Proposed Arctic Drilling Regulations Aim to Protect with Costly Price Tags

Shell has taken unprecedented steps to make its Arctic Oil Spill Prevention and Response Program more robust by:

  • Commissioning and purchasing two custom ice class vessels
  • Securing a custom, Arctic tested and approved oil spill response fleet that could be on site and recovering discharge within one hour of an incident
  • Constructing a custom-built capping stack that would be located in theater and lowered to the sea floor to make metal-to-metal contact with a compromised wellhead (the same apparatus used to stop the 2010 Macondo blowout in the Gulf of Mexico)
  • Building a custom containment dome and storage barge that has the ability to collect leaking oil above the wellhead and funnel it to the surface for flaring and/or storage

“There’s not anything like it in the world,” said Paul Hagel, Arctic Campaign manager for Shell, to Rigzone.

In a March 24 presentation at the Arctic technology Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, Mitchell Winkler, manager of Arctic Technology for Shell, discussed the company’s robust oil spill prevention and response plan in detail.

“Whether we are in Alaska, Greenland, the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea, our focus is prevention,” Winkler said in an interview. “We have multiple barriers and controls in place to be able to prevent an incident and also we have the preparedness for a successful response.”


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