Istanbul: Greenpeace protests Shell’s Arctic project

Greenpeace activists protested in Istanbul on Saturday against the Arctic oil exploration project of energy giant Royal Dutch Shell.   

"The Arctic is under more danger than ever this summer," Ayse Bereket, chief of Greenpeace's Mediterranean Arctic Campaign, told Anadolu Agency.

The drilling season has begun in the Arctic with the arrival of summer. Bereket claimed Shell was about to begin its oil exploration activities near Alaska, the northwestern U.S. state on the far north of the Pacific Ocean.

"After examining Shell's 2015 plans, the U.S. government projects a 75 percent possibility of an oil exploration accident in the Arctic," she noted. "We want Shell to withdraw from the Arctic, and give up this project," she added.  

Bereket said that oil exploration and drilling activities in the Arctic were very different from other regions in the world, and pointed out to a possible disaster in the region.

"The climate conditions are very harsh in the Arctic, which is only open for a few months for oil activities. Therefore, cleaning up a potential oil spill is almost impossible. Shell is sending invitation to a disaster. It's not a question of if, but when, an accident is going to happen," she explained.

Environmental groups have protested against Shell's Arctic project around the world since April. Bereket said the protest in Istanbul was part of a wider event organized in eight different Turkish cities simultaneously.

The protestors, consisting mainly of Greenpeace activists, volunteers and citizens, had gathered at Moda Park in eastern Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, where they prepared several banners and signboards for the protest.

On May 11, the U.S. Interior Department's Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved Royal Dutch Shell's exploration plan in the northern Arctic, at the energy-rich Chukchi Sea, located northwest of the U.S. state of Alaska.

Environmentalist groups have urged President Barack Obama-led U.S. government to reject the proposal, claiming that any unsafe drilling and hydrocarbon exploration activities could endanger the region.

Shell has reportedly spent billions of dollars so far to get a slice of the untapped energy resources in the Arctic region.

The Anglo-Dutch company has reportedly faced several issues with the project in the past as one of its offshore oil rigs ran aground and towed away, while a containment dome failed a safety test.

Shell said earlier that it was prepared for the project with spill response and other safety measures. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced last week that the company could not drill two oil wells within a 15-mile radius simultaneously.