Oil, Shell | featured news

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Thursday that Royal Dutch Shell would be allowed to start “certain limited preparatory activities” for oil drilling in the environmentally sensitive waters off Alaska’s northwest coast.

Arctic oil ambitions ran into new problems Saturday evening when the Discoverer drilling rig, slated to begin exploratory operations in the Chukchi Sea next month, ran adrift in stiff winds in Alaska’s Dutch Harbor and came perilously close to the beach.

Royal Dutch Shell is struggling to pay off $1 billion that it owes Iran for crude oil because European Union and U.S. financial sanctions now make it almost impossible to process payments, industry sources said.

Shares in oil major BP hit a six-month high on Tuesday after The Daily Mail newspaper reported rival Royal Dutch Shell had considered a takeover bid during the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

But new investment and declining costs mean the company could hold up well in the coming year.