OCS Alaska: litigation delays drilling.

• Author: Kalytiak, Tracy
• Position: OIL & GAS

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Offshore drilling. Those words underlie the popular political catchphrase, "Drill, baby, drill" for Alaskans and others hoping to create jobs, forge independence from Middle East and South American oil interests and keep oil flowing through the trans-Alaska oil pipeline.

For others, the prospect of offshore drilling in Alaska brings to mind visions of immense oil spills in dark, remote, storm-tossed Arctic waters; huge vessels polluting air and harming animals in a largely unresearched area already beset by climate change; harm to subsistence lifestyles in nearby communities.

Shell Oil Co. has spent almost $2.2 billion to acquire Outer Continental Shelf leases in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

Shell hasn't been able to drill exploratory wells in those two areas, however, because of administrative appeals, difficulties in obtaining environmental permits and a U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals lawsuit decided in November 2008 on behalf of environmental advocates.

In the wake of lawsuits filed in federal courts against him and the MMS, Interior Secretary Salazar in early December gave provisional approval for

Shell to proceed with its plans to drill in the Chukchi Sea, approximately 80 miles offshore from an area of Northwest Alaska that includes the Inupiat Eskimo village of Wainwright.

GO SHELL

Interior's approval is contingent on Shell obtaining an air quality permit from the Environmental Protection Agency, meeting marine mammal protection requirements and receiving the results of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service critical habitat assessment for polar bears that is expected to be completed in June.

The ice-reinforced, 514-foot-long drill ship M/V Frontier Discoverer is scheduled to move into the Chukchi Sea on or about July 1 and onto the prospects when ice allows--on or about July 4, a late November 2009 State public notice document for the North Slope Borough stated.

"Drilling would be curtailed on or before Oct. 31 unless Shell provides a winter spill response scenario and the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation (ADEC) finds the winter spill response scenario consistent with Alaska standards," the State document stated. "The drillship and support vessels would exit the Chukchi Sea at the conclusion of the drilling season."

Shell spokesman Curtis Smith, in December, said he wasn't sure when the required EPA permit would be issued.

"We hope the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) will process our...