In March 2015, the Greenpeace ship “Esperanza” with a crew of 35 people on board tailed an oil rig known as “Polar Pioneer” for more than 7,000 nautical miles from northwestern Borneo’s Brunei bay across the Pacific. The Esperanza tracked the Polar Pioneer for more than six weeks before the arriving at the northwestern coast of the USA.
During the voyage Greenpeace volunteers climbed aboard the Shell oil rig to protest the company’s plans to drill in the Arctic near Alaska.The six activist used ropes and harnesses to scale the huge platform, tweeting images of their daunting climb as they went.
Once aboard the Arctic-bound Shell Oil rig they set up camp on the rig’s 38,000 tons platform, where they stayed for close to a week as part of the worldwide Greenpeace campaign “Save the Arctic”.
Images and live video footage/feeds from the crossing were sent out to media to raise awareness about Shell plans to drill for oil in the Arctic.
Since 2007 the company spent roughly 7 billion dollars on oil and gas exploration in the Arctic region.
On September 2015, Royal Dutch Shell officially announced their decision to abandon their controversial drilling operations off the northwest coast of Alaska.
Greenpeace welcomed Shell’s decision, celebrating the success of “Save the Arctic” campaign as a great victory for Greenpeace and the people who followed and supported the campaign.
