The Obama administration launched a sweeping inquiry into Shell Oil’s Arctic drilling program on Tuesday. The probe, to be completed within 60 days, will look at the company’s mishaps in Alaska and in Puget Sound.
The announcement from Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar comes a week after Shell’s Kulluk oil rig ran aground in the Gulf of Alaska.
A shipwrecked oil rig that was bound for Seattle has been floated off the rocks and towed to a safe harbor in the Gulf of Alaska. A fleet of nine ships accompanied Shell Oil’s Kulluk drill rig on the 45-mile tow. Shortly before noon Pacific Time, the rig reached its anchorage in sheltered Kiliuda Bay on Kodiak Island.
Credit Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis / US Coast Guard
A Coast Guard helicopter crew conducts hoists of the first six of 18 crewmen from the mobile drilling unit Kulluk 80 miles southwest of Kodiak City, Alaska, 12/29/12. Rescue was prompted after there were problems with the tow Friday.
Credit Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Francis / US Coast Guard
The tug Nanuq and the tug Aiviq (not pictured) tow the mobile drilling unit Kulluk in 15 to 20-foot seas, 80 miles southwest of Kodiak City, Alaska, 12/29/12. The tug Aiviq lost the initial tow Thursday and suffered several engine failures.
An oil rig that was on its way to a Seattle shipyard from Alaska went adrift in the Gulf of Alaska on Sunday. John Ryan told Ross Reynolds about it on The Conversation.
