Greenpeace activists intercept Russian ship

Published Aug. 27, 2012 at 1:33 pm

This image made available by environmental organization Greenpeace shows Greenpeace activists chained to the anchor chain of the Anna Akhmatova, the vessel which was carrying Gazprom's workers to the Prirazlomnaya platform, in the Pechora Sea about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the nearest port, Murmansk, a city on the extreme northwestern edge of the Russian mainland, Monday Aug. 27, 2012. Gazprom is pioneering Russia's oil drilling in the Arctic. The state-owned company installed the platform there last year and is preparing to drill the first well. Environmentalists have warned that drilling in the Russian Arctic could have disastrous consequences because of a lack of technology to deal with a possible spill in this remote region.

Photo by AP

MOSCOW — More than a dozen Greenpeace activists have intercepted a ship carrying Russian oil workers to a floating oil platform in Russia's Arctic.

Greenpeace
said in a statement on Monday, Aug.27, that 14 activists chained themselves to
the anchor chain of the vessel which was carrying Gazprom’s workers to
the Prirazlomnaya platform in the Pechora Sea.

Gazprom is pioneering Russia’s
oil drilling in the Arctic. The state-owned company installed the
platform there last year and is preparing to drill the first well.

Environmentalists have warned that drilling in the Russian Arctic could have disastrous consequences because of a lack of technology to deal with a possible spill in this remote region.

Six
Greenpeace activists on Friday spent several hours hanging off the side
of the Prirazlomnaya, attached to the rig’s mooring lines.