Greenpeace Activists Have Barnacled Themselves to the Polar Pioneer, a Shell Oil Drilling Rig Bound for Seattle

This morning Greenpeace activists scaled the Polar Pioneer, a semi-submersible Arctic drilling rig headed to Seattle from across the Pacific. Vincenzo Floramo/Greenpeace

Guess we now know why many of those attractive activists (“attractivists,” as coined by The Stranger‘s Mike Force) have backgrounds in extreme sports.

Greenpeace reports that this morning, six activists from the Esperanza—the Greenpeace vessel tracking a Shell oil drilling platform called the Polar Pioneer as it travels across the Pacific Ocean—managed to scale the rig and affix themselves to the underside of the main deck.

The six are now tweeting from the rig, located 750 miles northwest of Hawaii.

We just freaking climbed Shell’s oil rig – And I’m so happy you are with us!
#TheCrossing
https://t.co/5fKuXdEt75
— Miriam Friedrich (@MiriFriedrich) April 6, 2015

Greenpeace activists’ view from the Polar Pioneer rig to the water. Aliyah Field/Greenpeace

In 2012, Shell won an injunction that kept Greenpeace activists away from its rigs. This drilling season, Seattle-based activists are also planning to greet the rigs with a flotilla of kayaks in Elliott Bay. The Polar Pioneer is due to arrive in Port Angeles on April 12, according to Marinetraffic.com, and activists expect it to pull into Seattle a few days later.

So why hop on now, in the middle of the Pacific, a week away from port?

“This was the best window for the climbers to act,” Greenpeace spokesperson Travis Nichols wrote in an e-mail. “We know that Shell could start drilling in 100 days, which doesn’t leave people who oppose them much time to act. They wanted to make sure their work could have the biggest impact.”

In late March, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell affirmed Shell’s rights to the Arctic leases it purchased from the federal government in 2008. But Shell still has a major to-do list before it can begin drilling. The company still has to obtain approval for its exploration plan from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, as well as a number of permits. And, as the Greenpeace activists are pointing out, it also has to get its Arctic drilling fleet into position.

Activist Aliyah Field says Greenpeace is willing to stay on the rig until Shell has “received the message that drilling in the Arctic is completely unacceptable.” Vincenzo Floramo/Greenpeace

UPDATE: One of the climbers, Aliyah Field, 27, called The Stranger from a satellite phone. The activists are camped out on a catwalk under the rig’s main platform with food and supplies, about 30 to 40 meters from the water, Field estimates. Morale is running high, and they plan on sticking it out on the rig until Shell has “received the message that drilling in the Arctic is completely unacceptable.” The group has hammocks, climbing gear, and a wind shelter. The crew of the Blue Marlin, the heavy lift vessel carrying the Polar Pioneer, has seen the activists, Field says, but shows no signs of interfering with them.

“Protesters from Greenpeace have illegally boarded the Polar Pioneer, under contract to Shell, jeopardizing not only the safety of the crew on board, but the protestors themselves,” Shell spokeswoman Kelly op de Weegh told Fuel Fix.