Greenland OKs firm for offshore drilling

[highplainsdem]

Source: CBC News

Greenland OKs firm for offshore drilling


Greenland gave a small Scottish firm permission to drill for oil under the icy waters off its western coast Wednesday, one of the first times drills will be in use on the seafloor beneath the area they call "iceberg alley."

-snip-

David Nisbet, Cairn Energy's head of group corporate affairs, said his company will take every precaution in the event it strikes oil in Davis Strait.

-snip-

"We will have a support fleet of vessels, about a dozen vessels, working alongside the two rigs," Nisbet said. "We have a relief well capability."

Critics say Arctic drilling poses distinct difficulties, both because of the presence of potentially dangerous icebergs on the surface and the relative difficulty of cleaning up below kilometres of solid ice. Cairn's only previous drilling experience is in the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.


Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2010/06/16/greenland-offshore-cairn-oil.html

[Art_from_Ark]

1. Stupid, stupid, stupid

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

Another potential oil disaster in the making :argh:

[gateley]

2. Jesus

:banghead:

I read the article but I didn't catch the depth -- did you?

And BP could have said they had "relief well capability" since they've built relief wells before.

It is so sad that Greenland is going to be affected by this industry.

[Art_from_Ark]

4. In a previous article, a depth of 1.2km was mentioned

or close to 3/4 of a mile. In iceberg-infested waters. :argh:

[highplainsdem]

6. An earlier article I posted about mentioned depths up to 2 km. Link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4414690

[Art_from_Ark]

10. OK, that makes it 1.2 miles, instead of 1.2 kilometers

That makes it even worse

[sandnsea]

3. Stupid doesn't stop at the US border

There's lots of things going on around the world that we don't pay enough attention to.

[Zorra]

5. "...said his company will take every precaution in the event it strikes oil..."

Hmmm...where have I heard that before?

Oh, yeah, I remember, it was that guy from Brackish Petroleum.

[Oerdin]

7. Good for them.

If they ever want independence from Denmark then they'll need a source of revenue. This is just about their only option besides selling fish.

[Zorra]

8. If I can't find a job, maybe I'll sell heroin. It's just about my only option

besides flipping burgers.

[naaman fletcher]

9. As a possible point of sanity...

There are thousands of offshore wells that operate safely. This instance was not random, BP was negligent. So, the question is, can this industry be safe with proper regulation? I don't know the answer to that, but it's worth contemplating.

[Art_from_Ark]

11. How many of those wells are in Iceberg Alley?

How many of those wells are more than a mile below the surface?
What kind of contingency plan does this small, untested company have?

And as we have seen, all it takes is one Big Phuck-up to destroy life in tens of thousands of square miles of ocean.

[closeupready]

12. Why doesn't anyone listen to me? As I said before,

we will continue drilling fossil fuels until they are gone or else we die.

[gateley]

13. I fear you may be right. Or until green energy offers a bigger profit. nt