Shell scales back Arctic oil drilling goals for this year

It was a tough year for Royal Dutch Shell to kick off its multibillion-dollar gambit on drilling for offshore oil in the Arctic.

First, stubborn sea ice in waters off western Alaska — even as the rest of the Arctic saw record low sea-ice — shortened the drilling window.

Now, persistent troubles with a specially-designed barge intended to contain any spills has led Shell to assert that it won’t drill as far as the company had originally planned, ending any prospect that Arctic hydrocarbons might be reached this year.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the most recent problem arose last week when part of that oil containment barge, the Arctic Challenger, was damaged during tests in the Puget Sound off of Washington.

The ship has been docked there for months while it waits for Coast Guard certification. A company spokeswoman told the Times the tests were successful despite damage to part of the oil-containment dome.

The Arctic Challenger is a unique vessel with an interesting past that has been specially fitted for its role alongside Shell’s other Arctic vessels. The ship is key to the company’s drilling plans because much of the controversy about Arctic offshore oil development has swirled around the uncertainty of cleanup in the event of a spill.

Shell had previously announced that it would scale back its ambitions for 2012, drilling only two exploratory wells, instead of the five it initially proposed. Still, those two wells had the potential for reaching hydrocarbons. Now, the company has told the Times it will stick to drilling only top holes, which won’t reach as far into the Arctic seabed. That work, however, would give the company a head start on drilling in the 2013 season.

It also wasn’t immediately clear if Shell will continue to seek an extension on its drilling window for this year, which it had previously requested from the U.S. Department of Interior.

One of the company’s drilling rigs, the Noble Discoverer, was finally able to begin drilling in the Chukchi Sea on Sept. 9, but had to stop the next day as a precautionary measure as a large ice floe moved in.

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