Coast Guard cutter entangled trying to aid Shell rig and tug off Alaska

[n2doc]

By Kim Murphy
December 28, 2012, 2:59 p.m.

SEATTLE — Adding to a season full of headaches for Shell Alaska’s debut offshore drilling program in the U.S. Arctic, the company’s Kulluk drilling rig was stuck in monster seas off the coast of Alaska on Friday as its tugboat’s engines failed and the Coast Guard cutter that came to assist became entangled in a tow line.

There were no immediate threats to crew or equipment, but Shell Alaska was rushing additional aid vessels to the scene as the Kulluk, which drilled the beginnings of an exploratory oil well in the Beaufort Sea over the summer, sat without ability to move forward in 20-foot seas about 50 miles south of Kodiak.

“You become at the mercy of the seas when you don’t have propulsion. The boat is going to go where the seas push it,” Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class David Mosley told the Los Angeles Times. “Twenty-foot seas, my office here, the ceilings are 10 feet high, and you’re looking at double that.”

Shell Alaska officials said emergency power generators were enabling the tug vessel, the Aiviq, to avoid significant drift, even with the 266-foot Kulluk drilling barge, which does not have its own propulsion engines, in tow.

more

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-shell-kulluk-arctic-20121228,0,6515665.story

[bahrbearian]

1. This line is funny , though I have been there and would not be laughing.

," the two vessels ended up with some issues on board that directly affected their engines — it sounds like it was a fuel issue. Not necessarily running out of fuel, but a fuel quality issue.”

So where did they buy their fuel?

[Scuba]

2. Wealthy oil tycoons benefit from taxpayers. Again.

[ellisonz]

3. Although I wish no harm to the men on board that monstrosity...

I can only hope that monster seas will send that abomination to the bottom.