The grounding of a Shell drill ship off the western coast of Alaska raises serious questions about arctic drilling, says a US lawmaker.
Royal Dutch Shell PLC said recently that extreme weather conditions that prevented salvage operations had subsided to the point that the Coast Guard was able to ferry a five-member team to the grounded Kulluk drill ship, considered to be in a stable state.
Kulluk broke free from a tow to Seattle for routine maintenance recently.
The ship contains petroleum product, but no release was reported from the grounding.
Shell last year was granted approval from the US government to explore for oil and natural gas in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas. Equipment issues and weather delays hampered Shell’s developments in the northern arctic waters.
US Rep. Ed Markey from Massachusetts, ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee, questioned Shell on how it would handle fuel removal, what plans it had to cope with severe weather and how it would’ve responded to a similar incident in the remote northern Alaskan seas.
“This is just the most recent incident in Shell’s attempt to drill offshore in the arctic and it raises serious questions about its ability to conduct these operations safely and in a way that protects the environment,” Markey said in a statement, cited by news agencies.
Shell said more than 600 workers are responding to the incident through a coordinated effort with the US Coast Guard and state authorities. There were no significant injuries associated with the transit accident.
Shell will try to move its grounded drill ship out of the worst of the North Pacific’s fury with a towing attempt when conditions allow.
Shell incident commander Sean Churchfield said naval architects have pronounced the Kulluk fit to be towed. The attempt will depend on weather, tides and readiness, he said.
“I can’t offer you firm times. Right now, the preparation for the tow depends on the weather and operational constraints,” Churchfield said. “We will be looking to move the vessel as soon as we are ready and able.”
If the drill ship can be pulled from the rocks off Sitkalidak Island, it will be towed 48 km to shelter in Kodiak Island’s Kiliuda Bay, a cove about 69 km southeast of the city of Kodiak.
The Kulluk is a circular barge 81 meters in diameter with a funnel-shaped, reinforced steel hull that allows it to operate in ice. One of two Shell ships that drilled last year in the Arctic Ocean, it has a 48-meter derrick rising from its center and no propulsion system of its own.
The tow attempt will be made by the same vessel that lost the Kulluk last month while attempting to move it to Seattle. A line between the 109.73-meter anchor handler, the Aiviq, and the Kulluk broke Dec. 27. Four re-attached lines between the Aiviq or other vessels also broke in stormy weather.
The attempt to rein in the drill ship was complicated by engine failure experienced by the Aiviq’s four engines. A preliminary investigation pointed to bad fuel but that is not conclusive, Churchfield said. The Edison Chouest Offshore crew has treated fuel and changed filters.
“Thus far, we have not seen a repeat of those problems,” he said.
Fuel tanks remain intact on the Kulluk and there are no plans to remove an estimated 150,000 gallons of diesel from the Kulluk, which would present a different set of risks, Churchfield said. Other cargo also will remain.
Coast Guard Capt. Paul Mehler, the federal on-scene coordinator, said no divers have been in the water but soundings from small Coast Guard boats and discussions with local fishermen indicate the vessel rests on a rocky bottom.
Not every piece of equipment was in place Saturday afternoon, he said.
“The two that I know, we have a large generator and we have a piece of a tow connection. It’s actually an expandable piece that would do the gig. That’s the key piece we’re missing right now,” Mehler said.
More than 600 people were working on the recovery.
Dan Magone, who has worked on other major groundings in Alaska, a day earlier expressed skepticism that the vessel could simply be towed.
“I’d really be shocked if this thing is so lightly aground and so lightly damaged that they can just go pull this thing off right away,” said Magone, president of Magone Marine, in a telephone interview from his headquarters in Dutch Harbor.
Magone is not working on the salvage of the Kulluk but has experience with other major groundings, including the Selendang Ayu, a cargo ship wrecked in December 2004 on Unalaska Island. Smit Salvage, the Dutch company hired to salvage the Kulluk, also worked on that wreck.
Magone’s company is under contract for two other wrecks — fishing boats from which fuel has been removed — but he’s waiting until spring to finish the job. That’s often the routine for winter groundings in the region, he said.
“The insurance company doesn’t want to pay any more money than they have to to get the wrecks out of there, so why risk our equipment and our crew and spend a thousand percent more money playing around in the wintertime when you can just wait until the weather’s good and do it then?” Magone said.
“That’s pretty normal. Of course with a big fiasco like this, there’s all kinds of pressure and everything. But there’s a limit to what you can do,” he said.
Shell has reported superficial damage above the deck and seawater within that entered through open hatches. Water has knocked out regular and emergency generators, but portable generators were put on board Friday.
The condition of the hull will be key in determining whether the Kulluk can be refloated.
The Coast Guard must review and sign off on a salvage plan. Brian Thomas of the Coast Guard’s salvage engineering response team in Washington, D.C., said the team’s marine engineers give technical advice and assess risks.
