Shell oil licences in Alaska 'unlawful'

A landmark court ruling has set back Shell's plans to drill for Arctic oil. 

It represents a great victory for indigenous peoples and environmental groups - and a serious setback for the oil giant's Arctic expansion.

A US Federal Court ruled this week that the US Interior Department wrongly awarded the oil leases off Alaska without fully considering environmental risks from Arctic drilling.

It said that the Department's estimates that the 30 million acres under lease contain 1 billion barrels of economically recoverable oil were made "arbitrarily" and based on "inadequate information".