Shell's extensive arctic logistics: keeping vessels, crews, and the ocean safe.

• Author: Bradner, Mike
• Position: OIL & GAS

Shells planning for its summer 2015 Chukchi Sea exploration drilling involves an extensive logistics exercise involving as many at twenty-nine vessels, including two large mobile offshore drilling structures, the drillship Noble Discoverer, and the semi-submersible Polar Pioneer. The other twenty-seven vessels will be engaged in support activity.

The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management gave tentative approval to Shell's exploration plan April 11.

A major concern for Shell, however, is keeping the vessels and crews safe from harassment by Greenpeace, an environmental organization that has said it will attempt to disrupt the company's exploration activities. Six Greenpeace activists boarded a Shell-chartered vessel in the mid-Pacific this spring but quit the ship as it approached US waters.

A restraining order against Greenpeace has been issued by a US District Court in Anchorage, but Shell is still wary.

One of Shell's drill vessels is the Noble Discoverer, owned by Noble Drilling Co., which conducted drilling for Shell in the Chukchi Sea and drilled a partially-complete exploration well, which was planned. The Discoverer encountered engine problems late in the season and has undergone extensive refitting.

The other drill vessel is the Polar Pioneer, owned by Transocean Ltd., a harsh-weather offshore rig that has spent several years drilling in the Norwegian Arctic.

High Seas Bandits

Earlier this year both the Noble Discoverer and the Polar Pioneer underwent operations "shakedowns" in Southeast Asia before being brought to North America. Both vessels left Malaysia in March for Puget Sound, with the Polar Pioneer loaded atop the Blue Marlin, a large "heavy-lift" ship.

An event that occurred during the Blue Marlin's transit was its boarding by six Greenpeace activists in mid-ocean, when the vessel and rig were about seven hundred miles northwest of Hawaii. The activists climbed up into the Polar Pioneer and remained there until the Blue Marlin approached US territorial waters. Greenpeace's people, including one employee of the organization along with five volunteers, left the rig just before a US District Court in Anchorage had issued a Temporary Restraining Order against the environmental organization.

Prior to sailing for the Arctic, many of the vessels supporting the drilling underwent conversions and installation of equipment specific to the Arctic drilling mission. The crews underwent training also, and prior to sailing many of the...