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On Thursday, Shell Oil Alaska announced its unpowered drilling rig Kulluk, being towed south from Dutch Harbor to Puget Sound, was in distress, due to complete engine failures on its towing vessel, the MV Aiviq:
The Coast Guard prepared Saturday to evacuate an 18-member crew of a Shell drill ship that was stalled in rough Gulf of Alaska waters, south of Kodiak Island.
The Coast Guard requested that the crew evacuate the Kulluk for safety reasons. The guard said it would have no more details until the evacuation was completed.
The Royal Dutch Shell PLC drill ship was being towed Thursday from Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands to Seattle when problems arose. By Friday, the ship was stalled in the Gulf with a towing vessel whose engines had failed. A relief tug was sent out on 20-foot waves and winds of 40 mph to rescue the ships.
The Kulluk has no propulsion system. The 360-foot Aiviq was towing the drill ship when the Aiviq reported multiple engine failures. The Aiviq crew was able to restart one engine, and with generators had enough power to maintain its position. Two vessels under contract to Shell left Seward when the trouble began — the tug Guardsman and The Nanuq, Shell’s principal oil spill response vessel.
This morning, Shell released the following:
The Shell-contracted response vessel, the Nanuq, arrived on scene at 6:30 a.m. and is assessing the situation to safely conduct a tow with the Kulluk.
Essential equipment parts were delivered to the Aiviq by two Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak-based MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crews Saturday morning. Repairs are commencing aboard the Aiviq, and a second engine has been brought online.
Precautionary evacuation efforts are being evaluated to remove all non-essential personnel from the Kulluk.
“Our main priority remains the safety of all crews involved in this situation,” said Capt. Paul Mehler III, commander, Coast Guard Sector Anchorage. “To help ensure safety of all involved, we have directed multiple Coast Guard assets to the area, including the Coast Guard Cutter Hickory, our Kodiak based HC-130s and Jayhawk helicopter aircrews.”
The Hickory is scheduled to arrive in the area Saturday afternoon.
The marine weather forecast for the waters in which this is happening is not promising:
Storm Warning
COASTAL WATERS FORECAST FOR THE NORTHERN GULF OF ALASKA COAST UP TO 100 NM OUT INCLUDING KODIAK ISLAND AND COOK INLET. WIND FORECASTS REFLECT THE PREDOMINANT SPEED AND DIRECTION EXPECTED. SEA FORECASTS REPRESENT AN AVERAGE OF THE HIGHEST ONE-THIRD OF THE COMBINED WIND WAVE AND SWELL HEIGHT.
Synopsis…A WEATHER FRONT OVER THE NORTH GULF COAST WILL DISSIPATE SAT MORNING. A PACIFIC LOW WILL STRENGTHEN TO 954 MB 320 NM SOUTH OF KODIAK CITY SAT EVENING AND WEAKEN TO 961 MB 70 NM NORTHEAST OF CHIGNIK SUN MORNING BEFORE MOVING INLAND ACROSS SOUTHWEST ALASKA.Today: S wind 35 kt diminishing to E 15 kt by noon then increasing to NE 50 kt in the late afternoon. Seas 20 ft. Rain.
Tonight: E wind 50 kt diminishing to 40 kt after midnight. Seas 18 ft. Rain.
Sun: S wind 45 kt. Seas building to 26 ft. Rain.
Sun Night: S wind 35 kt. Seas 22 ft.
Mon: E wind 45 kt. Seas 24 ft.
Shell’s 2012 Arctic drilling season has been one setback clusterfuck after another:
The drilling rig Noble Discoverer went aground in Dutch Harbor in July.
The relief and response vessel, Arctic Challenger, failed tests of its spill capping device in early September.
Ice drove the exploratory drilling fleet out of place for two weeks in September.
And now this:
In 1982, I was on a tug – the Miriam de Felice – in almost the exact same place as this is happening, when we lost one of our two engines, and the stress on the remaining one caused it to start breaking down too. We were in a storm a lot less harsh than this one, and barely made it to port for repairs. I predict the Alviq will also be repaired, and the Noble Discoverer brought into Kodiak or Seward until the tug is fixed enough to continue on southward.
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it gets better, or rather worse. the Coast Guard ship got its tow line tangled in its propeller and has limped back to port. how anyone hasn’t been killed yet is a miracle. now even more resources are being sent to help out. LATimes reports:
So many screwups – and there’s no oil yet. Fortunately ……
An update from Shell two hours ago:
Not really related ET, but this is a pretty cool and strangely hypnotic simulation of particulates in the atmosphere, by NASA’a Goddard Space Flight Center
Link
…Shell’s 2012 Arctic drilling season has been one setback clusterfuck after another…
*heh* Mother Nature is stepping up and shutting’em down, all by her lonesome…! ;-)
Hey these are the “Big boys” They will have everything just so, next season.
We are fucked. I forget? who is going to rescue them in the Chukchi. Thanks Mr Phil.
And you can bet that the Environmental Assessment used for the federal permit of the drilling did not cover corporate malfeasance in contracting vessels, the potential for multiple engine failures and inadequacy of equipment–leading to groundings and sinkings. Underestimate the potential for disaster or discount it all together. Then, when the probable does happen, the feds and Shell will act surprised.
Oh, and if you think that any of that oil is bound for your gas tanks, think again. The gluts of both natural gas and petrol from the Bakken Formation — which extends deep into Canada — mean that prices on the US market are far too low for this stuff to be currently profitable. (By the way, that, more than anything, is what’s going to shut down the Keystone XL — it costs too much just to hack it out of the frozen ground and ship it to the gas-glutted US, plus there are no ports on Canada’s Western shores that can handle supertankers to ship the stuff to China. By the time the gas glut has dissipated in the US, the number of hybrid and straight-up electric vehicles will have hit a mass sufficient to send US oil demand, which has already leveled off over the past decade, on a consistently downward curve independent of whatever economic gyrations occur.)
Shell’s obviously hoping to get around the need for supertanker-capable ports by having the drilling done in the ocean AND nearer to the target Asian markets of China, South Korea and Japan.
Funny, (but not Ha Ha Funny!) that the mainstream media never ever mentions any of this.
Often their talking points include how we need to produce oil here domestically to avoid foreign wars and other entanglements.
Mod – you might consider pulling this post, as it has been sort of superseded by one I posted an hour ago. For instance, the Kulluk crew has been rescued by the USCG.