SEATTLE (AP) - Six Greenpeace activists opposed to offshore drilling in the Arctic have abandoned a Seattle-bound drill rig they boarded in the Pacific Ocean six days ago, the organization said Saturday.
Rough seas prompted the decision, Greenpeace said in an email. The protesters rappelled off the rig and got into inflatable boats before returning to a Greenpeace ship stationed nearby.
The six climbed on the Polar Pioneer, a 400-foot rig owned by Transocean Ltd., about 750 miles northwest of Hawaii on Monday. A heavy-lift vessel called the Blue Marlin is transporting the rig to Seattle for staging.
Royal Dutch Shell, which leased the rig, hopes to use it for exploratory drilling during the summer open water season in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast if it can obtain all necessary permits.
Shell sued in U.S. District Court in Anchorage, Alaska, last week seeking a court order to remove the protesters. A judge heard arguments on Friday and said she would rule in a day or two, but the worsening ocean conditions made the legal maneuvering moot. Greenpeace said swells of up to 23 feet were expected.
"Boarding a moving vessel on the high seas is extremely dangerous and jeopardizes the safety of all concerned, including the people working aboard and the protesters themselves," Shell spokeswoman Kelly Op De Weegh said in an email. "We recognize the right to voice an objection to our Alaska exploration program, but we can't condone Greenpeace's unlawful and unsafe tactics."
Conservationists bitterly oppose Arctic offshore drilling. They say oil companies have not demonstrated they can clean up a major spill in ocean water choked with ice, and they argue that the drilling takes place far from infrastructure such as Coast Guard bases, deep-water ports, major airports and other resources that could be of use in a spill.
"We're coming down for safety --something we value," one of the protesters, Zoe Buckley Lennox, wrote on Twitter. "Shell's reckless plans speak volumes about their disregard for it."
Shell has also asked the U.S. court for an injunction against further Greenpeace actions on Shell ships bound for or already in the Arctic. The court issued a similar order in 2012, the last time Shell conducted exploratory drilling in the Arctic.
"Greenpeace USA has now resumed its reckless behavior towards Shell," the company wrote in a court filing Wednesday. "As soon as Shell announced its intention to return to the Arctic for the summer of 2015, Greenpeace USA immediately reinitiated its campaign to stop Shell."
The judge plans to hear arguments April 28.
The company Royal Dutch Shell hired that year to drill on petroleum leases in the Chukchi Sea - Sugarland, Texas-based Noble Drilling U.S. LLC - agreed to pay $12.2 million in December after pleading guilty to eight felony environmental and maritime crimes on board the Noble Discoverer. That rig is the second one Shell intends to use this year if it obtains the necessary permits.