Greenland approves more Arctic drilling for Cairn Energy

The UK’s wildest wildcat oil company, Cairn Energy, received the news it has been waiting for when the Greenland Bureau of Minerals and Petroleum (BMP) gave final permission for the company to start its 2011 Arctic drilling programme in Baffin Bay over the coming months.

In its own Environmental Impact Assessment for this year, the company admitted it had no idea how a spill would impact the region in the winter, saying that all its “spill scenarios were simulated within the proposed drilling window, corresponding to the ice-free period.” This is particularly worrying given that a Canadian company specialising in oil spills concluded that “there is really no solution or method today that we’re aware of that can actually recover [spilt] oil from the Arctic.”

Over in Alaska, Shell has started submitting applications to open up to 10 new exploratory oil wells next year, 4 in the Beaufort Sea and a further 6 in the Chukchi Sea. Though the US Environmental Protection Agency effectively stymied Shell’s drilling programme this year, the Anglo-Dutch giant has nailed its colours firmly to the polar mast. It is “very cautiously optimistic” about getting hold of the estimated 25bn barrels of oil off Alaska, and has already it has spent a staggering $3.5bn in the state.

Greenpeace International