By Kasia Klimasinska on August 13, 2012
Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) is chiefly to blame for delays in procuring permits to drill off the north coast of Alaska, U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said.
Shell, which had planned to start exploration in July, is reworking the barge Arctic Challenger in Bellingham, Washington, to satisfy U.S. Coast Guard requirements. The vessel is a part of the system Shell has designed to collect oil spilled in case of a well blowout in the Arctic.
“They have not been able to get it done,” Salazar said of Shell at a press conference today in Anchorage, Alaska, monitored by telephone. “If they had got it done, they would already be up there today.”