22nd April, Turkey - The only oil rig in the world destined to begin risky new deep sea drilling in the waters off the Arctic has been stopped in its tracks by environmental activists. The huge 53,000 tonne oil rig, called the Leiv Eiriksson, is journeying from a shipyard in Turkey towards Baffin Bay, Greenland - blazing a trail for the world’s major oil companies and spearheading the start of a dangerous new Arctic oil rush.
At 05.40 (EET) this morning a team of international volunteers (1) from the environmental group Greenpeace used inflatable speedboats to intercept the rig shortly after it left Besiktas port near Istanbul. The activists boarded the vessel to stop it moving, and have pledged a sustained occupation, carrying enough supplies with them to last for days. Amongst those on board is a team of highly skilled climbers who have scaled the rig’s derrick and unfurled a huge banner, which reads, “Stop Arctic destruction.”
The Leiv Eiriksson is at the fore of oil industry attempts to open up a new global frontier for the oil industry in the Arctic. A wild cat Scottish oil company, Cairn Energy, are due to use this rig to begin drilling four new exploratory oil wells in Baffin Bay this summer. The proposals are for drilling at depths of around 1500m – similar depths to the ill-fated BP well in the Gulf of Mexico.
Baffin Bay is one of the most pristine and fragile natural areas in the world, home to important and vulnerable wildlife including almost all of the world’s Narwhal population as well as blue whales, sea bird colonies, and polar bears.
Freezing temperatures, severe weather and a highly remote location pose unprecedented challenges to any oil spill response in the Arctic and mean a spill would be very difficult – if not impossible - to contain and clean up.
Greenpeace campaigner Ben Ayliffe, speaking from Turkey, said:
“This is the most controversial oil rig in the world because it’s the only one destined to begin risky new offshore drilling in the very deep waters of the Arctic this year. We’ve stopped it here because it’s on its way to Greenland over the next few weeks, blazing a trail for other major oil companies and sparking the start of a dangerous new Arctic oil rush.”
Ayliffe continued:
“As climate change sees the Arctic sea ice retreating, the high north is becoming the frontline of the global environmental battleground. The oil industry wants to start dangerous deep sea drilling in one of the worlds most fragile and pristine environments, despite the terrible risks of a spill there.”
Cairn Energy has contracted this rig from another company, Ocean Rig, to begin the scramble for the Arctic’s oil resources off Greenland’s coast - but Cairn are just the first. In the next few years, other oil companies like Shell, BP and Exxon plan to start risky oil drilling elsewhere in the Arctic, including the waters off Alaska and Siberia. (2)
“We can still change course and protect the region, but only if we can force the foot-dragging polluting corporations and the politicians who back them to embrace measures to curb our dependence on oil. The key is to take the trillions set to be invested in dirty oil and to invest it instead in ramping up the efficiency of vehicles, and rolling out new clean technologies,” added Ayliffe
These oil companies are expanding their search for oil into new frontiers like the Arctic because of our failure to get off dirty energy quick enough, and because global warming and the resulting ice melt is making some of this region accessible to oil companies for the first time.
For more information/interviews/pix and video:
Joss Garman, Greenpeace communications, on +90 554 874 5978 and +44 (0) 7815 004 578
Notes:
(1) The activist team involves people from Denmark, Canada, Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Austria, Sweden, Turkey and the UK.
(2) According to the US Geological Survey the Arctic contains up to 90 billion barrels of oil, representing around 13% of the world’s undiscovered reserves. 70% of this is thought to be located in 5 Arctic provinces – Alaska, the Canning-Mackenzie Margin, East Greenland, the East Barents Basin and West Greenland. 84% of the potential Arctic oil reserves are located offshore.
(3) For the Greenpeace briefing about Cairn Energy:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/publications/reports/CairnEnergy/
(4) For the Greenpeace briefing about the dangers of Arctic oil drilling:
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/publications/reports/ArcticBriefing/
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