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Reuters / U.S. Coast Guard / Petty Officer
3rd Class Grant DeVuyst / Handout |
A new study says there is a lack of both scientific data and
preparedness on the part of private and public entities to properly
address an oil spill in the Arctic Ocean, which global powers and
industry expect to exploit for energy exploration.
Climate change is thawing sea ice in the Arctic, opening up new
opportunities for energy development. Approximately 30 percent of
the world’s undiscovered natural gas and about 15 percent of its
untapped oil lie in the Arctic. But the majority, 84 percent, of
the estimated 90 billion barrels of oil and 47.3 trillion cubic
meters of gas remain offshore.
Waiting for eager energy developers are some of the world’s most
extreme weather conditions
“and environmental settings,
limited operations and communications infrastructure, a vast
geographic area, and vulnerable species, ecosystems, and
cultures,” the National Research Council
wrote.
The five countries with territorial claims in the Arctic –
Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia, and the United States – have
stated intentions to develop these reserves, if they haven’t
begun already.
Yet the National Research Council’s new
study – funded by US federal agencies and the
leading trade group for the oil industry, the American Petroleum
Institute – found that energy companies currently lack Arctic oil
spill response plans, as it is their responsibility to address
such an event. That said, public entities often take the lead in
spill response actions, yet the US government does not have
infrastructure capabilities in place despite its
rush to establish dominance in the region.
“The lack of infrastructure and oil spill response equipment
in the U.S. Arctic is a significant liability in the event of a
large oil spill,” the report states.
“Building U.S.
capabilities to support oil spill response will require
significant investment in physical infrastructure and human
capabilities, from communications and personnel to transportation
systems and traffic monitoring.”
The
“significant investment” on infrastructure could
come from public-private partnerships, the report suggests,
though the politics of offering industry further subsidies may be
problematic.
Adequate research into what awaits industry in the extreme cold
of Arctic waters is also lacking, the report said. There is
little understanding of how the low temperatures would affect
both spilled oil and commonly-used techniques to reverse the
effects of a spill,
such as the spread of chemical dispersants.
The report goes as far as suggesting that the only way to know is
to conduct a controlled oil spill.
“Laboratory experiments, field research, and practical
experience gained from responding to past oil spills have built a
strong body of knowledge on the properties of spilled oil and
response techniques. However, much of this work has been done for
temperate regions,” the report reads.
“There is…a need to validate current and emerging oil spill
response technologies in Arctic environmental conditions on
operational scales. Carefully planned and controlled field
releases of oil in the U.S. Arctic would improve the
understanding of oil behavior [the Arctic] and allow for the
evaluation of new response strategies specific to the
region.”
Three oil and gas companies – ConocoPhillips, Norwegian
multinational Statoil, and Shell Oil – have received approval to
explore the US Arctic territory.
Shell has spent $6 billion so far in ultimately unsuccessful
Arctic drilling
operations, Mint Press News
reported. It was an incident in 2012,
involving a Shell oil-drilling rig, that has provided the
starkest indication of what lies ahead for companies in the
region.
In a rush to avoid an upcoming tax liability about to go into
effect, Shell decided to drag its top rig, the Kulluk, around
1,700 miles through frigid Arctic waters despite warnings from
the tow ship’s captain.
The Kulluk, reportedly carrying 150,000 gallons of fuel,
eventually broke free from the towing ship floating off into an
ecologically-sensitive area. The rig and its crew had to be
rescued by the US Coast Guard, which recently released a report
on the incident that slams Shell for
“inadequate assessment
and management of risks.”
“Vessels and the operations they conduct are growing more
complex, and the risks that accompany these operations increase,
whether in Alaskan waters or not,” wrote Joseph A. Servidio,
a Coast Guard rear admiral, in the report.
“The failure to
adequately understand, respect, and not complacently assume past
practice will address new risks, is critical both in practice and
in company culture.”
According to the United Nations' sea convention, any country has
sovereign rights to resources within 200 nautical miles of its
territorial waterways.
The five countries with territorial claims have long preached
cooperation in the region, going as far as setting up an Arctic
Council that the nations take turns leading. In 2015, the US will
assume the leadership role as a warming planet has opened up new
opportunities. These commercial interests worry advocates of
ecologically-intelligent approaches to the Arctic.
“The Arctic Council should be a forum focused on protecting
the Arctic environment, yet we see it more and more talking about
protecting economic interests in the region,” John Deans, an
Arctic campaigner with Greenpeace USA, told Mint Press.
Deans said that for his organization, which has environmental
interests in mind, the lack of scientific information about
Arctic drilling consequences is a red flag, yet governments and
industry are highly unlikely to slow their pace.
“In our view, if you don’t know enough about a place – in
this case, what either an oil spill or a response would look like
– then you really shouldn’t be up there to drill in the first
place,” he said.
