14 DAY TRIAL // Environmentalists, and those who are utterly and completely against the fossil fuels industry will be glad to hear that, thanks to some financial difficulties it has been experiencing, oil and gas giant Shell has decided to cancel its plans to drill in the Alaskan Arctic this summer.
The Guardian reports that Shell's decision to cancel this planned campaign in the Alaskan Arctic was announced by Ben van Beurden, the company's new chief executive.
Talking to the press, Ben van Beurden detailed that Shell's annual earnings had dropped by about 50%, reaching $16.7 billion (€12.22 billion).
Consequently, the amount of money that the company is ready and willing to spend on exploration and development has also been reduced.
More precisely, funding for such initiatives no longer sits at $46 billion (€33.67 billion), but at $37 billion (€27.08 billion).
“This is a disappointing outcome, but the lack of a clear path forward means that I am not prepared to commit further resources for drilling in Alaska in 2014,” Ben van Beurden reportedly said in a statement.
As was to be expected, Greenpeace, whose members have long been protesting the company's plans to drill in said region, is quite happy about how things have turned out.
“The company has spent huge amounts of time and money on a project that has delivered nothing apart from bad publicity and a reputation for incompetence.”
“The only wise decision at this point is for Mr. Van Beurden to cut his company's losses and scrap any future plans to drill in the remote Arctic ocean,” environmentalist Charlie Kronick told the press.