Royal Dutch Shell PLC's Sept. 28 decision to halt exploration of its Chukchi Sea lease for the foreseeable future did more than cause environmental activists to celebrate. It made Nome Mayor Denise L. Michaels start to worry more than ever.
"Now that Shell is pulling out, there will be no vessels in Nome to respond to emergencies at sea," she said during an Oct. 7 discussion of Arctic shipping's promise, preparations, and impacts at Resources for the Future. "The company will be taking all the support ships it brought back south."
Michaels said the Alaskan community of 3,500 on the edge of the Bering Sea only can be reached by air or sea. Subsistence living is extremely important, and the town and nearby countryside already feel climate-change impacts.
"We've had more 20-year storms-four-in the last 10 years," the mayor said. "Six communities are threatened by erosion. It's expensive to recover and adapt."
Michaels said Nome is a medium-sized port with a minus-22 ft draft. A 2013 Army Corps of Engineers study was one of several to recommend making Nome's port deeper so it could accommodate larger vessels. It apparently is the closest potential base for responding to US Arctic offshore oil and gas emergencies farther north.
"We need to look at all options," Michaels said. "We've been talking about it for 100 years. President Obama mentioned it during his recent visit, but it's a low priority for the Corps of Engineers. We're ready to explore the idea of a public-private partnership. It's an international and global need. We're going to keep exploring this."
Other speakers observed that perceptions in Washington, where so many policies affect Alaska, often don't reflect what's going on there.
Still ice-covered
"Profound changes in climate aren't changing polar shipping because the Arctic still will be covered with ice 7&frac;-8 months/year," said Lawson W. Brigham, a distinguished professor of geography and Arctic policy at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks. "The ice may be thinner, but it's still there. Linkage of markets to resources at the top of the world is having a far greater impact."
He said the price of oil is the major driving factor. "You can't take it off the table because Russia still has it on the map in Yamal Strait," Brigham said. He added that he sees many numbers thrown around in Washington, and "they all seem to be correlated on guesses."
Moderator Alan J. Krupnik, co-director of RFF's Center for Energy and Climate Economics, noted Shell's use of the phrase "for the foreseeable future," but added the company "could be back sooner than you think."
About the Author
Nick Snow
NICK SNOW covered oil and gas in Washington for more than 30 years. He worked in several capacities for The Oil Daily and was founding editor of Petroleum Finance Week before joining OGJ as its Washington correspondent in September 2005 and becoming its full-time Washington editor in October 2007. He retired from OGJ in January 2020.