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The
Washington state activists, who have staged frequent
demonstrations over the last two months against Royal Dutch
Shell's oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea off mainland Alaska,
said they expected the rig to leave a Seattle-area port in the
early morning and were planning a water-borne protest.
Shell did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The company could begin drilling for oil in the Arctic off
Alaska as early as the third week in July, when it expects sea
ice to begin clearing.
The first drilling rig arrived in Dutch Harbor off mainland
Alaska on Saturday morning and will remain there until ice
begins clearing where the company plans to drill through late
September.
The company was given a conditional green light by the U.S.
Department of the Interior in May to return to the Arctic for
the first time since its mishap-plagued 2012 drilling season.
Protesters around Washington have staged ongoing demonstrations
over Shell's intention to drill for fossil fuel in the Arctic,
one of the most environmentally sensitive regions in the world,
saying a spill would be destructive to the ecosystem and
extremely hard to clean up.
Shell maintains that it has a robust safety and clean-up plan
should a spill occur.
(Reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Writing by Curtis
Skinner; Editing by Mark Potter)
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