[QUOTE=Tups;188011]When I lived in Svalbard, they talked about the past drilling campaigns on the archipelago. As far as I know, they never found economically viable deposits. Bringing a nuclear-powered icebreaker to Svea would have been… interesting.
By the way, no-one questioned your knowledge about Arctic oil drilling. Singapore has produced more icebreaking offshore vessels than all the American shipyards combined.*
(* that would be two against one, but as they say, you can’t be just a little bit pregnant…)[/QUOTE]
BTW; No Russian ice breaker was used, but contact was established and cost estimate was made just in case we should need to bring in additional supplies in the middle of winter. (Emergency procedure in case of blow-out etc.)
To transport the rig and supplies to Svea a Jebsen ship that was ice strengthen and due to carry the last load of coal from Longyearbyen that year was used at less than 25% of the cost of bringing in ice strengthened AHTSs from Canada, as originally proposed.
Return voyage was not until the ice had broken in the fjord the next summer.
Land transport from there was by sledge and snowmobile, which was only allowed after 1.Jan. to protect the fauna and flora from any damages.
No, nothing was found and not a single arctic plant, or aquatic insect was destroyed in the process.
PS> I was never on Svalbard. By the time they actually did the job I was safely back in Singapore.
Coast Guard CommandantAdm. Paul Zukunftand Arctic Caucus co-chairmanSen. Angus King, discuss the need for additional heavy icebreakers to protect U.S. economic and security interests and to enforce our own sovereignty.
The yanks are coming to finish what they started in the cold war. How do I get this bitter taste out of my mouth?
The party isn’t over I found some more work while I was up there. I also have some people kicking the tires on the Aiviq. All and all the Alaska venture could have been worse.
Somebody is working to revive Arctic drilling and exploitation.
No, not the Congress members,(they are busy with more important issues) but the people that have a direct interest in such a revival:
Not good news for the oil price and Offshore workers.
More cheap oil on the market = low prices = less deep water and Arctic exploration = less work for Mariners.
[QUOTE=Drill Bill;192633]well, it will be the last thing that any offshore or drilling related vessel will have done up there. At least for quite a while:
Obama rescinds Arctic offshore drilling proposal
The end.[/QUOTE]
pretty much all meaningless now. the fracking revolution has rendered offshore Arctic energy simply too expensive to recover for the foreseeable future and even though there might still be massive plays in the Chukchi Sea, no major will have any interest in spending the massive quantities of cash to explore for them as long as the world is finding more than enough oil and gas from far lower cost provinces.
even the GoM with its huge already developed infrastructure will have a hard time competing with “cheap oil” even when the price of crude recovers to over $80/bbl. I expect lackluster effort there for at least a decade to come now. We have past the two year mark on yet another oil bust just like in the 80’s. I am shocked that after two years no major company has fallen on its face. Certainly in 2017 somebody will go starting with Tidewater. There will also be at least one driller to go belly up. It simply must happen.
