling, which was scheduled to begin this month, until August
by an unexpected thick ice pack.
The delay cuts valuable
time from Shell, which is operating under U.S. permits which require to
stop drilling in the seas by the end of October.
Questions also were
raised in June about the durability of one of Shell's underwater oil
spill containment vessels in severe weather, which resulted in the
vessel that was headed to one of the drilling sites to be temporarily
held at port in Washington.
Opponents, primarily the
Inuit and environmentalists, called for a review of the federal air
permits that were issued to Shell Oil as part of its drilling plan.
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Greenpeace, which has
been leading a campaign against the drilling, issued a statement Sunday
that questioned whether Shell could carry out the complicated plan if it
was having problems with a ship's mooring.
Shell spokesman Curtis
Smith said all indications pointed to the Noble Discoverer slipping
anchor in soft ground, drifting only 100 yards toward shore.
"Shell quickly engaged
one of its support vessels, the Lauren Foss, which safely towed the
Discoverer back to its previous location," he said.
Francis, the petty officer, said the crew of the Noble Discoverer were interviewed.
"They did not feel any indication that the ship grounded," she said.
The Coast Guard plans an
inspection of the interior of the ship's hull on Monday, the same day
that Shell will use a diver to conduct a secondary inspection of the
outer hull.
Smith said the anchor
system used in the Arctic offshore drilling is "no way similar to the
light anchor used in the harbor scenario."
Still, Slaiby promised a full investigation.
"Even a near miss is
unacceptable. While an internal investigation will determine why the
Discoverer slipped anchor, we are pleased with the speed and
effectiveness of the mitigation measures we had in place," he said.
CNN's Greg Morrison contributed to this report
