Moratorium Won’t Stop Unprecedented BP Project in the Arctic

[and-justice-for-all]

A land drilling rig on a man-made gravel island in the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska. (Minerals Management Service, now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement)

The Obama administration’s six-month moratorium has put a freeze on new offshore drilling permits, but three miles off the coast of Alaska, there’s one unprecedented drilling project by BP that’s still moving forward regardless.

That’s according to two investigations this week—one in today’s New York Times <1> and the other published online by Rolling Stone <2> on Tuesday.

The pieces both drilled down on a project by BP called “Liberty,” a project in the Arctic for which BP has built an artificial island made of gravel—which according to the company and regulators, qualifies it as “onshore,” and not subject to the offshore drilling moratorium.

The project is considered risky by some engineers because it involves drilling two miles into the gravel island and then drilling sideways several miles more to reach a 100-million-barrel oil reservoir. Rolling Stone noted that it would be “the longest ‘extended reach’ well ever attempted <2>, and the effort has required BP to push drilling technology beyond its proven limits.”

More: http://www.propublica.org/ion/blog/item/moratorium-wont-stop-unprecedented-bp-project-in-the-arctic
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/24/us/24rig.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/17390/120130

[glinda]

1. This is breaking my heart. This must be prevented.

[tekisui]

2. Wake the fuck up, everyone! We are killing ourselves.

[tekisui]

3. I've looked through your links and am astounded that the Administration

is going to allow this. Just astounded.

[and-justice-for-all]

4. It boggles the mind...nt

[gateley]

5. BP is reminding me of Cheney - we keep learning of more and more and more

duplicity. It's constant - not a couple of instances - but truly chronic. Never-ending. It's sickening.

[Angry Dragon]

6. I do not know why everyone is getting upset

bp has it under control. They have all their safety regs in place, they have experience in clean-up if anything happens.
No one ever gets hurt working for bp. They will take care of everything.
And if that does not work they will just walk away and let someone else pay the bills.

They are just in a hurry to destroy the planet. No one has ever done that before and they want to go down in the history books as being the first. That in their eyes is good pr.

[Swamp Rat]

7. BP to Obama: "Go fuck yourself!"