Coast Guard finds violations on Shell’s Arctic drilling rig

[unhappycamper]

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/02/22/183949/coast-guard-finds-violations-on.html



Problems on the Shell's Arctic Challenger, shown on September 17, 2012, at the Port of Bellingham in Washington, caused Shell to give up for the year on drilling for oil in the Arctic waters off Alaska.

Coast Guard finds violations on Shell’s Arctic drilling rig
By Sean Cockerham
Posted on Friday, February 22, 2013

WASHINGTON — The Coast Guard has found serious safety and environmental violations on a Shell drilling rig used in the Arctic waters off Alaska, another blow to the company’s controversial bid to harvest oil in the petroleum-rich but sensitive region.

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The Coast Guard found 16 violations on the Noble Discoverer, one of Shell’s two drilling rigs for Alaska’s Arctic waters. The company’s other rig, the Kulluk, has its own troubles. The Kulluk broke free from towlines during a New Year’s Eve storm and was grounded for several days off Kodiak Island.

Details of the Noble Discoverer’s violations were obtained by Democratic staff of the House Natural Resources Committee, which had asked the Coast Guard for an accounting of inspections that took place on the rig at the end of November.

“The reports that Shell may have been drilling this summer using a drill ship with serious deficiencies in its safety and pollution control equipment raise additional and continued questions about whether Shell is able to drill safely offshore in the Arctic,” Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey, the top Democrat on the committee, wrote Friday to Shell’s president.