Salazar: Shell's Arctic woes 'troubling'

Mishaps: Salazar finds Shell's Arctic woes 'troubling'

USCG

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By Luke Johnson & news reports

 09 January 2013 20:34 GMT

US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar called the series of problems Shell has had off Alaska “troubling” and raised questions about the supermajor’s ability to resume Arctic drilling later this year.

“It’s troubling that there was such as series of mishaps,” Salazar said on Wednesday after a meeting of an offshore-drilling advisory panel in Washington. “There is a troubling sense I have that so many things went wrong.”

Salazar was speaking a day after Interior announced that it was launching an "expedited, high-level assessment" of Shell’s 2012 offshore drilling programme. The review is expected to be completed within 60 days.

Shell dealt with a raft of setbacks in 2012 as it prepared to begin its high-profile exploration campaign in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas.

In September, the company had trouble…

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