After Arctic Bust, Is Shell's Drilling Rig Headed Back To Seattle?
Environmentalist are celebrating Shell’s decision to stop oil exploration off Alaska’s northern coast indefinitely, but the immediate future of the company’s base at the Port of Seattle is unclear.
A spokesman for Foss Maritime said the company didn’t know how Shell’s move would affect the operation at Terminal 5. Shell vice president of Arctic Maritime and Logistics Mark Guadagnini said this month that the company’s Polar Pioneer drilling rig would return to Terminal 5 to prep for 2016, but that was before this decision.
Shell said it had found indications of oil and gas but "not sufficient to warrant further exploration" in that area.
In its statement, Shell provided little guidance for what might happen at Terminal 5.
"Shell will now cease further exploration activity in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future," the company said. "This decision reflects both the Burger J well result, the high costs associated with the project, and the challenging and unpredictable federal regulatory environment in offshore Alaska."
In May, the city of Seattle’s planning department threatened fines and a lawsuit when it learned the Polar Pioneer would be docked at a cargo terminal.
The Port and Foss appealed, and a city examiner heard arguments about what should happen next. That decision is pending.
Environmentalists went to court to try to force an environmental review but lost.
The arrival of the Polar Pioneer in May brought out an armada of “kayaktivists” who attempted to impede the rig’s arrival at Terminal 5. A similar scene greeted an icebreaker for Shell’s operation that was forced to limp to Portland for repairs.
On Monday, environmentalists cheered Shell’s decision.
Mitzi Simmons of Seattle said she was ecstatic about the news, calling this "a survival issue, for our very planet." She was among the kayakers who protested the Polar Pioneer's arrival in Seattle, and in an email to KUOW on Monday she promised that "kayaktivists" would respond if it returned.
"We will be out in force to un-greet it," she said.
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Gil Aegerter
Gil edits feature pieces and helps guide staff reporters through their stories. He previously served as interim digital director and online managing editor at KUOW. Before that he spent seven years with NBCNews.com, where he was variously a senior editor, editor-producer and features editor. He also worked 25 years as a newspaper editor in Anchorage, Alaska, San Diego, Wilmington, N.C., and Seattle. He also was a freelance researcher for NBC Olympics for the Games in Atlanta; Sydney, Australia; Salt Lake City; Athens; and Torino, Italy. He is a graduate of the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, with a degree in photojournalism.
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Bill Radke
Host
Bill hosts Week In Review and Words in Review. After starting with KUOW as a University of Washington student in 1985, Bill was KUOW's morning host in the '90s and the creator of past show, Rewind, a news-satire show heard on KUOW and nationwide on NPR. Bill moved away to Southern California to host American Public Media's Weekend America and Marketplace Morning Report and returned to KUOW in 2012.
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