Shell later asked the court to voluntarily dismiss the 2012 litigation after its Kulluk drilling unit ran aground on an Alaskan island and it became clear it would be awhile before the company resumed Arctic drilling operations.
The new lawsuit asks for an immediate injunction to protect Shell’s maritime vessels and other assets associated with its Arctic drilling campaign from “unlawful and unsafe interference by Greenpeace” while they are in transit to the Pacific Northwest, in port, traveling to the company’s oil and gas leases in the Chukchi Sea and conducting drilling operations north of Alaska.
In the petition, Shell says the six Greenpeace activists — including one from the United States — “willfully, recklessly and illegally … boarded the Blue Marlin on the high seas approximately 750 miles northwest of Hawaii and thereafter scaled and now illegally occupy the Polar Pioneer.” The actions showed “a callous disregard for the rights and safety of themselves and of others,” Shell says.
Shell notes that two Greenpeace members were injured when the Spanish Navy intercepted them last year near the Repsol oil ship Rowan Renaissance in a separate action.
Shell also describes the history of some of the activists now on board the Polar Pioneer, who hail from six different countries. The U.S. volunteer has reportedly been arrested at least twice in prior Greenpeace actions, Shell notes. And Shell says, Johno Smith, a 31-year-old from New Zealand, is a “self-identified contract climber and undercover ninja.”
The company tells the court that if Greenpeace’s activities are left unsanctioned, they will cause “irreparable harm” and monetary damages by delaying or preventing Shell from transporting its vessels, supplies and personnel to the Chukchi Sea for planned oil drilling during a few ice-free months this summer.
“Greenpeace is well aware that even short delays in the Arctic can stop exploration for the season,” Shell says in its lawsuit, “and has used that tactic successfully against other companies.”