Shell Outlines Steps to Make its Planned Arctic Ocean Project Safer

MAY 18, 2010, 9:25 P.M. ET

By JIM CARLTON

Royal Dutch Shell PLC, seeking to reassure nervous U.S. officials, said it would heighten safety measures for its planned exploratory drilling in Alaska's Arctic Ocean.

After the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Interior Department officials said they would subject Shell's drilling plan to a new safety review before deciding whether to issue final permits.

Shell now plans to test a critical piece of safety equipment, the blowout preventer, every seven days instead of every 14 days, said Marvin Odum, president of the Shell Oil Co. division, in a letter to Minerals Management Service Director Elizabeth Birnbaum released Tuesday.

A blowout—an uncontrolled surge of oil and natural gas—has been blamed for April 20 explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which left 11 dead and oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico. BP PLC, which hired the rig and is responsible for stopping the spill and cleaning it up, has complained the blowout preventer didn't work.

Shell's proposed drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas this summer would be in a less risky area for blowouts, Mr. Odum said, because the wells would be situated in relatively shallow waters of about 150 feet; BP's well is 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf.

Mr. Odum outlined a number of other new safety measures that Shell plans to add to the Alaska drilling.

Shell will have on hand the kind of giant inverted funnel that BP built and tried to use without success to corral the flow of oil gushing into the Gulf. Mr. Odum said Shell's dome would be able to cope with the problem of slushy hydrate crystals, which stymied BP's efforts.

Shell is also evaluating putting in a backup set of "shear rams," or knife-like devices that are used as a last resort to regain pressure in a well by cutting and sealing drill pipe. Officials are looking at whether the shear rams in BP's well failed.

"I am confident that we are ready to conduct the 2010 Arctic exploratory program safely, and, I want to be clear, the accountability for this program rests with Shell," Mr. Odum told Ms. Birnbaum, who on May 6 had sent him a letter asking what added safety procedures Shell was proposing in light of the Gulf spill.

Environmentalist critics of the Arctic drilling say Shell still hasn't addressed how it could ensure a rapid oil-spill response in a place as remote as the Arctic, nor how it would safeguard against the human failures they say result in many spills.

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