Icebreaker Fennica will take part in Shell’s oil drilling project in the Arctic. Arctia Shipping photo
Mar 08, 2012
Oil giant Shell is planning to start charting the seas for oil drilling in the Arctic, and Finnish icebreakers are coming along on the test drillings, even as Greenpeace says oil drilling in the Arctic is dangerous in the extreme.
Shell is looking into offshore drilling in the Beaufort Sea by the Alaskan coast and the untouched waters of the adjacent Chukchi Sea. For this venture, the company has signed a lease deal for two icebreakers, Fennica and Nordica, with Finnish state firm Arctia Shipping.
The environmentalists are raising concerns. Tapio Laakso, Greenpeace programme manager in Finland, says that oil drilling that far up north is very dangerous.
Conditions are the harshest on the planet, which naturally raises the risk of accidents. If anything were to happen, oil recovery would be very difficult, he explains. The area has no infrastructure to speak of.
Greenpeace wants Arctia Shipping to dissolve its contract with Shell. As it is, icebreakers Fennica and Nordica are to sail to the coast of Alaska in the summer.
Arctia Shipping says the responsibility for the operation lies with Shell, while Shell has not commented on the matter. Neither has Finland.
The Arctic Ocean is a unique natural environment where whales, fish and polar bears have been largely left alone. However, current international agreements do not forbid oil companies from the region. Remote and dangerous sources of oil are becoming increasingly attractive as the global need for oil grows and the existing reserves dry up.
This story is posted on Alaska Dispatch as part of Eye on the Arctic, a collaborative partnership between public and private circumpolar media organizations.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
