PORT ANGELES — The Polar Pioneer oil rig was being pulled Thursday by two tugboats toward its new temporary home in Port Angeles Harbor, a Shell Oil Co. spokeswoman said.
The 355-foot-tall rig, making its second foray to the North Olympic Peninsula this year, left the Port of Dutch Harbor, Alaska, at noon Tuesday, spokeswoman Megan Baldino said Thursday in an email.
She said in an earlier interview that she could not give an estimate of its arrival time in Port Angeles.
The rig anchored in Port Angeles Harbor for 26 days last spring, pouring an estimated $1 million in hotel stays, retail sales and rig-related services into the city’s economy, according to a report prepared for Shell and the Alaska State Chamber of Commerce.
Baldino said in an earlier interview that the rig is expected to stay in Port Angeles for a similar time span to offload supplies and equipment.
The Polar Pioneer is traveling at 6.6 knots, according to the vessel-tracking website www.marinetraffic.com.
It took 13 days for the transocean rig, which Shell is leasing, to travel from Seattle to Dutch Harbor on its way to the Arctic Ocean earlier this year in an unsuccessful attempt to explore for oil.
“We definitely look forward to it being back,” Port of Port Angeles Executive Director Ken O’Hollaren said Thursday.
Once the tugs Ocean Wind and Ocean Wave pull the Polar Pioneer into Port Angeles Harbor, “it will go right to anchor,” O’Hollaren added.
“There’s nothing the port needs to do to facilitate its arrival.”
Coast Guard spokesman Dana Warr said the oil platform’s anchorage will be managed in coordination with the Puget Sound Harbor Safety Plan. To see the plan, go to http://tinyurl.com/PDNharborsafety.
The plan, managed by the Puget Sound Vessel Traffic Service, allows five anchorages at one time.
A sixth is permitted for one day if allowed by the Seattle-based Coast Guard 13th District captain of the port.
Anchorages are allowed for up to 10-day periods and can be renewed for additional 10-day spans with permission from the captain of the port.
That permission is given “as long as the Coast Guard feels the vessel is not using anchorage as a mooring and is actually operationally involved in offloading or onloading,” Warr said.
Warr said there are no immediate plans to have Coast Guard vessels escort the Polar Pioneer into Port Angeles Harbor as they did April 17, when environmentalists with safety concerns over Arctic oil drilling protested its arrival.
Then it came floated in atop the heavy-lift ship MV Blue Marlin.
“We are standing by,” Warr said.
So are businesses that benefited from the Polar Pioneer’s stay in Port Angeles earlier this year.
“I know that folks have issues with oil rigs like this and explorational drilling, but this is a nice economic windfall for the Port Angeles community,” Russ Veenema, Port Angeles Regional Chamber of Commerce executive director, said Thursday.
Images of the oil platform being towed out of Port Angeles Harbor earlier this year are still being circulated nationally, Veenema said.
“It’s nice to get name recognition for a small rural town like us,” he said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.