SHELL EXPLORATION COMMENT ANALYSIS

Plan of Cooperation Meeting – January 22, 2015 Buckland, Alaska

Page 1 of 5

Issues Comments Shell Response Mitigation 

Measures

Will any of our activities disturb any of the animals/subsistence 

activity near Wainwright and any other places near your 

operations?

No, it won’t. We have subsistence advisors 

that will be discussed in further slides. E

Will you have oil spill response capabilities in Kotzebue? Yes, we will. We won’t be exploring in 

Kotzebue Sound but we will have oil spill 

response vessels staged there in the event 

we should need it.

N/A

Are you going to have crews from Deering, Buckland, and 

Kotzebue?

The crews won’t be from these villages; 

however, we will be running a couple of 

programs that will have opportunities for 

employment.

N/A

How much sound are you going to be making outside of Deering? Around the middle of July, we will bring

the 8 vessels there and anchor them. 

They’ll stay there and won’t be moving 

around in the Sound. The landing craft will 

be making 3-4 trips to Kotzebue. We will 

have subsistence advisors informing us of 

any subsistence activity so that will help us 

avoid those areas.

E

What’s your drilling depth? The water at our Burger Site is about 130 

feet deep. The wells we are looking to 

drill are around 7,000-8,000 deep.

N/A

Are the ones you hire going to get training like OSHA... Yes, they are. N/A

Are you going to be running these barges back and forth while you 

drill?

No, these barges will bring them into 

Goodhope Bay and they will just sit there. 

We’ll only use them if there is an oil spill 

in the Chukchi and we need them.

N/A

Is the ice going to affect that well? We have done ice gouge studies in that 

region. We have found the deepest 

N/A
SHELL EXPLORATION COMMENT ANALYSIS

Plan of Cooperation Meeting – January 22, 2015 Buckland, Alaska

Page 2 of 5

Issues Comments Shell Response Mitigation 

Measures

historical ice gouges and make the depth of 

the mudline cellar deeper than that mark, 

to protect against the possibility of ice 

gouging disturbing the well.

How can you see and drill at that depth? When you drill at that depth, the well does 

not cave in. We also have a remote that 

operates at that depth for us to see.

N/A

Will you let us know ahead of time when the training will be? We will probably be contracting with 

NANA and they will let the community 

know.

N/A

Will you be back to Buckland? We are required to hold 2 community 

meetings each year in communities that are 

impacted by our operations. So we will be 

back this summer.

C

Your subsistence advisor - are you going to provide a skiff for 

them? Will they be out hunting or in town?

Usually what they do is they go to local

search and rescue, talk to hunters and 

community members, monitor the VHF. 

They normally stay in the village near the 

VHF so they can hear what’s going on. If 

they’re at their camps, they won’t always 

hear about the subsistence activity.

E

When you guys are out there and villages are in need of help do 

you jump in and help?

Yes, in any emergency we do whatever we 

can. N/A

Are you aware that we study sound? If you ever want to know 

where the animals are going, we are doing a big study on it.

We do study a lot of that. On the North 

Slope, we do monitor the sounds that our 

activities make so we can see what type of 

impacts we make underwater .

N/A
SHELL EXPLORATION COMMENT ANALYSIS

Plan of Cooperation Meeting – January 22, 2015 Buckland, Alaska

Page 3 of 5

Issues Comments Shell Response Mitigation 

Measures

If you do strike oil, what is the revenue benefit? There isn’t currently any mechanism done 

by the government to share revenue. Shell 

doesn’t develop an area without making 

sure the community benefits. We just 

signed an agreement with ASRC and their 

village corporations that if they want, they 

can buy an interest in our oil production. 

Not only will this make sure that some of 

the profits go to their shareholders but they 

also have a seat at the table.

N/A

Are the vessels all going to come in at once? They are going to come up in stages based 

on the ice. There are some ice class vessels 

that can come in early. But, some of them 

will be arriving later on.

N/A

If you find more oil and gas, are you going to send for more 

vessels?

We are exploring with these wells and will 

seal them once we are done this year. 

Based on our results from this year, we 

will decide if we are going to continue 

exploration and development in the future.

N/A

While they’re out there in our bay, there’s subsistence that we put 

in our freezers for year round. It’s pretty hard to get jobs around 

here because there are none and it’s hard to get food.

Thanked the community member for the 

comment. N/A
SHELL EXPLORATION COMMENT ANALYSIS

Plan of Cooperation Meeting – January 22, 2015 Buckland, Alaska

Page 4 of 5

Issues Comments Shell Response Mitigation 

Measures

What improvements have you made for the Noble Disco and what 

happened to the Kulluk

Shell does not own the Kulluk anymore. 

The Polar Pioneer is going to be drilling 

and it is proven to be able to drill in arctic 

waters. 

The Noble Discover we have spent more 

than 250 million dollars rebuilding it. It is 

completely renovated from the ground up 

and has been rebuilt very carefully by the 

federal regulators. We won’t be able to 

bring them up north without the coast 

guard inspecting it.

N/A

Thank you for coming up. Without you coming up, we wouldn’t 

have known what was going on with Shell. I wish you all good luck 

and hope you get it done quick. I hope it won’t impact our coastal 

animals.

N/A

How soon will you start your recruiting? Some of the jobs that will be in this region 

will be contracted with NANA and maybe 

KIC. This spring, I’d contact NANA.

N/A

Do you have any small boats that if we need help with search and 

rescue or do you have helicopter?

Yes, we do have a dedicated helicopter 

based in Barrow that is used for search and 

rescue. We also keep in contact with the 

search and rescue in Kotzebue.

N/A

Thank you for the food. Will the helicopters bother our caribou? This is why we operate our subsistence 

advisor program. If they want to fly that 

day, they listen to the SAs so the pilots 

won’t fly near the subsistence activity.

A, E
SHELL EXPLORATION COMMENT ANALYSIS

Plan of Cooperation Meeting – January 22, 2015 Buckland, Alaska

Page 5 of 5

Notes:

*Mitigation Measures are only assigned to applicable comments. 

“Not applicable” (N/A) is used to designate comments that do not require mitigation measures as a course of action. See Mitigation Measures Index definitions according to assigned letter.

Proposed Mitigation Measures

A-Communication Plan for avoiding conflicts with subsistence users.

B-Collaboration and Communication with Whaling Associations

C-Plan of Cooperation (will work to obtain a CAA)

D-Will honor Camden Bay blackout dates for Nuiqsut and Kaktovik whaling.

E-Subsistence Advisors based in Chukchi Sea Villages and Kotzebue

F-Protected Species Observers

G-Robust Marine Mammal Monitoring Protocol

H-OSR support vessels on standby 24/7 near drilling location

I-Real time Ice and Weather Forecasting

J-Crew change by helicopter and collaboration on routes to and from shorebase

K-zero discharge in Camden Bay of the Beaufort Sea: drilling fluids and cuttings after the 26-in casing; gray and treated black waters; bilge and ballast waters

L-enhanced blowout prevention and mitigation measures (i.e., second set of blind shear rams, redundant ROV hot stab panel, prefabricated subsea collection and containment 

system, and relief well plan with designated relief well drilling unit).