SEATTLE — Activists who don’t want Shell to drill for oil in the Arctic protested at the company’s fuel transfer station in Seattle, prepared to meet a drill rig arriving in Everett, to the north, and turned out at a port commission meeting Tuesday to voice their concerns, but it remained unclear what impact their efforts would have.

“Drilling for oil in the precious Arctic is not on the right side of history,” Richard Hodgin, a drilling opponent from Seattle, told a crowded Port of Seattle Commission meeting.

Shell’s plans for exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea northwest of Alaska this summer cleared a major hurdle on Monday, when the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management approved the company’s plan after reviewing thousands of comments from the public, Alaska Native organizations and state and federal agencies.

But opponents said they aren’t giving up, and they focused their attention Tuesday on the Port of Seattle’s decision earlier this year to grant a two-year, $13 million lease for terminal space to Foss Maritime, a local company that’s working with Shell to prepare its fleet for heading up to the Arctic. The city of Seattle has said the use of the terminal as a base for drill rigs isn’t allowed under the port’s current land-use permit.

Foss said it will appeal that determination and forge ahead.

Labor groups representing workers at the Port of Seattle noted the 400-plus jobs the Foss lease has already brought to the city.

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