Alaska congressional delegation backs Shell Oil plan for exploratory drilling off North Slope

Alaska congressional delegation backs Shell Oil

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Alaska’s congressional delegation favors Shell Oil’s plan to explore for oil this summer in the waters off the North Slope.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Mark Begich and Rep. Don Young all spoke Monday at a Chamber of Commerce lunch in Anchorage.

The Anchorage Daily News reports they said offshore drilling is necessary, despite the anxiety created by the oil leak from a BP PLC well in the Gulf of Mexico.

“To consume, we must produce from our own land,” Begich said.

Young said the Gulf of Mexico leak is a tragedy but he doesn’t believe it has reached the level of a disaster.

Shell sent a letter to the federal Mineral Management Service last week describing how it plans to prevent a spill and how it would react if oil leaked in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas.

For one thing, Shell says it will test its major underwater well-control equipment, called a blowout preventer, every seven days instead of every 14.

Environmentalists don’t think Shell could handle a major spill.

The plan “does not show that they can manage a response on the scale of BP’s ongoing Gulf disaster let alone a smaller spill,” said the Pew Environment Group.

Shell Oil is the U.S. arm of Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

Information from: Anchorage Daily News, www.adn.com