Shell has spent around $4.5 billion to explore for oil in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in the Arctic,[ia which according to the U.S. Geological Survey, has more than 90 billion barrels of recoverable oil and nearly 1,700 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas.[ii] After years of delays from the Obama Administration, the company was allowed to move forward with "certain limited preparatory activities in the Chukchi Sea", according to the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE). The BSEE stated[iii]: