Oil Exploration Ramps Up In US Arctic

ananyo writes "A new round of exploratory oil drilling is due to begin in the Arctic this July. The oil giant Shell was granted permission some months ago by the U.S. government to drill two exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea and three in the Chukchi Sea, both north of Alaska, this year — between 15 July and late September. The project is finally coming to fruition after years spent fighting legal challenges. It will be the first oil-exploration program to run in U.S. Arctic waters since 2000, and could mark the start of the first offshore commercial drilling in the American north, although it would take another decade to establish production wells."

Comments

Re:It is off Alaska

[Billly Gates]

Last time I checked it was owned by the US.

This is really great news. For the record I lived in Alaska and just moved back last year to the lower 48 and miss it greatly. Everyone is terrified of the oil pipeline shutting down completely by 2015. Besides the military there are no other employers in Alaska! The dividend fund where you get paid to live in Alaska is based off the oil pipeline, teachers including my exwife are paid by the oil pipeline. Even the universities get their money from the pipeline and are the next major employer over there.

By 2015 if the pressure is too low the pipeline will no longer be able to pump itself and it is game over. 40,000 would leave Anchorage overnight and devestate the housing market. The rest of the fallout would happen as I outlined above.

This is a great thing for the Indians who live up there who need jobs and get funds even and free education even if they are not employed by the oil industry directorly. Prudhoe buy in the arctic is perfectly clean and wildlife flourishes. The environmental record is fine and conservation and funding for researching into the arctic environments and protections of wildlife by the universities up in Alaska are all indirectly funded by big oil. It would be a loss.