By Cassandra Sweet
Federal investigators have blamed Royal Dutch Shell Plc and its
contractors for the December 2012 shipwreck of a drill ship off the
coast of Alaska.
The wrecked ship, named the Kulluk, was being towed by another
ship, the Aiviq, from Alaska to Seattle when the ships ran into
trouble amid a rough winter storm and had to be rescued by the U.S.
Coast Guard.
After completing an investigation, the National Transportation
Safety Board concluded that while no single error or mechanical
failure caused the accident, Shell was at fault due to poor
planning and bad judgment, particularly with regard to Alaska's
severe winter weather, according to a new report.
The NTSB study comes as Shell is preparing two drill ships and
their crews to travel to Alaskan waters this summer to explore for
oil.
Shell has spoken with regulators about the findings and
implemented lessons learned from 2012, said Curtis Smith, a company
spokesman.
In the summer and fall of 2012 Shell brought three ships to
Alaska to drill exploratory oil wells in the Chukchi Sea. On the
way to the drill site, one ship, the Noble Discoverer, had
equipment problems that needed repairs and caused delays. On the
voyage back from Alaska, the Kulluk and the Aiviq both had
equipment problems.
The Coast Guard rescued 18 crew members from the Kulluk and
attempted to tow it to safety. Rough seas and high winds hampered
the effort, and when the Kulluk's tow line broke, the ship drifted
away and ran aground near Kodiak Island off Alaska's southwest
coast.
Noble Corp. pleaded guilty last December to federal felony
offenses and agreed to pay a $12 million fine for the incident
involving the Noble Discoverer.
Write to Cassandra Sweet at cassandra.sweet@wsj.com
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