Protesters who dangled from the St. Johns Bridge over the Willamette River in Portland drew a lot of attention toward Shell’s plans to drill for oil in the Arctic.
But how much did protesters affect Shell’s actual plans for drilling?
EarthFix reporter Tony Schick has been looking into this. He says protesters blockading Shell’s Fennica icebreaker for two days had little effect on Shell’s overall investment in Arctic drilling.
Shell does have a deadline to finish work by the fall, though, so the protest could mean more than publicity.
“Drilling these kinds of wells -- the experts I talked to -- said takes between 60-90 days,” said Shick. “And then you factor in the fact that they wanted to drill two wells, and the feds said they could only drill them one at a time -- you start to do that math and you can see where an ‘every day counts scenario’ could factor in for Greenpeace trying to make this a less successful trip for Shell.”
He says Shell has begun drilling in the Arctic, but it needs the icebreaker on site and a change to its federal permit before it can drill into oil-bearing zones.