Imperial
Oil and its offshore Arctic joint-venture partners are delaying their plans for
an ambitious drilling project in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, news organizations reported
on 27 Jun 2015.
The
partners – Calgary-based Imperial, Exxon Mobil and BP – have asked Canadian
officials for seven-year extensions of Beaufort Sea exploration licenses that
are currently scheduled to expire in 2020, reported Reuters, the CBC, The Globe
and Mail and other news organizations. The joint venture partners concluded
they will not be able to complete predrilling work in time to drill a well by
2020, the news organizations reported.
The
joint venture ship has been seeking to drill exploration wells at a prospect
about 75 miles offshore of Canada’s Northwest Territories.
The
Imperial joint venture move came six months after Chevron announced a similar
decision to shelve drilling plans for a project farther offshore in the
Canadian Beaufort.
Same-season relief wells
In
separate proceedings, the Imperial partners and Chevron had previously
petitioned Canada’s National Energy Board to change its long-standing rule
requiring offshore Arctic explorers to have capability to drill same-season
relief wells to kill blowouts. The companies argued that the same-season
relief-well rule was overly burdensome and unnecessary.
Chevron
dropped its petition for a rule change when it announced its decision to
suspend its Beaufort exploration project.
Greenpeace reacts
Imperial
officials were not immediately available to comment late Friday. But
Greenpeace, which opposes Arctic offshore drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort
seas, was pleased.
“Imperial
Oil’s decision to defer its Arctic oil drilling plans in the Beaufort Sea is
good news for the Arctic and people all around the world. Drilling in icy
waters is extremely technically challenging, and if it is permitted to happen
an oil spill is all but inevitable,” Farrah Khan, a Greenpeace Canada Arctic
campaigner, said in a statement.
“Instead
of pursuing unburnable Arctic oil, the energy industry should move away from
harmful and destructive fossil fuel projects, and transition rapidly towards a
green energy future based on renewables and energy efficiency,” Khan said in
the statement.
29 Jun
2015 by Yereth Rosen, Alaska Dispatch, eye-on-the-arctic
