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Subscribe to RSSTropical storm force winds and massive winds caused a drilling ship to run ashore near Kodiak, Alaska. KTUU's Adam Pinsker reports.
A team of six salvage experts boarded, on Wednesday, an oil drilling rig that went aground off an uninhabited island in the Gulf of Alaska.
The team was lowered to the Kulluk by a Coast Guard helicopter to conduct a structural assessment of the rig. The experts were on board the rig for about three hours.
Earlier efforts to board the rig were put on hold due to severe weather conditions over the past several days. Conditions were calmer on Wednesday.
The Kulluk broke loose of its tether to a tug boat in stormy seas last week and grounded onto a sand and gravel beach.
A slight break in the weather – 30 mph winds and 6-foot waves with 12-foot swells -- gave a team of Coast Guard, local and company officials optimism that salvage teams could be put in place, Jason Moore, a unified command spokesman told NBC News on Wednesday.
“It’s not great, but it’s better than what it has been over the last several days,” Moore said. “It is a bit of a break and were hoping we can take advantage of the improving weather”
The Kulluk remained stranded but stable off Sitkalidak Island, which is along the southeastern coast of Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska, Moore said. A Coast Guard cutter stationed to observe overnight Tuesday reported no leaks, he said.
A Coast Guard plane and helicopter flew over the Kulluk on Tuesday but poor weather didn’t permit marine experts to board the vessel.
Officials were hoping to get marine experts onboard to take photos and videos, and then come up with a more complete salvage plan once weather permits.
The Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig is carrying about 143,000 gallons of diesel fuel and about 12,000 gallons of lube oil and hydraulic fluid, according to federal on-scene response coordinator Capt. Paul Mehler.
Environmentalists have seized on the accident as proof Arctic Ocean oil operations are too risky. The drilling rig was being moved from its Arctic drilling grounds to Seattle for maintenance, and had passed through the Bering Sea and was set to cross the Gulf of Alaska when the storm hit.
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“Oil companies keep saying they can conquer the Arctic, but the Arctic keeps disagreeing with the oil companies,” Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., a member of the Natural Resources Committee, said in a statement.
A plan was being prepared in the event of a spill in the Partition Cove and Ocean Bay areas of the island. The area is home to at least two endangered species, as well as harbor seals, salmon, and sea lions.
Pa3 Jon Klingenberg / AP
This image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard shows the Royal Dutch Shell drilling rig Kulluk aground off a small island near Kodiak Island on Tuesday.
Mehler said a team of about 500 people was working on a plan, "with many more coming."
A Shell official said the drilling rig was built with a double-sided hull of reinforced steel that is 3 inches thick. It recently had undergone $292 million in improvements before being put into service for a short time this summer in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska's north coast.
It was being towed to Seattle for maintenance last week when it separated from a towing vessel south of Kodiak Island. Repeated attempts to maintain towing lines were unsuccessful as a severe storm passed through the area. By Monday night, tow boats guided the rig to a place where it would cause the least environmental damage and cut it loose.
Sean Churchfield, operations manager for Shell Alaska, said once the situation is under control, an investigation will be conducted into the cause. He did not know whether the findings would be made public.
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The Coast Guard said it also would investigate and make its findings public.
NBC News staff contributed to this report from The Associated Press.
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Leave a Comment:
WOW thank God there was know one hurt and lets pray that there will be very little spillage, and getting that rig off the shore and back out to sea.
It should have been better anchored?
What a f'ing Moron...well Ed...I guess that when a winter storm hits anywhere in the US, we should immediately tell everyone that gets in a accident in that storm that mother nature disagrees with them and they need to move and stop living there.
Must be Scott Brown voter
I guess they never though of towing it before the winter storm season.
It was actually being towed at the time it broke free.
I say let it bleed out all the diesel, lube oils and hydraulic fluids. If I never hear about Alaskan Crabber or fisherman again, they can blame the "responsible" oil companies for poisoning their (and my) resources. It's a shame their product produces risk for me and other Alaskans. Maybe we should throw the oil company executives in the oily water and try to bath them in Palmolive after a few days of soaking in the oils. Maybe they'll then learn social responsibility. And same to the rest of you who think this is alright - If Haliburton owned the world, we'd all have flames coming out of our faucets.
How come we haven't heard from Sarah Palin?
Around 1960, my uncle was on a barge bound to build a port on the north slope. During a storm, the barge and tug became separated, which left them being blown toward an Alaskan rocky shore. The sea anchor was not enough to stop the drift, so he cranked up a dragline and lowered a bull dozer blade with an attached cable over the side. That with the sea anchor saved them.
I asked him what he would have done if the blade had failed to work?
He said that he would have put the bulldozer over the side! :)
He had some interesting stories to tell. When they were first trying to open the north slope for oil exploration there were no sea ports there, so he hired on to build the first one. It was easier after the first one because then, they could get machinery on land.
Sarah can only see Russia from her porch. Sitkalidak Island is like a billion miles away.
It was being towed when it ran aground. On the plus side, after three days and three articles, NBC has finally figured out it's not a ship.
Tow it to Iran offshore and drill---surly there's oil there.
I was thinking, how about North Dakota? They DO have oil there.
Dude that would be a nasty tow.
it is unsafe to drill in the arctic. there is NO WAY to prevent or cleanup a spill in these areas. let's not be stupid and believe Shell or anyone that says otherwise, they are lying.
Says who? You. I live in Alaska. I get sick when you libby windbags start talking like you know something about Alaska. stfu.
No, says expert reports and common sense. Lets compare the infrastructure available for the Deepwater Horizon spill with the resources that would be available for an Arctic spill at Shells Beaufort drilling site. Keeping in mind that despite the gargantuan response the to Deepwater blowout it still took months to control.
Number of Airports with runways over 5,000 feet within 500 miles of the Deepwater Horizon 442, within 500 miles of Shell's arctic site 17. Number of Oil spill response staging facilities within 500 miles of the Horizon 15 including the three largest sites in the US, number of staging points within 500 miles of Beaufort 5 none of them in the Countries ten largest. Number of permanent coast guard stations within 500 miles of Deepwater Horizon 30, number within 500 miles of the Arctic drilling sites 0 the nearest Coast Guard station is over 1000 miles flight from the Arctic drilling site and over 2,000 nautical miles by sea.. Number of large ports sufficient to support spill response vessels within 500 miles of the Horizon 35, number of major ports within 500 miles of Shells drilling site 0, the nearest is Dutch Harbour 1,167 nautical miles away almost all of which is via the Bering sea, one of the roughest most treacherous stretches of water in the world. There are no oil spill dispersant chemicals approved for use in Arctic conditions. Weather conditions are such that the area is unnavigable for ~8 months of the year, if a spill were to occur near the end of a season they would have to simply abandon the site with the spill at full flow and come back 8 months later. Average temperatures during the Deepwater spill response 80.2 deg. F, average temperature during the Arctic drilling season 23.6 deg. F, such extreme temperatures would make the use of surface booms and burns very difficult and for much of the season impossible.
Total ignorance is required to not see that the scale of the response possible in the Gulf of Mexico is two or three orders of magnitude larger, faster and more efficient then could be staged at Shells proposed Arctic offshore drilling site. A similar blowout in Alaska would likely take several years to bring under control as the majority of vessels would have to be brought in from overseas, crews would be at massively higher risk from storms, general weather conditions perilously cold water and a lack of support infrastructure, and the response team which would inevitably be over 100 times smaller and far less experienced then what can be rapidly staged in the Gulf would also be hamstrung by a 4 month season after which no response whatsoever would be possible.
In short the response to an Arctic offshore spill would completely pale in comparison to what was possible in the Gulf, it would be a national joke and disaster.
Sounds like the ignorant and fact free con windbag lives in Alaska! Thank You, Aussie, for making that even more extremely clear and convincing. Damned logistics.
Peace
It's unsafe to drill anywhere. What's your point?
I hope you left-wing idiots are happy...oh by the way lets legalize marijuana and allow gay marriage, whatever makes you sick, pig-headed people happy. Oink Oink
Ya, when they got stoned at the gay wedding they were having on the heli-pad of the rig, they forgot to secure the tow rope... gay reefer madness!!
What does this story have to do with left or right wing idiots? Or gay marriage? Or marijuana?
You are an idiot. And I am a conservative... but your logic is absent and so is your intellectual capacity. You should be quiet and let people think you a fool, rather than open your mouth and confirm it!!
Best of luck to the crew! We all need it... These are very sturdy vessels but they can't take the pounding surf forever.
Very true. Not the greatest idea to haul it across the Gulf of Alaska in the dead of winter. Very unpredictable weather patterns. Should have hunkered down in Dutch Harbor and waited til spring.
I was thinking the same thing. Why they were out there so late into winter?
Aside from the other issues, I gotta hand it to the crews who salvage or work these rigs in those seas. I wouldn't do it for any amount of money.
But I don't see how it is "impossible" to do a clean up. Sure, there is no going back to prevent harm to the biota, but what makes it impossible to clean up?
How about
Being regarded as a "break in the weather", meaning it was worse before and could return to that.
I think the weather and topography would make it tough to clean up. I'm old enough to remember Exxon Valdez - they > 10,000 people and tons of $$, and I think they only managed to get about 10% of it up. My understanding is that the cold water (as opposed to a spill in the gulf) stops it from naturally dissipating - it stays thick and tar-like and sticks to rocks and sand.
There's apparently still lots of oil to be found on the shorelines there - and that spill was in '89!
Mifo, It's only got 150K gallons of diesel fuel on board. Not 53 million gallons of crude oil.
Not trying to make it sounds like a non issue but 150K gallons is about 1/4 the capacity of an Olympic size pool. It's diesel fuel (not crude) and does evaporate. It's isolated in a small area that would prevent a leak from turning into a huge mess.
Everyone take a deep breath...
Agreed, Larry. I assumed the question was related to the (general) opposition to drilling and tankers in the area, not what was on board this rig. Sorry if I misunderstood.
You have an a**hole like Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass running his mouth. Accidents do happen. Let Mass. get their hands dirty and produce their own energy. They don't produce squat and condem everyone else that does. Where would Mass. be if other areas of the USA did not produce energy products to sell to Mass.? Wake up folks, nothing is perfect. The way people & the left media are running their mouths you think the grounding of the rig was done on purpose. Energy production/transportation accidents happen from time to time worldwide, what do the idiot lefties want to do ban all energy production?
heros, it takes education and cogones to get on a old breaking apart drill rig
how many people can even attempt this?
these are the greatest people on earth, i wish they didnt hurt it so much
It's breaking apart? Where did you read that little tidbit?
Sounds to me like it is pretty good shape having been updated before going into service to the tune of $292 million of improvements. It was headed to Seatle for routine maintenance.
Read. Words are your friends.
Hell of a choice of a name “Kulluk”, hope it doesn’t suffer the same fate as old KULAKS.
Everyone likes to crap inside, have running hot and cold water, heat their house and fuel their cars, but as soon as a disaster turns up, all of the loonies come out. Without oil, gas and coal we would all die. I'm old enough to remember having to go to that little house outside to take care of business, and it wasn't fun especially in winter. Can anyone imagine what that would be like in big cities like NYC?
Operations person for shell says there will be an investigation, but doesn't know whether it will be made public or not. Sounds a lot like it will not because what they are going to find is; The tug or tugs that were being used to tow this rig were too small for the task, so the crew cut them away for the safety of the tug crews. I am not saying this is bad, this action may have averted a larger problem. What I am saying is Shell used these tugs to save $$ in the towing of this unit to Washington for maintenance and doesn't want to look bad in the public's eye. As far as drill up there, what the enviro-nazi's are saying is pure BS. We put men on the moon in the 60's. Drilling in this area is a cake walk compared to that. The oil company's just need to get off the dime , so to speak!
If man built it nature can tear it up.
Tow crew, Oil company execs, and general personel involved must have been smoking some really good Alaskan shi% to not notice the storm coming, matanuska thunderfuc* is the problem. Once they get it unstuck maybe it will work for a hydroponics experiment.
Maintenance for oil rigs should be done where they can sink outright.