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Royal Dutch Shell to launch oil exploration in Arctic Jul

Beginning in July, the continuous cycle operation is to be completed by October 2012

LONDON, April 6 (Itar-Tass) — The European Union’s largest oil company - Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell this July will launch its first large-scale program for the Arctic oil prospecting, using deep drilling the BBC radio station reported on Friday.

The Arctic operations became possible after Royal Dutch Shell received a corresponding permit from the US Department of the Interior. It was issued after the US authorities studied the company’s plan for the liquidation of a possible emergency at the deepwater well and an oil spill in high latitudes.

Shell is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies. The company headquarters are in The Hague, the Netherlands, and its Chief Executive Officer is Peter Voser. The parent company of the Shell group is Royal Dutch Shell plc, which is incorporated in England and Wales.

According to the BBC report, US Department of the Interior obligated Royal Dutch Shell, as a condition of admission to the operations, to make calculations for an emergency three times the scope of the spring 2010 catastrophe at the British Petroleum’s Macondo field in the Gulf of Mexico.

It has become known that Royal Dutch Shell will start drilling in the Beaufort Sea north of Alaska. Beginning in July, the continuous cycle operation is to be completed by October 2012.

Last February, the Anglo-Dutch company also got permission to conduct drilling in other parts of the Arctic – in the Chukchi Sea. The company currently expects from the US authorities an environmental expertise and the approval of the program for coping with a possible oil spill at the production site.

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