WASHINGTON, Nov. 1 (UPI) -- Oil giant Shell will make another attempt to drill for oil off Alaska's arctic coast.
Simon Henry, Shell's chief financial officer, announced the decision Thursday during a teleconference with reporters to discuss the company's third-quarter earnings, the Houston Chronicle reported.
Those earnings were nearly a third lower than for the same period in 2012
Shell has devoted nearly $5 billion and eight years of work for its arctic oil exploration off Alaska's coast in the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
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The Kulluk, Shell's drill ship dedicated to its Beaufort operations, ran aground off Alaska New Years Eve while being towed to Seattle following the 2012 exploration season, which was marked by equipment failures and extreme weather.
Shell in February announced what it called a "pause" in its Alaska drilling program for 2013 to prepare equipment and said it planned to resume drilling activity "at a later stage."
"We have not yet confirmed if we drill in 2014," Henry said Thursday. "Clearly, we would like to drill as soon as possible, so we are putting the building blocks in place. There remains a permitting and regulatory process through which we need to go, before we can confirm a decision to actually drill in 2014."
An Interior Department report in March blamed Shell for not sufficiently managing a web of contractors off Alaska and said the company had prompted "serious questions regarding its ability to operate safely and responsibly in the challenging and unpredictable conditions."
In September, Shell agreed to pay the federal government $1.1 million in fines to settle claims it violated air pollution permits by sending excess nitrogen oxide out of its vessels while drilling in the region last year.
Shell plans to focus now on Chukchi instead of Beaufort.
"The problem with the Beaufort is it's too shallow to get normal rigs in," Henry said Thursday. "So our focus is very much on the Chukchi, which is by far the biggest prize. That's the multibillion-barrel prize."
Shell said it will replace the Kulluk with a leased drill rig, the Polar Pioneer, owned by Transocean.
Critics of arctic drilling have raised concerns about the risks of oil spills in the remote region. Chukchi is about 1,000 miles from the nearest major port, Dutch Harbor, Alaska.
In a statement Thursday in response to Shell's announcement, Greenpeace International referred to "Shell's arctic bravado" as a "desperate attempt to reassure its investors."
"In 2012 Shell proved it is completely unfit to drill in the remote arctic, a place of unrivaled beauty where any spill would be an environmental catastrophe," said Ben Ayliffe, head of the group's arctic campaign.
