14 DAY TRIAL // Despite a seemingly endless string of protests organized by environmentalists and several incidents that seriously damaged its reputation, Anglo-Dutch multinational oil and gas company Shell has not yet given up on its plans to drill in the Arctic.
On the contrary, media reports say that, earlier this week, on August 28, the oil and gas giant announced its intention to plant two rigs in the waters of the Chuckchi Sea, between Russia and Alaska.
The company did not deliver this piece of news in the form of an official announcement. The information reached the public in the form of a proposal that Shell submitted to the US Department of the Interior.
According to Business Green, the Anglo-Dutch multinational company chose not to make a big deal about its submitting this proposal because it has not yet decided whether or not it will actually move forward with these plans.
Thus, oil and gas giant Shell maintains that it only told the Department of Interior that it wants to have two drilling rigs installed in the Chuckchi Sea in an attempt to keep its options open when it comes to exploring the Arctic.
Shell might argue that its proposal was no more and no less than its way to play the field a bit, but this does change the fact that, according to its estimates, the region it has its heart set on exploiting could yield as much as 400,000 barrels of oil per day.
Hence, it's safe to assume that there is more to this proposal than the multinational company is ready and willing to admit to, and that it is only a matter of time until Shell moves to resurrect its Arctic drilling program.
Since it first set its eyes on the Arctic until now, the company has spent well over $6 billion (about €4.57 billion) on a series of operations that were supposed to translate into the company's extracting at least some resources.
However, this did not happen. What happened was that Shell was criticized and accused of not being prepared to deal with the risks associated with drilling in the Arctic. What's more, it was on New Year's Eve 2012 that company workers lost control of a rig in the Gulf of Alaska.
By the looks of it, the oil and gas giant maintains that, past mishaps aside, it is now well equipped to drill in the Chuckchi Sea. More precisely, Shell claims to have made significant progress in terms of safety. Whether or not this is indeed the case is irrelevant, as chances are environmentalists will once again lash out at the company.