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Tony Hopfinger, Suzanna Caldwell | Jan 01, 2013

A drilling rig operated by Royal Dutch Shell that had been adrift off and on in rough seas since Thursday ran aground near Kodiak Island in Alaska on Monday night, raising concerns about a possible fuel spill.

The Kulluk — a $290 million offshore oil rig operated as part of Shell’s Arctic drilling efforts in summer — washed up shortly before 9 p.m. at Ocean Bay on Sitkalidak Island, located close to Kodiak Island’s southeast shores.

The trouble started late Monday afternoon when a Shell tugboat — one of two vessels pulling the Kulluk — lost a line to the drilling rig. The second tug, the Alert, struggled to continue towing the Kulluk due to “severe engine problems.” The Alert’s crew was ordered to separate from the rig at 8:10 p.m. “to maintain the safety of the nine crewmembers aboard the vessel,” according to state environmental regulators and the U.S. Coast Guard.

The concern now is for the condition of the Kulluk, which is carrying an estimated 150,000 gallons of diesel and 12,000 gallons of lube oil and hydraulic fluid, Coast Guard officials told reporters Monday night at a news conference in Anchorage.

A Coast Guard helicopter crew assessed the situation late Monday, finding the Kulluk grounded on a rocky bottom about 500 feet from the shore. The crew found no visible sign of an oil spill or sheen, according to state regulators early Tuesday.

As Coast Guard responders were scrambling to the scene on New Year’s Eve, officials told reporters an investigation will be launched into the failures that led to the Kulluk’s demise.

“The extreme weather conditions and high seas continue to be a challenge,” said Susan Childs, the incident commander for Shell, in a statement. “Our priority right now is maintaining the safety of our response personnel and evaluating next steps.” About some 250 people are involved in responding to the incident, she added.

RELATED: Arctic Ocean vs. ANWR — a tale of two oil fields

It’s been a tumultuous several days for the Kulluk, which saw itself disconnected from the tug boats charged with moving the vessel from Alaska to the Lower 48 for the winter. Earlier this year, the Kulluk performed exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea for Shell.

For Shell, which has invested more than $4.5 billion to drill for oil andgas in Alaska’s Arctic, the latest troubles raise questions about how prepared the company — as well as the Coast Guard — are for problems in the far north.

The Kulluk and its tug weren’t operating above the Arctic Circle when the problems started late last week. And the Coast Guard’s Alaska headquarters at Kodiak are located relatively nearby the grounded Kulluk, making response efforts easier than in the Arctic, where the agency has no base. That has some Alaskans wondering what would happen if similar troubles ever occur in the much more remote and hostile Arctic Ocean.

“The implications of this very troubling incident are clear — Shell and its contractors are no match for Alaska’s weather and sea conditions either during drilling operations or during transit,” said Lois Epstein, the Arctic program director for The Wilderness Society, late Monday in a statement. “Shell’s costly drilling experiment in the Arctic Ocean needs to be stopped by the federal government or by Shell itself, given the unacceptably high risks it poses to both humans and the environment.”

Mechanical failures

As the Kulluk headed to the Lower 48 on Thursday, the tow shackle failed between the drilling rig and its tug — Shell’s Aiviq. A second towline was attached, but later the engines on the Aiviq failed, leaving the two vessels adrift at sea. The 266-foot diameter Kulluk has no propulsion system of its own.

Another ship, the Coast Guard’s 282-foot cutter Alex Haley, was dispatched to reconnect the towline. However, 35-foot seas and 40-mph winds, coupled with the size of the vessels, caused the towline to disconnect, and the Haley retreated to Kodiak for repairs. On Sunday, the Kulluk’s 18-person crew was evacuated.

Then, after dispatching yet another ship — the Prince William Sound-based Alert tug — the Kulluk was reconnected to its tow vessels early Monday. Later Monday morning, the Aiviq tug also re-established its connection to the Kulluk about 19 miles southeast of Kodiak Island, but lost its link later in the day.

By Monday evening, the Coast Guard was planning to tow the Kulluk to safe harbor at Port Hobron on the southeast side of Kodiak Island, as well as deploy several technicians on board the Kulluk to inspect the tow lines on the rig.

As the weather worsened, the Alert tug’s crew, which was struggling to tow the Kulluk on its own, was order to separate from the rig. By 9 p.m., the Kulluk was sitting in the surf at rocky Ocean Bay, its draft having run aground.

More bad weather on the way

Seas are expected to be up to 33 feet by Tuesday, with the potential for 40-foot waves as a large storm system delivers moisture from as far south as California. Satellite imagery shows the bulk of the storm headed right for Kodiak.

“They’re in the bulls-eye of the whole thing,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Dan Peterson, who said the weather service is updating the unified command center hourly.

Shell’s drilling fleet has been plagued with a string of delays and problems this summer, and the engine failures aboard the Aiviq came just one day after revelations that the company’s massive drillship, Noble Discoverer, was delayed for several weeks in Seward after being ordered to stay put for repairs to safety and pollution prevention systems.

Ben Anderson contributed to this report. Contact Suzanna Caldwell atsuzanna(at)alaskadispatch.com  and Tony Hopfinger attony(at)alaskadispatch.com.

SOURCE

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