Shell sues Greenpeace to curb Arctic protests It argues that drilling in the Arctic is inherently risky and Shell's safety plans are inadequate. But Shell has fought its way through numerous environmental and safety challenges in the U.S. licensing process before being granted two permits for exploratory drilling in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. The company expects the projects eventually to create hundreds of jobs. Greenpeace activists have been involved in two attempts to thwart Shell-owned ships from traveling to the Arctic. In May, a US court ordered the organization to remain at least a kilometre away from any of Shell's ships bound for Alaska, within 200 miles of shore in US waters. Greenpeace has protested Artic drilling with other stunts around the world, but the trigger for Friday's lawsuit was a Dutch demonstration on September 14, in which Greenpeace protesters blocked more than 70 Shell gas stations in the Netherlands for several hours, draping banners and clamping gas pump handles together with bike locks. Fifteen people were arrested. Shell has not put forward any estimate of how much damage it suffered. "Because Greenpeace International doesn't operate alone, but is the spider in the web of national and local organizations, our request includes that Greenpeace inform its satellite organizations that it no longer supports protests that are solely directed at causing Shell economic damage or that bring human lives and the environment in danger," Shell's complaint said. Greenpeace campaigner Ben Ayliffe said Shell was "in no position to accuse others of being reckless or unsafe," given the difficulties the company may face if an offshore spill occurs in the Artic amid bad weather. The past weeks have proved eventful for Shell's two Artic projects, which would be the first in those waters for years. Drilling in the Chukchi was delayed, first due to a dangerously large ice floe drifting toward its platform, and then after a transportable dome the company plans to use to help contain any potential spill failed during a test overseen by the US Coast Guard. Shell received the second of its two final permits for exploratory drilling on Thursday from the US Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, for the Beaufort project. On the same day, scientists at the National Snow and Ice Data Center announced the annual Artic summer sea-ice melt - the July-October period that is Shell's opportunity for drilling - had reached the greatest extent on record earlier this month, possibly as a result of global warming. Greenpeace and Shell have a long history of conflict, most notably when activists occupied the Brent Spar oil platform in the North Sea in 1995, as part of a campaign that eventually forced Shell to abandon plans to dispose of the platform at sea.