By Victoria Cavaliere
SEATTLE, June 11 (Reuters) - The first vessel in Royal DutchShell's Arctic drilling fleet has embarked fromWashington state to Alaska ahead of its planned resumption ofoil and gas exploration in the remote region this summer, thecompany said on Thursday.
The Arctic Challenger, an oil spill containment barge, hadleft Bellingham, north of Seattle, and was headed toward DutchHarbor, in Unalaska, off mainland Alaska, Shell spokeswomanMegan Baldino said. She did not know when it would arrive.
The Arctic Challenger is one of about two dozen supportvessels that will accompany drilling rigs slated to resume asearch for fossil fuels as soon as next month in the Chukchi andBeaufort Seas, among the world's most ecologically sensitiveregions.
Environmental groups contend that an oil spill in the area,which is covered by vast layers of sea ice and prone to rapidchanges in weather conditions, would be destructive to theecosystem and extremely hard to clean up.
Shell's plans to return to the Arctic and its decision totemporarily house a drilling rig in Seattle has prompted weeksof protests at the city's port, with demonstrators both on landand water trying to block access to the vessel.
Activists have also vowed to form a flotilla to prevent therig from leaving the city's Elliot Bay for the trip north.
Shell did not say on Thursday when that rig, the PolarPioneer, would attempt to depart. Activists have said theyexpected the rig to leave as soon as this week, and a shippingsource said it would likely be by the end of June.
Shell had to pull out of the Arctic in 2012 after a rig ranaground. The oil giant is still awaiting several federal permitsbefore it can go ahead with its plans to return.
The company contends it is prepared to safely resumedrilling and could clean up 90 to 95 percent of any oil spilled.
A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld Shell's oil spillresponse plans, rejecting arguments by several environmentalgroups that federal approval of the plan was capricious.
On Tuesday, Shell's plans to resume exploration in theArctic cleared another legal hurdle when President Barack Obamaupheld a 2008 Arctic lease sale. The Interior Department willnow consider the company's drilling plan. (Additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing byCynthia Johnston and Eric Walsh)
