Why Greenpeace activists seized Gazprom's drilling platform

Representatives of the international environmental organization Greenpeace International in August 2012 climbed the Prirazlomaya oil platform, which is owned by a subsidiary of Gazprom. This event was part of a widespread public protest against the mining of "black gold" in the Arctic. According to environmentalists, they are trying to save "the last untouched corner of the planet."

Fighters for nature from the Greenpeace team in August 2012 in the port of Murmansk boarded the Arctic sunrise and headed for the Prilazlomnoye field. The drilling platform was created specifically for the development of the Arctic shelf of the Russian Federation - the country's resource potential. Staying at the very center of development was supposed to allow ecologists to conduct a more complete study of the ecological situation beyond the Arctic Circle.

On the morning of August 24, six representatives of an environmental organization reached the platform in the Pechora Sea in inflatable boats. With the help of climbing equipment, they secured themselves on the sides of Prirazlomnaya, where they were met by streams of water from the hoses. However, rig workers and government officials did not stop the activists - after a while they managed to settle down on the platform itself and launched slogans urging them to stop well drilling.

According to Greenpeace International Executive Director Kumi Naidu, the task of environmentalists is to draw the attention of the government and the public to the Arctic "oil rush." The corporations Gazprom, Rosneft, BP and Shell, from the point of view of Naidu, put the region at great risk. The difficult drilling conditions at the bottom of the Arctic waters will require clearing of drifting ice and icebergs, and an environmental disaster becomes a matter of time. If it happens, the rescue operation will be extremely difficult to organize: weather conditions, a long polar night and the remoteness of the territory will interfere.

Oil production can be dangerous for the wildlife of the North Pole. So, fish die from seismic acoustics, and walruses and polar bears develop various pathologies. The Greenpeace believes the only way to save the world of the Arctic plume is a complete ban on oil production in the region. This was reported by Komsomolskaya Pravda and RIA Novosti.

15 hours after the start of the campaign on the Prirazlomnaya platform, the Kumi Naidu team left the rig, but promised to keep oil production under their control. In the Union of Oil and Gas Industrialists of the Russian Federation, the action of ecologists was called meaningless. In an interview with Moskovsky Komsomolets, Union President Gennady Shmal emphasized that it is impossible to stop the extraction of "black gold" in the Arctic. One Prirazlomnoye field will make it possible to produce 72 million oil, which is why it is an important project of the Russian government.

This is not the first time Greenpeace International has been attacking oil companies in the Arctic. For example, in 2011, environmentalists were able to enter a rescue capsule above the drill of an English oil platform owned by Cairn Energy. Activists of the "green world" do not give up, and are going to achieve their goal - to create a world reserve around the North Pole.