Navy climbers arrest environmentalists as drilling set to begin at Arctic oil rig
An occupation team from environmental activist group Greenpeace that scaled an Arctic oil rig to prevent deepwater drilling was arrested by climbers from the Danish navy.
However, Greenpeace campaigners vowed to continue their campaign, officials said on Thursday.
Two activists had been living in a survival pod suspended from the underside of the 53,000 metric ton Leiv Eiriksson since early Sunday, Greenpeace said.
Their presence was part of an attempt to stop Edinburgh, UK-based Cairn Energy from beginning drilling operations, located about 180km to the west of Greenland.
A Cairn spokesman said there had been "no impact on the schedule as a result of the protest". Cairn has announced plans to invest around £400 million to drill four wells in the area this summer.
Just before midnight local time on Wednesday, a climb team operating from the rig broke into the pod – hanging 25 meters over the Arctic Ocean – and arrested the UK’s Luke Jones and the US' Hannah Mchardy, both 25. Danish navy inflatable speedboats were positioned below the climbers.
The Greenpeace ship Esperanza remains near the rig, just outside a 500-meter exclusion zone which was declared by a Danish warship that has been on the scene since Sunday.
Greenpeace oil campaigner Ben Ayliffe was on board the Esperanza, from where he saw the navy operation to arrest the men, organization officials said.
“We stopped this rig from drilling for four days, which was four days in which a Deepwater Horizon-style blowout couldn’t happen is this beautiful and fragile environment,” Ayliffe said.
“Our climbers are in jail now, but this won’t stop us opposing the madness of drilling for oil that we can’t afford to burn and in a region where a spill would be almost impossible to clean up. This isn’t over. We must keep on pushing till the oil companies get out of the Arctic.”
Shortly before their arrest, the Greenpeace climbers called Cairn Energy and asked them to publish their oil spill response plan. Despite requests Cairn has refused to make the document public, while claiming to follow stringent safety standards that require publication, Greenpeace alleged.
Shares in Cairn fell sharply on Tuesday when London traders returned after the long weekend – with media reports attributing the price drop to the presence of the Greenpeace pod, the firm said.
The Leiv Eiriksson is one of just two drilling vessels operating off the coast of Greenland. The world's oil giants are watching Cairn’s rig with great interest, Greenpeace alleged.
If it strikes oil this summer, Exxon, Chevron and other major oil companies - which have already bought up Greenland licenses - could begin drilling in the area and the Arctic oil rush will be on, Greenpeace officials said.
Cairn believes its drilling operation will result in at least 9,000 metric tons of chemicals being discharged directly into the waters of the Davis Strait – including 180 metric tons of red-listed chemicals, Greenpeace said.
That is more than all annual oil drilling operations in Norway and Denmark combined, the firm said.
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