The Permitorium Continues

Updates

September 3, 2012: EPA grants "relief" to Shell; diesel engines on boat being used in the Arctic won't face fines. Shell still needs the permit to drill "the 4,000 feet."

Original Post

The federal government grants permits to drill one exploratory well in pieces: a permit for 1,400 feet; a permit for 4,000 feet, and so on.

The theater of the absurd.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said it will be difficult to complete an exploratory well in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska this year even after the company received a permit to begin limited preparatory work.  

Shell will be allowed to drill 1,400 feet under the seabed with the permit granted yesterday by the U.S. Interior Department.  

The company still needs U.S. Coast Guard approval for a spill-containment barge before a permit can be issued to drill about 4,000 feet deeper, into oil reservoirs.  

For the company that spent $4.5 billion to explore the Chukchi and Beaufort seas time is running out -- it takes at least 20 days to complete a well and Shell has to stop drilling in the oil-bearing zone in theChukchi Sea by Sept. 24.  

The company asked for an extension, a request the Interior Department said it is still considering. Completing a well in the Chukchi “will be very, very difficult without the extension,” Pete Slaiby, Shell’s head of Alaska operations, told reporters during a conference call from Anchorage yesterday.

Can you imagine if North Dakota required a permit for the vertical hole, another permit for the curve, a third permit for the horizontal leg, and then a fourth permit for fracking? One could then add a permit for flaring; a permit for putting up porta-potties: one for men; one for women; one for undecided.

Ayn Rand would shrug if she were alive.