Environmental group Greenpeace said Tuesday it has
targeted a drilling rig under contract to Chevron Corp. (CVX) in the
U.K. in a protest similar to one that briefly shut down Cairn Energy
PLC (CNE.LN) operations in Greenland last month.
Two
Greenpeace activists have attached themselves to the anchor chain of
the Stena Carron drill ship situated offshore Shetland, in Scotland,
in an effort to prevent it sailing to the Lagavulin oil field where
it was scheduled to drill an exploration well, the group said in a
statement.
"Chevron is appealing to Greenpeace to
immediately stop their actions," the company said in a
statement.
Greenpeace said the protest is intended to
highlight the dangers of deep water oil drilling in the wake of the
BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico over the summer. Neither Cairn nor
Chevron plan to drill in water depths equivalent to the 1,500-meter
deep BP well that spewed oil for three months.
"We are
confident our operations are safe and we can drill deep water wells
in the Atlantic Margin safely and without environmental harm,"
Chevron said.
Greenpeace shut down Cairn operations offshore
Greenland from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2.