Salazar: Arctic oil drilling must wait

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept. 4 (UPI) -- U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says exploratory drilling for oil and gas in offshore arctic waters must wait until more is known about potential pitfalls.

On a trip to Alaska's North Slope, Salazar said final reports on the causes of the Deepwater Horizon blowout and spill in the Gulf of Mexico must be completed before Shell Alaska would be allowed to start drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska's northern shores, the Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

"If you look at the Chukchi, nothing, or very little, is known about the reservoir pressures that will be encountered," Salazar said at the end of his Alaska trip.

"We know that it would be very difficult to mount the kind of oil spill response that has been mounted in the Gulf of Mexico," he said.

"And so because those questions are very much part of what we have been dealing with, it also seemed necessary for us to say, until we have answers to some of those central questions, we're not going to allow the drilling of the exploration wells," Salazar concluded.

A recent survey found support for offshore drilling in the arctic slipping, down to 46 percent from a 2009 result of 58 percent who supported new offshore operations, the Times said.