PORT ANGELES — It may be up to a week before the Polar Pioneer towering above the town in Port Angeles Harbor is offloaded from the semi-submersible heavy-lift ship MV Blue Marlin, which piggybacked the huge mobile oil rig from Asia.
It will remain in the harbor for at least another week before it is towed to Seattle.
The duo left Malaysia in early March for Port Angeles Harbor, arriving here at about 7 a.m. Friday morning with a contingent of protesters greeting it and leaving after a few hours.
The Polar Pioneer — a 400-foot-long and 355-feet-tall rig owned by Transocean Ltd. — is one of two drill rigs Royal Dutch Shell hopes to use for exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea, off Alaska’s northern shore.
Protesters oppose Arctic offshore drilling and say oil companies have not demonstrated they can clean up a major spill.
The second drill rig, Noble Discoverer, will pass through the Strait of Juan de Fuca on its way to Seattle sometime in May and will not stop in Port Angeles, according to Shell Oil Co. spokeswoman Megan Baldino.
To unload the Polar Pioneer, the Blue Marlin — a mobile dry dock currently moored at anchorage site two in the harbor — will submerge its large open deck below the water’s surface, allowing its cargo to float off into the bay.
The Polar Pioneer then will be towed to anchorage site one, located to the west of site two, where it will remain for at least another week while it is prepared to be towed to Seattle.
“After offload, we are going to spend some time outfitting the rig and preparing for the tow to Seattle,” Baldino said.
“We need to prep for and then remove the sea fastening that secured the Polar Pioneer to the Blue Marlin deck for transit.”
On April 10, the federal government began the review process on Royal Dutch Shell’s plans to continue a drilling program it halted in 2012 in the Chukchi Sea.
Shell wants to restart its drilling program, including drilling six wells in about 140 feet of water, located about 125 miles east of Barrow, the nation’s northernmost community.
“The execution of our plan remains contingent on achieving the necessary permits, legal certainty and our own determination that we are prepared to explore safely and responsibly,” Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh said in an email to The Associated Press.
“We continue to work on securing the final permits needed to continue exploration.”
The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has about three more weeks to analyze Shell’s exploration plan to determine if the company can move forward.
The public will have until Monday to comment on environmental aspects and until May 1 to comment on the overall revised plan, submitted by the subsidiary, Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc.
To comment, see http://tinyurl.com/o9e5c4a or http://tinyurl.com/qy7q936. For more information, visit www.boem.gov/shell-chukchi.
Shell in 2012 drilled pilot holes and dug mudline cellars into the bottom of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas.
The company was not allowed to drill into oil-bearing deposits because required response equipment was not on hand.
The drill vessel Kulluk ran aground off an island near Kodiak as it was being towed across the Gulf of Alaska. The company hasn’t drilled in the U.S. Arctic since.
The revised plan calls for the Noble Discoverer and the Polar Pioneer to drill and provide relief to each other in case of an accident. A flotilla of support vehicles would accompany them.
The Polar Pioneer has been a lightning rod for controversy since leaving Malaysia.
It was intercepted by the Greenpeace vessel Esperanza — a recycled Russian firefighting ship with a crew of 35 — while traversing the Pacific Ocean in early March.
On April 6, six Greenpeace activists boarded the Polar Pioneer about 750 miles northwest of Hawaii and remained there for about six days, often holding protest signs saying “The People vs. Shell.”
Forced off the vessel by rough seas, they rappelled off the rig and into inflatable boats that ferried them back to their ship, Greenpeace said.
Hours later, U.S. District Judge Sharon Gleason in Anchorage, Alaska, issued a temporary restraining order that blocked the group from similar protests.
The ruling bars Greenpeace and its activists from boarding, barricading or interfering with the movement of the Polar Pioneer, the Blue Marlin and the Noble Discoverer and remains in effect until at least April 28, when a hearing into the matter is scheduled.
After the ruling, the Esperanza continued shadowing the Blue Marlin all the way to the Strait of Jaun de Fuca but did not enter Port Angeles Harbor.
It is now docked in Victoria, Greenpeace confirmed.
Activist groups in the Seattle area plan to meet the Polar Pioneer when it is towed to Elliott Bay in a couple of weeks to protest Shell Oil’s plans.
The protests were not a factor in deciding to bring the oil rig to Port Angeles, Baldino said, explaining that Shell chose Port Angeles because of its safe deep harbor.
“We’ve been planning for some time to bring the Polar Pioneer to Port Angeles,” Baldino said.
“We looked at additional options across Puget Sound for offload, but again, Port Angeles Harbor offers ideal conditions for the offload.”
When the Blue Marlin entered Port Angeles Harbor at 7:10 a.m. Friday, it was met with a small armada of “kayaktivists,” as some called themselves, hailing from across the North Olympic Peninsula and the Seattle area.
About eight members of Greenpeace left for the rig in boats that also included journalists at about 5 a.m., while about 30 members of the protest group Shell No Action of Seattle boarded kayaks and inflatables to greet it upon entry to the harbor some two hours later.
Eric Ross of Shell No Action Coalition called the protest a training run for the “festival of resistance” in Seattle on May 16-18.
The protesters were intercepted by Coast Guard vessels enforcing a 500-yard buffer zone around the Blue Marlin while it was in transit.
The Coast Guard was assisted by the Clallam County Sheriff’s Office, Port Angeles Police Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which, like the Coast Guard, are agencies of the Department of Homeland Security.
The Polar Pioneer will be guarded by a Shell Oil security ship during its stay in the harbor.
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Sequim-Dungeness Valley Editor Chris McDaniel can be reached at 360-681-2390, ext. 5052; at cmcdaniel@peninsuladailynews.com; or on Twitter at @PDN_Editor_CMcD.
