The environmentalists’ boarding of the rig started Monday evening, a press release from the organization reads. As part of the action, the activists have attached chains to the vast legs of the structure, thus preventing the installation to exit the port and head towards the drill site in the Pechora Sea.
The action against the GPS Saturn takes place at the same time as another Greenpeace team is occupying the Transocean Barents rig in the Barents Sea. Both actions are aimed against the expanding drilling activities in vulnerable Arctic waters.
“Our campaign to Save the Arctic is a rallying call for common sense and we won’t stop until the oil industry is kept out of there for good”, Greenpeace spokesperson Faiza Oulahsen says.
As previously reported, the Romanian rig is hired by Gazprom Neft and is to drill at the Dolginskoye field in the Pechora Sea. The Dolginskoye field is located close to the Prirazlomnoye field, the project which was the centerpiece in Greenpeace’s dramatic campaign in 2012. Then, Russian military forces brutally cracked down on the activists, who subsequently spent weeks in Russian prisons.
The Dolginskoye field is located 120 km south of the Novaya Zemlya and 110 north of the Nenets mainland. The field holds an estimated 200 million tons of oil equivalents.
