PORT ANGELES — The Polar Pioneer oil rig will once again loom over the waters of Port Angeles Harbor.
The 355-foot-tall rig was in Dutch Harbor, Alaska, on Monday for a brief stopover with the Noble Discoverer rig after exiting the Alaskan Arctic and before heading farther south, Shell Oil Co. spokeswoman Megan Baldino said Monday.
The Noble Discoverer will make its way to the Port of Everett.
Baldino said she did not know when the Polar Pioneer will arrive in Port Angeles.
“We’re not working on any predetermined timelines,” she said.
“However long it takes to get there safely.”
According to www.ports.com, Dutch Harbor is 1,910 nautical miles from Port Angeles, and a vessel traveling at 10 knots would take eight days to make the one-way trip.
Variables remain
It was not known Monday when the rig would depart Dutch Harbor.
Baldino also said she does not know how many workers are on the rig, how long it will stay in Port Angeles and where it will go when it leaves the North Olympic Peninsula.
She said equipment will be unloaded and the rig resupplied during its stay.
Port of Port Angeles Commissioner John Calhoun said port and Shell officials have been discussing the potential return of the Polar Pioneer to Port Angeles ever since the rig left the harbor earlier this year.
“We’ve been working with them, trying to convince them that Port Angeles would be a good place for them to winter when not drilling up north,” Calhoun said.
He said Shell officials had indicated there was a good chance the Polar Pioneer would return.
Calhoun said it was just a question of when.
Some port tenants might benefit from the rig’s stay by working on rig maintenance, he added.
“The biggest benefit is to the community in general for the business it brings,” Calhoun said.
$1 million spent
More than 130 workers connected with Shell spent about $1 million in Port Angeles when the Polar Pioneer docked in Port Angeles between April 17 and May 14 before heading to Alaskan waters, according to a report prepared for Shell.
Shell is a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, which leases the Polar Pioneer from Transocean Ltd.
The oil rig’s stay in Port Angeles drew numerous protesters who also demonstrated in Seattle when it was anchored there over concerns the company could not adequately combat an oil spill in the Alaskan Arctic.
In late September, with oil prices slumping, Royal Dutch Shell announced the company would end a nine-year effort to explore for oil in the Alaskan Arctic.
The Polar Pioneer’s trip to Port Angeles is part of that decision.
“All of this is the culmination of ceasing exploration in offshore Alaska for the foreseeable future,” Baldino said.
Calhoun said the Polar Pioneer will stay in Port Angeles Harbor with permission from the Coast Guard.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
