In an April document entitled “-48° C,” Lloyd’s of London – a British insurance giant – claimed that “cleaning up any oil spill in the Arctic, particularly in ice-covered areas, would present multiple obstacles which together constitute a unique and hard-to-manage risk.” In July, British Petroleum – which had run the Deepwater Horizon platform – withdrew its own bid to drill in the arctic due to incalculable “costs” of any accidents there. In February 2012, the US Government Accountability Office issued a warning. “Oil and gas exploration and production off the coast of Alaska is likely to encounter environmental and logistical risks that differ from those in the Gulf of Mexico because of the region’s cold and icy conditions.” Statoil suspended its own plans for drilling in the Alaskan Arctic in August.
“Once-in-a-generation” oil and natural gas fields apparently lured the Royal Dutch Shell company into ignoring clear dangers about drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. It could soon be paying the price.
While environmentalists might be breathing a sigh of relief that the Kulluk oil rig didn’t spill a drop of its 150,000 gallons of oil after running aground off the coast of Alaska late last December, the Royal Dutch Shell company is likely still holding its breath.
On January 3, a group of 45 Democratic congressmen from the Sustainable Energy and Environment Coalition called for a formal investigation of the Kulluk incident in order to determine whether Shell should be allowed to continue drilling for oil in Alaskan waters – into which Shell has invested $5 billion (3.75 billion euros).