Despite massive setbacks, and a shed of the company’s North American assets, Royal Dutch Shell appears to have made a decision to continue to pursue drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic.
Shell’s campaign to resume Arctic drilling in 2015 took a major step forward Thursday, as the company gave federal regulators a broad drilling blueprint that lays out plans for boring new exploratory oil wells in the Chukchi Sea. The exploration plan filed with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management in Anchorage keeps the door open for Shell Oil Co. to resume its Arctic drilling campaign as soon as summer 2015. It is the strongest evidence yet that Shell’s new CEO, Ben van Beurden, is willing to keep pursuing a big discovery in the U.S. Arctic, after a mishap-plagued 2012 exploration campaign ended with the grounding of the company’s Kulluk drilling rig and a $200 million loss for scrapping it.
Production, if it happens at all, is up to a decade away. Still, the big challenge now for the state’s federal delegation is to get a revenue sharing bill passed so that the state can share in the spoils with the feds, if there are any. A bill was proposed last year by Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, and co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, which would have given Alaska and other coastal states up to 37.5 percent of federal royalty revenue for energy production off their coastlines. The bill was opposed by environmental groups who oppose offshore drilling. It got one hearing in the Senate Energy Committee, and is now languishing, even though Landrieu is chair of the committee and Murkowski is a ranking member.
The bill to afford Alaska revenue is “languishing in committee”. I am so proud of the creation, in both federal and state legislative bodies, of a secretive permanent standing caucus which empowers the likes of Harry Reid.
I always thought that Lisa Murkowski was responsible, over the years, for dogging this project forward. Begich’s campaign and his Super PAC is supported by anti-development and anti-oil advocates like David Steyer and his friends who oppose off shore development. Begich has made his bed with anti- Alaskan interests that he’ll be aligned with if we re-elect him. May God guide us.
Radio Dave rocks with the truth. That dude, Begich, is a do little that makes claims galore. As mayor he left the city in a fiscal nightmare. He “pretends” to be all about our privacy. Does he think we forgot that he was the guy that brought photo radar to Anchorage? The dude is a bunch of noisy nothingness.
Begich takes credit for everything. Since he’s part of Harry Reid’s leadership group, let’s give him credit for the bill that would distribute more revenue for off shore drilling. Oops! Forgot that Harry has that one tiied up dying in a committee somewhere. It’s time for a change. Let’s get rid of Harry Reid’s rubber stamp.
Release from Begich taking full credit in 3….2….