Group items tagged

marginal discovery of oil and gas with its summer exploration in the Chukchi Sea but not enough to continue to the search for the “foreseeable” future.

Shell has spent over $7bn (£4.6bn) on its failed hunt for oil

t appears that Shell’s chief executive, Ben van Beurden, was also worried that the row over the Arctic was undermining his attempts to influence the debate around how to tackle climate change.

Halliburton has vigorously denied that its cement job designed to seal the well shut was a reason for the blowout and the government has not sought to impose Clean Water Act fines on the company. But Barbier said that “the cementing program at Macondo clearly did not prevent the direct or indirect release of fluids from a stratum, through the wellbore, and into offshore waters, and this failure was, in fact, a proximate cause of the incident.”

At the same time, the company has increased its drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico. At the end of 2013, the company was operating 10 deepwater rigs there. It has brought several new wells online.

Halliburton has vigorously denied that its cement job designed to seal the well shut was a reason for the blowout and the government has not sought to impose Clean Water Act fines on the company.

At the same time, the company has increased its drilling activity in the Gulf of Mexico. At the end of 2013, the company was operating 10 deepwater rigs there. It has brought several new wells online.

he prize for these countries is the mineral wealth of the Arctic, which global warming may make more accessible.

an eighth of the world’s untapped oil

perhaps a quarter of its gas.

Drilling for oil and gas there is extremely expensive, and falling oil prices have made the economics of Arctic energy even less favourable. This gives would-be prospectors an interest in co-operating, not in adding to the risks and costs.

The melting of the summer sea ice has also opened up trade routes between Asia and Europe via the top of the world; 71 cargo ships plied the north-east passage last summer, up from 46 in 2012

Russia

carried out extensive combat exercises in the Arctic for the first time since the end of the cold war

re-equipping old Soviet bases there and in July tested the first of its new-generation rockets,

Sweden spent part of the summer searching for a Russian submarine that it suspected of slipping into its territorial waters.

countries may control an area of seabed if they can show it is an extension of their continental shelf.