• Environmental risk of drilling in Arctic too high, CEO of oil giant Total says

    By NBC News wire services

    LONDON -- Energy companies should not drill for crude oil in Arctic waters because the environmental risks are too high, Total SA Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie told the Financial Times on Wednesday.

    The newspaper, which operated behind a pay wall, described de Margerie's comments as the first time a major oil company has publicly criticized offshore exploration in the Arctic.

    The risk of an oil spill in such an environmentally sensitive area was simply too high, according to de Margerie.

    "Oil on Greenland would be a disaster. A leak would do too much damage to the image of the company," he said.

    Earlier this month, Gazprom OAO delayed the start of oil production at its Prirazlomnoye field, the first Russian Arctic offshore oil deposit to be developed, due to safety concerns.

    A report from the National Snow and Ice Data Center shows the Arctic's melting ice is resulting in the lowest sea ice levels since satellites started tracking the measurements in 1979. NBC's Brian Williams reports.

    The Arctic is seen as a key source in the next decade for Russia, the world's largest oil producer.

    Plans to drill for crude in the Arctic have raised concerns among environmental activists, who launched protests last month at the offshore platform that operates the Gazprom project.

    Shell admits Arctic drilling defeat, for now

    Earlier this month Royal Dutch Shell PLC had to abandon hope of drilling into oil reservoirs in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska after its containment dome was damaged during tests.

    Environmentalists pointed to those setbacks as more evidence that offshore drilling in the Arctic is too risky.

    Sen. Mark Begich, (D-AK), discusses what a delay in Arctic drilling means for the future of oil prices and exploration in the U.S.

    "Letting Shell do top-hole drilling and other preparatory activities when they are clearly not ready to respond to an oil spill is like telling a drunk driver that as long as he stays off the freeway everything should be OK," said Rebecca Noblin, Alaska director of the Center for Biological Diversity, after Shell won approval to carry out additional preliminary drilling off Alaska -- this time in the Beaufort Sea.

    More environment news on NBCNews.com

    The remoteness, the extreme cold and the threat from ice floes crushing equipment pile more costs on top of those imposed by restrictions on drilling during hunting and breeding seasons and requirements for expensive emergency equipment to be on standby.

    And industry executives acknowledge that the economics of Arctic exploration is also shaky.


    NYT: China joins nations seeking treasure in warming Arctic

    Nevertheless, Shell and other international oil and gas companies are moving into the Arctic because of increasing resource nationalism and dwindling production in their traditional heartlands of the Middle East, South America, the United States, the North Sea and elsewhere.

    Persistently high oil prices are also making the huge engineering challenges of working in such a hostile environment look more worthwhile. In addition, the climate change that burning hydrocarbons contributes to has pushed back the ice, opening up access to, and markets for, the hydrocarbons there.

    Arctic sea ice reaches new low, shattering record set 3 weeks earlier

    The prize of success could be huge. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that some 30 percent of the world's undiscovered natural gas and 13 percent of its oil is waiting to be exploited in the Arctic.

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • North Sea exclusion zone set as gas surges from leak

    Antoine Agasse / AFP - Getty Images file

    A file picture taken on May 29, 2009 shows the Total Elgin-Franklin oil and gas platform in the North Sea 150 miles off Aberdeen on Scotalnd's east coast.

    By Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com

    A cloud of explosive natural gas boiling out of a leaking drilling platform off the Scottish coast has led to the evacuation of hundreds of workers and the creation of a two-mile exclusion zone.

    Coastguard officials ordered shipping to come no closer than two miles from the abandoned Elgin platform, located 150 miles off Aberdeen, and said there was a three-mile exclusion zone for low-flying aircraft such as helicopters, the BBC reported.

    Energy firm Total UK, which operates the platform, said it did not know the source of the leak and was considering all options including drilling a relief well – a solution that could take six months.

    “We have mobilised experts from elsewhere in the Total Group to offer additional assistance and help us deal with the incident,” it said in a statement.

    It evacuated 238 workers from the platform after the leak was spotted on Sunday, according to a report in The Scotsman. The report said Shell had reduced its workforce on two nearby offshore installations because of the drifting gas.

    Reuters reported that the company has enlisted the services of Wild Well Control, which was heavily involved in the BP's Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.

    In a statement, Britain’s Department for Energy and Climate Change said the environmental impact of gas condensate leaks is substantially lower than from oil spills.

    Aerial surveillance flights have confirmed the presence of a sheen on the water, which is thought to be gas condensate, a petrol-like substance that normally evaporates naturally.

    Workers’ union leader Jake Molloy warned there was there was the potential for a "major event" if the gas ignited.

    "You're looking at something on the scale of Piper Alpha here,” he told Scottish channel STV, referring to the huge 1988 oil rig blaze that killed 167 workers. "On the positive side, nobody's there. So the human side has been dealt with. But the potential remains for an ignition source and for the complete destruction of that installation.”

    Reuters contributed to this report.

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  • Landmark case: Nigerian villagers sue Shell over oil spills

    Pius Utomi Ekpei / AFP - Getty Images, file

    A man walks near spilled crude oil in the Niger Delta swamps of Bodo, a village in the Nigerian oil-producing region of Ogoniland, in June 2010.

    By F. Brinley Bruton, msnbc.com

    LONDON -- Around 11,000 Nigerian villagers who say their livelihoods were ruined in oil spills launched a legal battle Friday to seek compensation from Shell.

    The case marks the first time any oil firm has faced claims in the U.K. from a community in the developing world for environmental damage caused by oil extraction operations, the villagers' lawyers said.

    Shell, the largest international firm operating in Nigeria, admitted liability for two oil spills in August 2011. However, the two sides dispute the amount of oil spilled and the extent of the damage caused, one of the villagers' London-based lawyers told msnbc.com.

    At the crux of the disagreement is whether the spills that devastated the area were due to so-called operational failures on the part of Shell, or if they were the result of sabotage, illegal refining and theft.

    Farmers, fishermen
    Shell Petroleum Development Company (Nigeria) has admitted responsibility for two spills amounting to around 4,000 barrels. 

    However, experts representing people in the Bodo community, a network of 35 villages whose inhabitants were mainly subsistence fishermen and farmers, maintain that amount is closer to 600,000 barrels, one of the villagers' lawyers told msnbc.com.

    100 miles of oil: Spill likely Nigeria's worst in decade

    "We have urged them to have their expert work with our expert," said Martyn Day of law firm Leigh Day & Co. "But (Shell has) totally refused."

    Day said that negotiations broke down last week.

    'No need for the legal activity'
    Shell spokesman Jonathan French told msnbc.com that the firm cannot discuss details of the legal process, but said the company was dismayed that the case was going to court.

    "There really has been no need for the legal activity which has delayed the the payout and cleanup," he said. "We accepted responsibility at the earliest point we could ... there was no need for this firm of London solicitors to take action."

    PhotoBlog: Nigerian oil industry photos reveal extremes of poverty, wealth

    "Nobody is saying is that there isn’t a problem with oil spills in the Niger Delta," French added. "The point is that there is this formula enshrined in Nigerian law that spells out level of compensation."

    Instead of resorting to court, the villagers should have followed the process already in place in Nigeria, French said, adding that the involvement of law firms such as Leigh Day "can serve to delay compensation."

    $1 billion cleanup tab in Nigeria oil mess, UN says

    Shell paid out $4 million in compensation to victims of operational oil spills in 2009, and $1.7 million in 2010, French said.

    Shell has been criticized for its behavior in Nigeria before.

    In Aug. 2011, the United Nations released a report saying the company and the Nigerian government had contributed to 50 years of pollution in the Niger Delta that could need the world's largest ever oil cleanup. The work would take up to 30 years and require an initial tab estimated at $1 billion, the report said.

    On February 17, Amnesty International issued a report saying that:

    "Shell's failures persist despite significant evidence based calls on the company to make meaningful changes in the way it operates in the Niger Delta. In 2011 the evidence confronting Shell was confirmed in a ground-breaking study by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that looked at the impact of oil pollution in the Ogoniland region of the Niger Delta. The UNEP report confirmed that serious environmental damage had occurred in Ogoniland, one area of the Niger Delta, over many years. It found systemic failures in Shell’s approach to cleaning up pollution and rehabilitating land, which have exposed tens of thousands of people to a sustained assault on their economic, social and cultural rights."

     

  • Actress Lucy Lawless boards ship to protest Arctic oil drilling

    Actress Lucy Lawless is shown protesting Arctic oil drilling Friday aboard the ship Noble Discoverer at Port Taranaki, New Zealand.

    By Becky Bratu, msnbc.com

    Actress Lucy Lawless and six other Greenpeace activists boarded an Arctic-bound Shell oil-drilling ship in Port Taranaki, New Zealand, on Friday morning, causing authorities to limit port access.

    The group scaled a 53-meter derrick on the Liberian-flagged Noble Discoverer around 7 a.m. local time.

    Lawless told msnbc.com that her heart was pounding and she was "a little shell-shocked" as they boarded, but that she now felt safe.

    "We don’t need to trash the Arctic to get three more years' worth of oil," she said in a telephone interview from the ship.

    Even as police warned them that they were breaking the law, protesters remained aboard.

    After about five hours, police told the protesters, including Lawless, they were under arrest and should come down.

    Lawless told police the group wasn't leaving and "we feel we have no choice morally but to stay here and get our message out," New Zealands' 3 News reported.

    Earlier, Greenpeace and Lawless tweeted the occupation.

    “I’m on one of the oldest drill rigs on the planet and it’s heading to the Arctic. Tell Shell to stop,” Lawless tweeted.

    Unique species
    James Turner, a spokesman for Greenpeace, told msnbc.com the occupation was the organization's last resort to stop Shell from drilling in the Arctic.

    "We simply don’t believe Shell's reassurances that this is safe," Turner said.

    He said the Arctic is the home of many unique species, and an oil spill would be virtually impossible to contain, given the area's remoteness. Turner also accused Shell of having a "poor record" regarding oil spills.

    Shell says it was "disappointed" with Greenpeace's actions, 3 News reported.

    "Actions such as this jeopardize the safety of everyone involved," the company said in a statement. "While we respect the right of individuals to express their point of view, the priority should be the safety of Noble Discoverer’s personnel and that of the protesters."

    "Shell has undertaken unprecedented steps to pursue safe, environmentally responsible exploration in shallow water off the coast of Alaska," the statement said.

    The ship was due to depart on a 6,800-mile journey to the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska, New Zealand’s 3 News reported.

    A weekend departure was planned, but Shell said the protest halted ship operations.

    Turner said that Shell has a limited drilling window, given the Arctic's extreme weather conditions. Drilling can only take place when the sea ice in Alaska melts, usually between July and early fall, he said. During the rest of the year, thick ice makes drilling impossible.

    Turner said the occupiers have supplies for several days. "We’re there to stop the tanker from leaving," he said.

    'A peaceful protest'
    But Lawless, 43, said she wasn't sure how long they'd last aboard.

    "Our main aim is that this be a peaceful protest, but the law will do what the law has to do," Lawless told 3 News. "We do what we feel we have to do." She told msnbc.com that she and the other protesters have respect for the police.

    One person was arrested at the port gate, 3 News said.

    The police commander for New Plymouth, Inspector Blair Telford, told the New Zealand Herald that his office's role was to ensure any protest was lawful and that owners and crew of the ship were allowed to go about their lawful business.

    "The protesters are clearly breaking the law by trespassing on the ship and we are currently liaising with the Port of Taranaki and the harbormaster to decide the most appropriate course of action. Public safety is paramount.''

    Lawless is best known for her television title role as "Xena: Warrior Princess" and currently stars in Starz's "Spartacus" as Lucretia.

    She told msnbc.com she hopes her children will live in a better world. "Climate change profiteers should not be allowed to destroy our children’s future," she said.

    "Companies are addicted to oil; they’re begging an intervention," Lawless said. "Shell has the technology to be one of the world leaders in a clean energy economy."