This July 17, 2012 photo released by the U.S. Geological Survey shows adult female walruses on an ice flow with young walruses in the Eastern Chukchi Sea, Alaska.
A major gash in the hull of one of Shell's two contracted ice breaker ships, MSV Fennica, on July 3rd had the potential to derail Shell's plan to drill in Alaska's Chukchi sea. Apparently, the icebreaker ran into an unchartered shoal. The Alaska Dispatch News, reported that the shoal may have "shaved 11 to 24 feet off the expected 45-foot clearance at the site. The Fennica, a Finnish ship built to be resilient even amid crushing blows from ice, has a draft of 28 feet". According to Alaska Dispatch the Fennica decided to follow a fishing vessel into 12' of water. The Fennicia had to return to Dutch Harbor, AK to analyze the damage to the ship. The finding was that the needed repair was major and was unable to be repaired in Alaska. The ship will have to go to Portland, Oregon and not Seattle for repairs, because Terminal 5 at the port of Seattle, where Shell’s two drilling rigs were stored is a cargo terminal that does not allow repairs.
I had mentioned in a 7-7-15 diary what Shell operations were up against due to this meter long gash:
Shell has been ordered to scale back their drilling operations from 2 drill sites to just one as wildlife protections do not allow for wells to be simultaneously drilled 15 miles from each other. Regulators at the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement are holding up their permits for review. If this most recent problem requires significant repair, they will be required to have the drilling plan reviewed once again by the Interior Dept. From Fuel Fix: "Any significant repair that sidelines the Fennica for the brief Arctic drilling season could require Shell to get a new authorization from regulators at the Interior Department because it would represent a departure from the company’s government-approved Chukchi Sea exploration plan. That exploration plan outlines the vessels Shell plans to use and their main missions during normal operations and any emergency."
snip
Interior Department spokeswoman Jessica Kershaw said regulators there “continue to review Shell’s proposal for drilling activity in the Chukchi Sea this summer.”
“As we’ve said from day one, Shell will be held to highest safety and environmental standards,” Kershaw said. “This includes having on hand the required emergency response systems necessary for each phase of its drilling program.”
It is expected to take several weeks to repair the crucial icebreaking ship for drilling operations. Winter in the Chukchi starts in September so any work will need to be completed and capped by that time. Shell does not give a crap about their obligations to their drilling permits and environmental impact assessment. They are moving the remainder of their vessels to the Chukchi to drill without the critically important Fennica because to them only the black gold matters to them.
Desmogreports:
“We do not anticipate any impact on our season, as we don’t expect to require the vessel until August,” Shell spokesman Curtis Smith said, per FuelFix. Requests for comment from the DOI were not returned.
The Coast Guard is reportedly still investigating what caused the 39-inch breach in the Fennica’s hull, but surveys of Dutch Harbor since the ship’s accident have revealed shallower-than-charted areas along the route the ship was taking.
Shell appears to have opted for speed over safety in sending the Fennica along the route it did. Some of the charted depths in the Fennica’s path gave it just seven and a half feet of clearance in some areas — even at high tide, as it was when the ship was under way on July 3 and the hull breach was discovered. Shell could have sent the Fennica on a slightly longer route out of Dutch Harbor that would have kept it in deeper water.
This latest mishap is not doing much to convince the world that Shell is “Arctic Ready.”
“The damage to the Fennica due to traveling through shallow water is yet another example of Shell's reckless attitude in its pursuit of unburnable Arctic oil,” David Turnbull of Oil Change International told DeSmog, referring to the fact that the vast majority of proven fossil fuel energy reserves cannot be burned if we’re to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, the critical threshold climate scientists say is necessary to prevent the worst impacts of runaway climate change.
“Shell seems ready to stop at nothing to get to this oil, including apparently leaving its own ships — and common sense — behind,” Turnbull added.
Wow. Fuck you too Shell. No word yet from Interior or DOJ on this executive decision Shell has decided to make all by themselves.
Thu Jul 16, 2015 at 7:32 PM PT: From my previous diary.
But Shell’s contracted Fennica is unique in that it is carrying a critical piece of the company’s Arctic containment system: a capping stack designed to fit on top of a damaged well in case of a blowout or other emergency.