Interior Dept. Expedites Review of Arctic Drilling After Accidents
Source: NYT
The Interior Department on Tuesday opened an urgent review of Arctic offshore drilling operations after a series of blunders and accidents involving Shell Oils drill ships and support equipment, culminating in the grounding of one of its drilling vessels last week off the coast of Alaska.
Officials said the new assessment by federal regulators could halt or scale back Shells program to open Alaskas Arctic waters to oil exploration, a $4.5 billion effort that has been plagued by equipment failures, legal delays, mismanagement and bad weather.
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that the expedited review, which is to be completed within 60 days, was prompted by accidents and equipment problems aboard Shells two Arctic drilling rigs, the Kulluk and the Noble Discoverer, as well as the Arctic Challenger, a vessel designed to respond to a potential well blowout and oil spill.
In addition, the Coast Guard announced Tuesday that it would conduct a comprehensive marine casualty investigation of the grounding of the Kulluk on Dec. 31.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/us/arctic-drilling-to-be-reviewed-in-light-of-accidents.html
elleng
(130,974 posts)Will delete mine.
Sunlei
(22,651 posts)What the heck were Salazars people doing out there? They are supposed to be supervising drilling operations.
triplepoint
(431 posts)--typical crisis management--Dept. of the Interior-Style!