Shell plans simultaneous drilling in the Chukchi using two rigs

Shell is planning for the possibility of drilling two exploration wells simultaneously in the Chukchi Sea, using two drilling vessels, according to the company’s revised exploration plan that the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, has now published on the agency’s website. The company had already announced that it plans to deploy two drilling units, the Noble Discoverer and the Polar Pioneer, to the Chukchi, with each vessel being capable of backing up the other, should a well problem necessitate the drilling of a relief well. But Shell’s plan makes clear that the company expects to make simultaneous use of both vessels for exploration drilling operations.

Under Shell’s previous Chukchi Sea plan, the Polar Pioneer would have been stationed in Dutch Harbor as a backup rig.

Shell’s plan also says that the company is going to beef up its oil spill response capabilities to include additional support vessels and more oil spill response equipment.

The plan adjustments have been made in direct response to Shell’s experiences during the 2012 season, the planned use of a second drilling unit and the discharge monitoring requirements mandated under a new Environmental Protection Agency waste discharge general permit, Shell’s plan says.

The plan also confirms that Shell anticipates continuing to target the Chukchi Sea Burger prospect, a major geologic structure about 80 miles offshore the western end of the North Slope. Burger contains a known major natural gas pool, but Shell thinks that the structure is also likely to hold oil.

Although Shell has filed its revised plan with BOEM, the agency cannot approve the plan until it has completed a revision of the environmental impact statement for the 2008 Chukchi Sea lease sale in which Shell purchased its leases, and until BOEM has re-affirmed the sale. The rework of the environmental document has been mandated by a court decision in an appeal against the lease sale’s legality.

Shell has indicated that it hopes to continue its Chukchi Sea drilling program in the summer of 2015.

- Alan Bailey