Royal Dutch Shell is finding that getting out of the Arctic Ocean can be tougher than drilling wells in it. More than a week after drilling stopped for the 2012 season, some of the oil giant?s vessels are still in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas north of the Alaska coast?and the winter ice is forming. While the ice doesn?t pose any near-term danger, the delay highlights the logistical challenges facing Shell as it launches the first offshore Arctic drilling to take place in U.S. waters since the 1990s.
Ice extent in the Arctic Ocean retreated to a record low this year, and most of October was unseasonably warm along Alaska?s North Slope. The Noble Discoverer drillship, which was working the company?s Burger prospect in the Chukchi Sea to the west, disengaged from its anchors and headed through the Bering Strait toward Dutch Harbor, Alaska, more than a week ago. But as of nightfall on Tuesday, Shell?s Kulluk rig was still moored on the Sivulliq prospect in the Beaufort Sea at 70? 23' 29.56955 north latitude and 145? 58' 52.49243 west longitude?give or take a "gnat?s ass," as one senior contractor told me when I visited the rig last week. The temperatures have dropped below zero, and slushy grease ice has formed around the Kulluk and its companion vessels.
The conditions pose little threat to the Kulluk, which has a funnel-shaped, 3-inch-thick hull designed to shed ice. In fact, the 29-year-old rig has spent most of its winters frozen into the ice in the Canadian part of the Beaufort Sea. The M/V Aiviq, the powerful tug that is slated to pull the rig southward, can plow through a meter of ice, and Shell has additional ice-capable vessels on-hand. However, the Kulluk rig has been ready to unmoor from the bottom and depart since Wednesday, Oct. 31. The weeklong delay highlights some of the difficulties Shell is facing in the region.
I stayed onboard the Kulluk for several days as the crew was preparing to demobilize from the Arctic, and snow slowly built up on deck. Operators of an underwater ROV based in the Kulluk?s old dive shack helped complete the final seafloor operations on the evening of Oct. 28. The small ROV, which is equipped with cameras and sonar equipment, serves as underwater eyes for workers on the rig. It is also equipped with robotic arms to manipulate hoses and other equipment.
Over the following days the rig was quickly secured for transport, but the operation faced several hurdles. First, there were 83 men onboard, a number that was supposed to go down to just 17 for the trip south. By Alaska standards, the weather remained stable, yet flights between the rig and the company?s facilities on land at Prudhoe Bay were delayed for days at a time. Shell had contracted with PHI, Inc., a helicopter services company that is ubiquitous in the Gulf of Mexico. But the company?s Sikorsky S-92 helicopters had not been prepared with de-icing equipment, and the pilots I spoke with lacked experience flying on the North Slope.
A second issue concerned the Aiviq tug?s fuel reserves. Shell had committed to laying a containment boom out on the ocean surface during vessel-to-vessel refueling, but the seas had been too rough to do that. The tug needed to refuel before starting to haul the Kulluk.
Finally, the Kulluk was required to offload its wastewater to another vessel for eventual disposal on land, but those operations also proved vulnerable to disruption by rough seas.
Shell?s offshore drilling program has been controversial since the company purchased Arctic leases more than five years ago, with critics worrying that harsh Arctic weather and the remote location could make it difficult to drill safely and nearly impossible to control and clean up an oil spill, particularly one that occurred late in the year. The Shell staff members and contractors I?ve spoken with agree that operating in the Arctic is a challenge. "The most complex part is the logistics piece of getting everything in place, on time, and doing that without exceeding the permit conditions," says Jim Miller, who oversees Shell?s drilling operations in Alaska.
The company made several technical missteps this season. Most importantly, the Arctic Challenger barge and the oil-spill containment system the barge carried were not ready in time, and, as a result, Shell was not allowed to drill down to potentially petroleum-bearing layers of rock. However, regulators then allowed the company to prepare top holes on two wells, drilling to about 1400 feet and carving out mud-lined cellars 40 feet deep and 20 feet wide that will house blowout preventers when oil exploration gets underway next spring.
The Kulluk has been anchored to the sea bottom by 12 steel lines, which need to be released in a controlled pattern with the aid of one or more anchor-handling boats. Unmooring began on Sunday but was hampered by cold and ice. The anchors will stay secured to the seafloor to allow the rig to get a quicker start in 2013. Next spring the anchor handlers will pull up long lines attached to the anchors, and once again secure the Kulluk in place.
Shell is the largest leaseholder in the region, but other companies are also preparing exploratory drilling plans. ConocoPhillips may begin drilling in 2014, and Statoil as soon as 2015. The prize could be reserves of 26 billion barrels of oil, according to estimates from the U.S. Geological Survey.
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