Statements from MMS, Shell, Environmental Groups on Beaufort Drilling Decision

The Minerals Management Service issued the following statement:

The Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service (MMS) has approved, with conditions, Shell Offshore, Inc.'s Exploration Plan to explore two leases in the Beaufort Sea.

The two leases were obtained by Shell Offshore, Inc. during Beaufort Sea oil and gas lease sales 195 and 202 in 2005 and 2007. The sales were included in the 2002-2007 five year oil and gas leasing program and are not affected by the recent court decision on the current leasing program, which sent the 2007-2012 program back to MMS for additional analysis under section 18 of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act.

Shell proposes to drill two exploration wells during the July-October 2010 open water drilling season. The drilling operations would be conducted using the M/V Frontier Discoverer, a modern drillship retrofitted and ice reinforced for operations in arctic OCS waters.

Shell's plans include a mid-drilling season break in activities and removal of the drillship from the area to accommodate fall subsistence bowhead whaling by the Native Villages of Kaktovik and Nuiqsut. Specifically, all operations would be suspended beginning August 25, 2010, and all vessels would proceed from the project area to the northwest during the whale hunts, or would leave the Beaufort Sea entirely. Activities may be resumed after completion of the subsistence hunts and extend through October 31, 2010, depending on ice and weather.

Prior to any drilling activities taking place, the plan must be consistent with the Alaska Coastal Zone Management Program and Shell must obtain an approved Application for Permit to Drill from the MMS. Shell must also meet the air and water quality rules by the Environmental Protection Agency, and Marine Mammal Protection Act requirements of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service.

"The Minerals Management Service is committed to responsibly developing offshore energy resources," said MMS Director Liz Birnbaum. "Now that we have approved Shell's plan and reached this important milestone, we will continue to work with Shell to ensure that all activities are conducted in a safe and environmentally responsible manner."

Shell's plan is limited to the far western area of Camden Bay, including the use of one drillship with one tending ice management vessel. The two leases are about 16 and 23 miles north of Point Thompson, Alaska.

The Beaufort Sea is estimated to contain 8.22 billion barrels of oil and 27.64 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (undiscovered technically recoverable mean estimate).

Shell Oil issued the following statement:

As many of you have heard, Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar today approved Shell's Exploration Plan for the Beaufort Sea. Please see the following statement from Shell Alaska Vice President, Pete Slaiby:

"This is another positive step towards the goal of drilling in 2010," said Shell Alaska vice president, Pete Slaiby.

"There is still work to be done before we reach that goal, including obtaining all required permits and continued engagement with stakeholders. At this point we are still planning for success, and that means putting the blueprints in place for a successful open water season in 2010. We sincerely believe this exploration plan addresses concerns we have heard in the North Slope Communities which have resulted in the programs being adjusted accordingly.

"These opportunities in the Beaufort Sea together with other opportunities in the Chukchi Sea have the potential to positively impact North Slope Borough residents, the State of Alaska and the nation in a material way," Slaiby concluded.

A consortium of environmental groups including the Alaska Wilderness League, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund and Natural Resources Defense Council released the following statement:

The federal government's Minerals Management Service put its rubber stamp on a plan today that allows Shell Offshore Inc. (Shell) to drill in Alaska's Beaufort Sea as early as this summer. MMS approved Shell's exploratory drilling plan despite a basic lack of fundamental information about the impacts of oil and gas development on the Arctic Ocean environment.

"This decision is very disappointing," said David Dickson, Western Arctic & Oceans Program Director at Alaska Wilderness League. "Once again, MMS approved a drilling plan without a full analysis of the potential consequences."

Shell's plan proposes exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea, 20 miles off the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, from July to October 2010, using a 514-foot long drill ship and an armada of support vessels and aircraft. This activity would generate industrial noise in the water while emitting tons of pollutants into the air and thousands of barrels of waste into the water.

"MMS is again trying to implement an overly aggressive Bush-era drilling plan in one of the riskiest areas on the planet to drill," said Whit Sheard, Alaska Program Director, for Pacific Environment. "Although fisherman, traditional indigenous communities, the courts, and the global scientific community have all condemned this plan, the Arctic continues to be treated like a sacrifice zone."

In addition, the risk of an oil spill in these waters is quite high, yet there is no technology and very little capacity to clean up such a spill in the Arctic's icy conditions.

"The reality of offshore oil drilling is that accidents will happen. And when oil spills in Arctic ice, there is no cleaning it up," said Chuck Clusen, Director, National Parks and Alaska projects at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "A blow-out like the one that recently despoiled waters off the coast of Australia would leave oil in the waters off the coast of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for decades, killing whales, seals, fish and birds and turning irreplaceable spawning and feeding grounds into an ecological wasteland."

Despite the fact that little is known about Shell's proposed drilling area, the company's analysis and disclosure downplay the risk of a blowout oil spill. The environmental impact assessment (EIA) does not assess the impacts of a large spill.

"It's irrational to claim that drilling these Beaufort Sea formations is safe. The industry continues to repeat the erroneous assertion that new technology eliminates risk of blowouts and leaks. We need to open our eyes to see the fallacy of that trust in technology. New technology didn't prevent the ongoing blowout in Australia's Timor Sea. And after two months new technology hasn't stopped oil spewing into the ocean and air." said Layla Hughes, Senior Program Officer for Oil, Gas and Shipping Policy, Bering Sea/Arctic Ecoregion, for World Wildlife Fund. "How would Shell respond to a blowout in the Beaufort Sea ice and brutal weather? Yet the company fails to analyze the potential impacts of such a spill. It's simply irresponsible to move forward without the proper precautionary measures in place."

Shell's planned drilling would take place along a key migratory route for the endangered bowhead whale - a critical subsisitence source of food for the Inupiat people of Alaska's North Slope. A Shell survey of the area showed an estimated 40 percent of the entire bowhead population swimming in waters proposed for drilling.

"Once again MMS is doling out favors to Big Oil at the expense of the polar bear," said Rebecca Noblin, Staff Attorney at Center for Biological Diversity. "If the polar bear is to survive in a rapidly warming Arctic, the government must protect its sea ice habitat, not turn it into a polluted industrial zone."

America's Arctic Ocean is home to vibrant communities and abundant marine life: polar bears, walruses, ice seals, whales and much more. The Inupiat people call the Arctic Ocean their garden. They have lived off its bounty for thousands of years.

"There is no safe way to drill in the Beaufort Sea. Cleaning up an oil spill in the Arctic's broken sea ice is next to impossible, and where there is drilling, there are oil spills," said Athan Manuel, Public Lands Director for Sierra Club. "A spill would threaten marine life like polar bears and bowhead whales. We don't need to put our seas and marine life at risk. Instead of drilling for more dirty oil, we can shift to clean energy that will create jobs, combat global warming, and keep our wildlife and wild places intact."

The Arctic ecosystem depends on sea ice to thrive. As climate change ravages the region - the Arctic is warming twice as fast as the rest of the world - this sea ice melts at a rapid pace. Scientists now predict that summer sea ice could be gone within a decade. Industrial development in these waters will only compound these impacts.

"Drilling in the Beaufort Sea will exacerbate the already dire impacts of global warming being felt by Alaskans - from local villages being forced to relocate from their ancestral homelands as shorelines erode, to disappearing sea ice habitat critical to the imperiled wildlife of the region, " said Lauren Hierl of the National Audubon Society. "The Department of Interior should be focusing its efforts on developing renewable energy sources that will be sustainable, not approving drilling plans that will further threaten the waters, lands, people and wildlife of America's Arctic."

The Arctic is the "least studied and most poorly understood area on Earth," according to the U.S. Arctic Research Commission. Thus the full range of impacts from development is unknown.

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