Posted on 01/02/2013 5:08:12 AM PST by thackney
The shore is dozens of miles away. These areas are not reacheable from shore.
To be clear, the picture shown above with the shore nearby is not the drilling location.
They were drilling over a thousand miles away off the far north slope of Alaska. They were moving the rig to a southern harbor for maintenance during the winter when they had multiple problems in the tow.
My point was we went to any place we could reasonably find oil even before many place were closed off from production.
My point is that closing places off to oil drilling pushes drilling off into more difficult (expensive) areas.
As long as OPEC is willing to hold back production to keep oil prices relatively high, oil companies will go after oil anywhere they believe they can make a profit.
Having or not having access to US federal land is not going to change the business model to make a profit.
New info on an older post.
While the Shell Arctic drilling platform had been in process of moving to L48 winter harbor, they did make stops along the way. The decision to leave Dutch Harbor and keep moving in those few days may have had some other motivation, although Shell denies it.
Lawmaker Questions Shell’s Decision to Move Rig in Bad Weather
http://rigzone.com/news/oil_gas/a/123355/Lawmaker_Questions_Shells_Decision_to_Move_Rig_in_Bad_Weather
Markey questions whether Shell pushed forward in order to avoid $6 million in taxes it could have owed the state of Alaska if the rig stayed in state waters beyond the end of the year.
Shell says the tax situation did not drive that decision. “While we are aware of the tax environment wherever we operate, the driver for operational decisions is governed by safety,” Smith said.
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