Excerpts from an article titled ‘Seattle mayor snubs Shell’s Arctic oil-drilling fleet’:
Local officials are trying to stop Shell’s Arctic oil-drilling fleet from docking at Seattle’s harbor for the summer, saying that current arrangements go against the port terminal’s land-use permit.
Seattle Mayor Ed Murray said the current contract between the Port of Seattle and a company representing Royal Dutch Shell PLC violates the land-use permit for the port’s Terminal 5, and that the Port would have to apply for a new permit.
Paul Queary, a spokesman for Foss Maritime, said the company was moving ahead with the plans to host Shell’s fleet, having already paid the Port of Seattle $3 million for the lease of Terminal 5 and employed hundreds of people on the site for months.
“It’s extremely disappointing that city officials are starting to determine which cargoes are going to be handled in port operations,” Cam Williams, president of International Longshore and Warehouse Union, Local 19, told the Puget Sound Business Journal.