Cargo Business Newswire

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Port of Seattle to house Shell Oil’s Arctic fleet

The Port of Seattle has signed a two-year lease with Shell Oil under which the company will use Terminal 5 as the headquarters for its efforts to drill in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea.

The authorization, negotiation and signing of the lease were completed quickly, securing $13.17 million for the port and forestalling efforts by environmental groups to stop it.

Covering 50 acres of Terminal 5, the lease is with Foss Maritime, which offers a range of supply and tug escort services.

The lease was signed Monday. On Tuesday, Fuse

Washington announced that more than 1,000 members of its organization had signed a letter questioning the Shell homeport agreement. Fuse is the state’s largest progressive organization.

The environmental community argues that Arctic waters cannot be safely drilled, and that a spill would endanger a major polar bear population as well as North America’s largest walrus population and gray whales, which feed in the Chukchi Sea in summer and fall.

The oil giant expects to spend $1 billion on its Arctic plans this year. Shell’s profits for 2014 totaled $19.04 billion, even as oil prices were dropping.