Oil drilling in Arctic called off

Source: Plain Dealer

Washington -- The Obama administration today will suspend planned exploratory oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska until at least 2011, a casualty of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

The suspension will be part of a report that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will give to President Barack Obama, who's likely to address the suspension as well as other proposals stemming from Salazar's report, at a White House news conference today to address tough new safety rules on offshore drilling.

The move will stop Shell from drilling five wells in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas off northern Alaska weeks before it had hoped to start work, an administration official told McClatchy Newspapers.

The move will stop for now a controversial expansion of oil drilling in a part of the world that could hold vast stores of oil and natural gas, but which environmentalists warn would come at great risk.

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Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/05/oil_drilling_in_arctic_called.html

PB

nt

with no relief well already in place

It's heartening that we've been able to put this much pressure. I thought this administration was impervious to pressure from the hoi polloi.

This is one less of them to worry about for a while. It's a good thing!

But the environment in Alaska will be safe, for a little while.

damaged...

But, hey, lets keep drillin' and spillin'

Cause we got SUVs that need fillin'!

Congress should be grillin'

But they're with their Oil buddies chillin'

(Listenin' to old favorites by Dylan)

corporate radio will never allow a protest song on the radio. Jesus what a fucked up world. Even the "centrist" democrats are behaving like little fasicists - from wall street control, to energy control, to war, its all corporate, all the way. And we are in a death spiral.

this shit is poison. We need to live without it. It is destroying my home

But there is the aspect of migrating to a non-petroleum society. We must do that first.

WTF is this 'until at least 2011' nonsense? That's only six months. What if the Soviets had said "We're not going to re-start Chernobyl for at least 180 days" or Union Carbide said "It will take us a few months to get Bhopal working again"?

Obama is an utter coward lacking basic humanity - when a month passes without a serious response to this singular corporate crime, there's no other way to describe him. This crisis needs the big political amplifiers turned up to eleven, and we (and the Earth) get a tiny little transistor radio without batteries. Where's the impressive baritone vocabulary when it's most needed? This is outrageous.

Informed criticism of political ineptitude is always called for. They call it democracy, something Obamatrons might need reprogramming to fully grasp.

Source: http://www.petro.no/modules/module_123/proxy.asp?C=14&I=14116&D=2
(in Norwegian)

The rig Aker Barents is in place and drilling commenced yesterday, Shell Norway announced today.
Drilling in the Gro-field is expected to take up to three months.
Water depth at the site is about 5000 feet (sound familiar?)

Shell has been asked by various groups to suspend drilling until the reason for the Deepwater Horizon disaster is known on the ground that the drilling techniques may not be sufficiently advanced.
Shell disagrees:
'The Gro-well has been in planning for more than a year. We think that Shell's meticulous processes, standards and controls and highly competent employees reduce the risk for a similar incident. In case an incident should happen we have a robust emergency team with highly qualified employees and tested procedures honed in regular trainings' says Terje Jonassen, communications chief for Shell Norway.

President Obama will announce on Thursday a suspension of all applications for offshore oil drilling in the Arctic through the remainder of the year, an Alaska senator said late Wednesday.

The decision essentially extends an informal moratorium that Mr. Obama had set shortly after the BP accident on April 20 that led to the spewing of millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. The new restrictions would suspend new offshore drilling permits in the Gulf of Mexico and off the North Slope Alaska until the cause of the accident is determined and stricter safety and environmental safeguards are imposed.

One major oil company, Shell Oil, had been hoping to begin a controversial exploratory drilling project this summer in the Arctic Ocean, which the new restrictions would put on hold.

Senator Mark Begich, Democrat of Alaska and a staunch supporter of drilling in the Arctic, said he was informed of the new restrictions by the Interior Department. Sen. Begich said he was frustrated because the decision “will cause more delays and higher costs for domestic oil and gas production to meet the nation’s energy needs.”

...

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Begich is an ass hole!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/28drill.html?hp