On the morning of 27 May Greenpeace activists boarded the drilling rig Transocean Spitsbergen. The rig was en route to the Hoop area in the Barents Sea, Statoil said in its press release.
On Monday Statoil got approval from the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment to start drilling operations tied to the Apollo prospect in the Hoop area. The company is not allowed to drill into oil-bearing layers until the complaint from Greenpeace has been dealt with by the ministry.
The rig is now about 300 kilometres offshore and there is a dialogue between the crew onboard the rig and the activists.
The rig is owned by Transocean and is on contract to Statoil.