Posts under ‘Gazprom’

In Sakhalin… Exxon has fared much better than rival Royal Dutch Shell, which has led the development of Sakhalin-2. In 2005 Shell disclosed $10 billion in cost overruns on the $20 billion project, and in 2007 it was forced by the Kremlin to sell half of its Sakhalin stake to Gazprom. Though Shell and Rosneft signed a “strategic alliance” in 2007, it has proven to be all show, no go. In May, Rosneft and Shell were reportedly in talks over a deal to explore the Arctic. The Exxon announcement indicates that those talks have ended.

Christopher Helman, Forbes Staff

From Houston 8/31/2011 @ 12:46PM

More than a black eye for BP, the Rosneft deal is a gold star for ExxonMobil, one that illustrates that the company is not only the world’s biggest international supermajor, but the only one that can claim any lasting success in Russia.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom that Exxon is stepping into dance shoes that had been knocked off BP’s feet — the Exxon/Rosneft venture has been a long time in coming. What’s more, the lovey-dovey deal increases the likelihood that Exxon and the Kremlin might soon be able to come to terms on the development of massive untapped natural gas reserves held by Exxon’s Sakhalin Island development.

Sure it embarrasses BP, considering that back in January new Chief Executive Robert Dudley was heralding his $16 billion share swap with Rosneft as marking the start of BP’s comeback — only to see it waylaid by lawsuits from BP’s oligarch partners at Russian joint venture TNK-BP.

But remember that half of this “new” deal–the $1 billion exploration of Black Sea prospects — had already been signed by Exxon and Rosneft back in January.

Exxon and Rosneft have been partners in Russia for more than 15 years in development of the Sakhalin-1 project, which started up in 2005 and now produces more than 250,000 bpd. “Today’s agreement with Rosneft builds on our 15-year successful relationship in the Sakhalin-1 project,” said ExxonMobil Development Co. President Neil Duffin in a statement yesterday.

In Sakhalin (where current Chief Executive Rex Tillerson cut his teeth) Exxon has fared much better than rival Royal Dutch Shell, which has led the development of Sakhalin-2. In 2005 Shell disclosed $10 billion in cost overruns on the $20 billion project, and in 2007 it was forced by the Kremlin to sell half of its Sakhalin stake to Gazprom. Though Shell and Rosneft signed a “strategic alliance” in 2007, it has proven to be all show, no go. In May, Rosneft and Shell were reportedly in talks over a deal to explore the Arctic. The Exxon announcement indicates that those talks have ended.

What of the other supermajors? In June Chevron backed out of its JV with Rosneft to explore in the Black Sea, reportedly because geologists at the two companies couldn’t agree on the size of the resource. We’ll see if Chevron gets another chance to make inroads in Russia any time soon. Same goes for ConocoPhillips, which last year sold its stake in Russian giant Lukoil and exited the country.

As for France’s oil giant Total, it is a partner with Gazprom in developing the giant Shtokman gas field in the iceberg-strewn Barents sea — but it’s a big question mark whether that $15 billion-plus project will happen any time soon given Russia’s trove of more easily accessible riches.

Such as the 17 trillion cubic feet of as yet untapped gas reserves that Exxon’s Sakhalin consortium is sitting on in the Chayvo field. Exxon has for years wanted to sell the gas from Sakhalin-1 directly to China. But that conflicts with Gazprom’s desire to control all the gas from Sakhalin, and merge Exxon’s flow into that from Sakhalin-2 in order to fill a new pipeline to Vladivostok. In 2008, Rosneft said it would help convince Exxon to sell its gas to Gazprom — which is a funny concept considering that a majority of each company is held by the Kremlin.

This June, Gazprom said it expected to reach an agreement with Exxon on Sakhalin-1 gas by the end of the year. You can be sure that Exxon ironed out those details in advance of this week’s Rosneft deal. All that’s left is the official announcement that Exxon will put Sakhalin gas development into overdrive.

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By ANDREW E. KRAMER

A version of this article appeared in print on August 31, 2011, on page A1 of the New York edition

MOSCOW — Exxon Mobil won a coveted prize in the global petroleum industry Tuesday with an agreement to explore for oil in a Russian portion of the Arctic Ocean that is being opened for drilling even as Alaskan waters remain mostly off limits.

The agreement seemed to supersede a similar but failed deal that Russia’s state oil company, Rosneft, reached with the British oil giant BP this year — with a few striking differences.

Where BP had planned to swap stock, Exxon, which is based in Texas, agreed to give Rosneft assets elsewhere in the world, including some that Exxon owns in the deepwater zones of the Gulf of Mexico and on land in Texas.

In announcing the arrangement at a surprise signing in the Russian resort town of Sochi, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin described a sweeping global alliance — and a potentially vast investment by Exxon in the Russian Arctic.

“The scale of the investment is very large,” Mr. Putin said. “It’s scary to utter such huge figures.”

But while Russian news agencies said Mr. Putin had stated the potential investments by both companies to be as high as $500 billion, Exxon officials said the figures, at least initially, would more likely be in the tens of billions of dollars.

For Exxon, which is America’s largest company and is a spinoff of the original Standard Oil, the deal means wading deeper into Russia’s risky business environment. As a result of the agreement, which is almost certain to require a review in Washington, more of the company’s investments and future earnings will partly hinge on policies set in the Kremlin.

Russia has reneged on deals with Western oil companies before. In 2006, for example, it compelled Royal Dutch Shell to sell 50 percent of a Sakhalin offshore development to Gazprom, a state company — after Shell spent a decade and more than $20 billion of its own money and that of other investors to build the project’s infrastructure.

Until now, Exxon’s principal investment in Russia has been a production sharing agreement on Sakhalin Island, on Russia’s eastern coast. That arrangement, which waives local taxes and provides the Russian government a share of the oil produced, is regarded as less risky than the deal made Tuesday.

Under the new agreement, the state-owned Rosneft could become a part-owner of drilling operations in the United States. Those operations could include two of the industry’s most contentious oil extraction methods — drilling for oil in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico and using the so-called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, technique on land. The Russians want to learn about both types of drilling for use at home.

The Rosneft deal would also be among the most significant attempts by a company from a country that is not an American ally to acquire United States oil fields since Cnooc, the large Chinese oil company, tried to buy the California oil company Unocal. Although it was not formally banned, that deal fell apart in 2005 after members of Congress criticized the potential Chinese ownership of American oil assets.

Having an American company win the Rosneft deal could also suggest that the Obama administration’s policy of détente toward Russia, known as the reset, can benefit United States businesses, said Cliff Kupchan, a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group, a consultancy.

The Exxon-Rosneft deal, if completed, would further a long-held goal of the Russian petroleum industry to diversify internationally. It would allow Russia to do that by using access to reserves at home to gain the necessary capital and technological expertise.

Russia’s economy is dependent on petroleum for about 60 percent of its export revenue. Policies here are also important for world oil supplies, as Russia now pumps more oil than Saudi Arabia. Yet Russia’s onshore fields in Siberia are in decline, threatening the prosperity and geopolitical clout that has come with oil wealth in the last decade.

Despite the varying accounts of the overall potential value of the agreement, a fact sheet released by the companies indicated an initial commitment to invest $3.2 billion in exploration in the Kara Sea, the body of water between the northern coast of European Russia and the Novaya Zemlya island chain.

Once seen as a useless, ice-clogged backwater, the Kara Sea now has the attention of oil companies. That is partly because the sea ice is apparently receding — possibly a result of global warming — which would ease exploration and drilling.

This summer, Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant, moved a rig into a shallow part of the sea. Still, Russian scientists say the extent of the ice floes varies greatly from summer to summer, and conditions remain formidable during the polar night, which lasts months.

In the waters off Alaska, drilling has remained largely off limits because of environmental restrictions and lawsuits by conservation organizations.

Rosneft’s attempt to strike a similar pact with BP this year fell apart because the British company had a joint venture with a separate group of private Russian investors, who blocked the Rosneft deal in an international court. The collapse was an embarrassment for Mr. Putin, who had endorsed the BP-Rosneft deal.

After the failure of that deal, the onus fell on Russia to demonstrate it could uphold an agreement, Mr. Kupchan, the analyst, said. “They got away with BP, because the deal was seen as BP having two Russian wives,” he said.

Exxon, in contrast, has no exclusivity clause with a competitor in Russia that could come up in court.

Still, if Rosneft’s participation in American projects leads to objections in the United States, Exxon’s investment in Russia could also be vulnerable. Russian officials say reciprocity, or mutual dependence, is a condition for foreign investment in their petroleum fields.

Igor Sechin, a deputy prime minister in Russia and one of the country’s top energy officials, said Rosneft would obtain shares in at least six of Exxon’s oil fields in the United States. He said that the value of these assets would be “in proportion” to the ones Exxon would own in Russia.

Alan T. Jeffers, a spokesman for Exxon, said Rosneft would be subjected to the same regulatory oversight in the United States as any other oil company.

For Russia, the agreement is a result of a new openness to foreign investment in its oil industry that is meant to address the declining output in Siberia. The Kremlin opened discussions last year with Western oil companies whose prospects on the other side of the Arctic Ocean — above Alaska and Canada — had at least temporarily dimmed with the moratorium on offshore drilling in the aftermath of BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

This summer, the American Interior Department eased the restrictions somewhat by granting Royal Dutch Shell conditional approval to drill exploratory wells in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska’s coast starting next year.

But American and Canadian regulators worry about the special challenges in the Arctic. The ice pack and icebergs pose threats to drilling rigs and crews. And if oil were spilled in the winter, cleanup would take place in the total darkness that engulfs the region during those months.

Still, the United States Geological Survey estimates that the Arctic holds one-fifth of the world’s undiscovered, recoverable oil and natural gas.

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By Anna Shiryaevskaya and Caroline Connan – Jun 16, 2011 5:53 PM GMT+0100

OAO Gazprom, Russia’s gas export monopoly, is seeking liquefied natural-gas deals outside of Russia that may involve asset swaps.

“We are looking at new projects,” Deputy Chief Executive Officer Alexander Medvedev said today in an interview at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. “In possible asset swap deals we will be interested to include existing LNG assets that our potential partners have.”

Medvedev declined to identify possible partners, though he said that talks with Royal Dutch Shell Plc include an “LNG element.”

Gazprom, which leads Russia’s sole LNG project known as Sakhalin-2, with Shell, Mitsui & Co. and Mitsubishi Corp., wants to expand in markets such as Asia where demand is growing at a faster rate. The Moscow-based producer is targeting production of as much as 25 billion cubic meters of LNG outside Russia, according to a presentation to investors on Gazprom’s website.

Shell may offer assets in Asia to Gazprom to support expansion of the Sakhalin-2, people with knowledge of the negotiations said in February. The Hague-based company may gain access to offshore blocks in Russia’s east, they said at the time.

Gazprom is considering expanding the Sakhalin-2 LNG plant and is looking at ways to increase the resource base needed to support a third production line, or train, Medvedev said today. At the same time, the company is also studying plans to build an LNG plant near the city of Vladivostok, he said.

Most of the gas from Sakhalin-2 goes to Japan, the world’s biggest LNG consumer, where a March earthquake and tsunami have knocked nuclear power offline.

“Japan is now analyzing what the consequences of this catastrophe are, also in view of demand recovery from industries,” Medvedev said.

Japan may need as much as 20 million tons of additional LNG, Medvedev said. “And this is a very serious volume that doesn’t yet exist on the market, you have yet to produce it.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Anna Shiryaevskaya in St. Petersbrug via Moscow at 7729 or ashiryaevska@bloomberg.net Caroline Connan in St. Petersburg via London at cconnan@bloomberg.net;

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net

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May 25, 2011 12:40 P.M. ET

MOSCOW (Dow Jones)–Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s (RDSB) Chief Executive Peter Voser met Russia’s top energy official Wednesday to discuss joint projects on Russia’s Arctic shelf, the Black Sea and Sakhalin-3, but said the company won’t seek to swap shares with state oil champion OAO Rosneft (ROSN.RS).

The meeting between Voser and Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin, who oversees the oil and gas sector, came two days after Russian Energy Minister Sergei Shmatko said he doesn’t expect state-controlled oil giant OAO Rosneft (ROSN.RS) and BP PLC (BP) to revive their strategic alliance after it was blocked by BP’s existing Russian partners, a group of Soviet-born billionaires known as AAR.

“Shell welcomes the constructive talks in Moscow this week regarding potential exploration co-operation with Rosneft in the Arctic, broader strategic co-operation and technology development for the Arctic and other areas as well as opportunities for Rosneft to join Shell in developments outside Russia,” a Shell spokesman said.

BP and Rosneft, whose chief executive, Eduard Khudainatov, was also present at the talks Wednesday, announced in January plans for a $16 billion share swap and joint development of three blocks in Russia’s Arctic Sea. But AAR, arguing the pact violated the terms of its agreement with BP in their TNK-BP Ltd. joint venture, went to court in the U.K. to block the deal.

After months of talks, discussions broke down earlier this month.

While BP said last week it is still discussing the joint exploration of the Russian Arctic with Rosneft, Shell has expressed renewed interest in that region. However, the idea of a share swap with Rosneft isn’t under consideration, the company said.

“These discussions excluded any proposals to use Shell’s shares,” the spokesman said.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Voser and Sechin also “discussed the deepening of the company’s cooperation with its Russian partners,” in particular the Sakhalin-2 and Sakhalin-3 projects, a statement on the government’s website said. Shell already holds a stake in the OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS)-led Sakalin-2 project off Russia’s Far East coast.

Voser met with Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller in April to discuss potential joint projects in Russia as well as Gazprom’s participating in Shell’s exploration and production projects elsewhere. Shell signed an agreement on strategic cooperation with Rosneft in 2007.

-By Alexander Kolyandr and Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Dow Jones Newswires; alexander.kolyandr@dowjones.com

(Guy Chazan in London contributed to this story.)

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One of the most striking features of the oil industry in recent times has been the divergent fortunes of Royal Dutch Shell and BP.

BP has well-publicised problems that explain its recent under-performance, such as uncertainty over its future in Russia and the shock of last year’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico’s Macondo area, which left 11 workers dead. Photo: REUTERS

By Damian Reece, Head of Business: 29n April 2011

The past two years has seen Shell outperform the All-Share index by 7pc, while BP has under-performed by 58pc.

Results on Thursday from Shell once again underlined the companies’ differences, such as profitability and prospects, which are driving investor sentiment.

BP has well-publicised problems that explain its recent under-performance, such as uncertainty over its future in Russia and the shock of last year’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico’s Macondo area, which left 11 workers dead.

Going further back, under Lord Browne’s regime we had his own troubled exit, the Texas City refinery blast, the Prudhoe Bay spill, problems in the Gulf’s Thunder Horse field and price-fixing allegations in New York.

If you consider the Texas City blast, which killed 15, was back in August 2005, BP has been beset by serious problems for nearly six years. This begs the question, can BP ever really change?

However unpalatable it might be, chief executive Bob Dudley could look across at his age-old rival, Shell, for the answer. Shell had its own Macondo moment back in 2004, with its reserves scandal. For nearly 10 years prior to that, Shell had been trying to change its culture, a process that had been largely ineffective.

Since the reserves scandal, under chief executives Jeroen van der Veer and latterly Peter Voser, it has changed tack, focusing on more investment upstream in exploration and production, more investment in OECD countries to reduce political risk and to replace its declining heart lands, more investment in gas and more large projects.

It has developed four key strategic partners in PetroChina, Gazprom, Aramco and Qatar Petroleum and shaken up its downstream refining and retail operations. Internally, Shell workers are now subject to a continuous improvement programme that stresses the speed of decision-making, the operational effectiveness of its assets and their integrity in terms of safety.

Another crucial difference has been the creation of the modern BP from a strategy of acquisitions (Amoco, Arco and Burmah Castrol, to name a few) bequeathing different cultures within the group.

Shell, an Anglo-Dutch construct, was a federal structure that found it difficult to issue shares to pay for deals, so stuck to organic growth. Even since adopting a unified structure it has avoided major deals. It is arguably a more unitary culture than BP.

This, then, is all the boring nitty-gritty behind Shell’s numbers on Thursday. But it goes a long way to explaining the increasingly marked difference between Shell and BP.

Oil investors rank companies in terms of what they deliver today in terms of earnings, the prospect of improving on that with more assets and management’s credibility and strategic vision. BP is struggling in all these departments. Maybe Bob Dudley should consider what he can learn from the way Shell has learned from past problems before deciding on how BP moves on from its own.

damian.reece@telegraph.co.uk

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Royal Dutch Shell has cemented its partnership with Gazprom by discussing asset swaps and how to increase shipments of gas to Japan, where the Fukushima nuclear disaster has caused an energy shortage.

Shell revealed last year that it would let Gazprom share some of its projects abroad if it is allowed to help develop the third and fourth stages of the lucrative Sakhalin island in Russia. Photo: EPA

By Rowena Mason 7:57PM BST 12 Apr 2011

Peter Voser, Shell chief executive, flew to Moscow for meetings with Alexey Miller, the head of Gazprom, where they talked about deals related to Siberia and Asia.

“While discussing the situation on global energy markets, both sides considered the issue of increasing LNG [liquefied natural gas] supplies to Japan from the Sakhalin-2 project as the fastest way to stabilise power supply for its consumers,” a Gazprom spokesman said.

Shell revealed last year that it would let Gazprom share some of its projects abroad if it is allowed to help develop the third and fourth stages of the lucrative Sakhalin island in Russia. Deals could even take the form of asset swaps, as Gazprom seeks to increase its presence on the international stage. Sakhalin is thought to contain reserves of more than 14bn barrels of oil equivalent.

Tuesday’s talks appear to continue a remarkable turnaround in historically strained relations between Shell and Russia.

It was four years since Russia forced Shell to cede control of its $22bn (£14bn) Siberian field, Sakhalin-2, to Gazprom, but it appears that cordial relations have been re-established.

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant was forced to sell down its 55pc stake in Sakhalin-2 to Gazprom in 2006 in a powerful display of Russian resource nationalism.

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MOSCOW, April 12, 2011

Russian energy giant Gazprom and Anglo-Dutch oil major Shell discussed joint projects in West Siberia and in the east of Russia, Gazprom’s participation in Shell’s undertakings in third countries and increased liquefied natural gas (LNG) deliveries to quake-hit Japan from the Sakhalin-II project, Gazprom said on Tuesday.

Gazprom head Alexei Miller and Shell CEO Peter Voser held a working meeting on Tuesday to discuss the companies’ interaction under a protocol on global strategic partnership, the Russian energy giant said in a statement.

“The participants in the meeting also discussed the possibilities of joint operations for hydrocarbon refining and distribution in Russia and Europe, and Gazprom’s participation in Shell’s oil and gas exploration and extraction projects in third countries,” Gazprom said.

Miller and Voser also discussed the world energy product market and an increase in LNG supplies to Japan, which was hit by a powerful earthquake and tsunami on March 11. More LNG supplies to Japan are intended to quickly restore Japan’s energy balance.

Earlier reports said Shell may offer Gazprom assets in Asia in exchange for modernization of an LNG plant in Russia under the Sakhalin-II oil and gas project off Russia’s Pacific coast. Shell wants to boost the plant’s output by 50% and raise its stake in the plant.

Shell also plans to get access to new Russian offshore deposits to increase gas supplies to the LNG plant. Shell intends to choose foreign assets that would be of interest for Gazprom to get support from the Russian energy giant.

Gazprom and Shell are exchanging information on oil deposits in West Siberia.

The $22 billion Sakhalin II project, in which Russian gas monopoly Gazprom holds a controlling stake, has estimated reserves of 150 million metric tons (1.1 billion barrels) of oil and 500 billion cubic meters of natural gas.

The project’s other shareholders are Royal Dutch Shell plc with a 27.5% stake, Mitsui & Co. Ltd. with 12.5% and Mitsubishi Corporation with 10%.

MOSCOW, April 12 (RIA Novosti)

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APRIL 8, 2011

MOSCOW (Dow Jones)–Energy giants Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA.LN) and OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) will discuss potential asset swaps next week, Gazprom said Friday.

Peter Voser, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell and Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller will discuss potential asset swaps, said Pavel Oderov, head of Gazprom’s international business department.

Under a memorandum of understanding signed between the two companies last year, Voser and Miller will discuss “potential interesting assets for Gazprom abroad, and potential interesting assets for Shell in Russia,” Oderov said.

-By Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen, Dow Jones Newswires; +7 495 232 9197; jacob.pedersen@dowjones.com

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Posted on 31 March 2011

The Russian government must oppose the development of a proposed oil and gas platform off Russia’s Sakhalin Island because the project has not been subject to appropriate environmental risk assessments, according to an international coalition of leading NGOs.

The coalition, which includes WWF, International Fund for Animal Welfare, Pacific Environment and Sakhalin Environment Watch, will submit a Statement of Concern to the Russian Inter-departmental Working Group on the Conservation of Western Gray Whales, a group of oil industry representatives and Russian government officials meeting Friday to discuss off-shore oil exploration near the feeding grounds of the critically endangered Western gray whale.

“The project may have a potentially devastating impact on the critically endangered Western gray whales,” the statement says. “Sakhalin Energy has a legal, social and ethical responsibility to ensure the project does not have unacceptable levels of damage to the marine environment, and the fragile species that live within it.”

The additional platform represents a dramatic expansion of the Sakhalin II project operated by Sakhalin Energy – a consortium of Shell, Gazprom, Mitsui and Mitsubishi – near Piltun Bay, the primary feeding area for Western gray whale mothers and calves. Recent estimates indicate that there could be fewer than 130 whales remaining, and scientific experts note that the death of just 1-2 females per year could lead to population extinction.

“The Russian Inter-departmental Working Group on the Conservation of Western Gray Whales has the future of the Western gray whale as its core responsibility, and must therefore act in the best interest of the whales, not in the interests of oil companies, and recommend that the platform not go ahead,” said Aleksey Knizhnikov of WWF-Russia.

Sakhalin Energy received the necessary approvals for the Sakhalin II project based on just two platforms, with its own analyses indicating that drilling technology advances eliminated the need for a third. The company acknowledged that having two rather than three platforms was preferable due to a “smaller footprint with consequent reduced environmental impact”. Moreover, a previous Sakhalin Energy report shows that the area being proposed for the third platform is unsuitable due to an unstable clay seabed in the earthquake-prone area.

The company plans to conduct a seismic survey this summer to determine the best location for the platform. The environmental groups say that seismic surveys, which involve shooting loud pulses of noise into the ocean floor, can generate an unacceptable level of risk to whales that depend on sound for communication, feeding and navigation. Three seismic surveys were conducted in or near whale feeding habitat last summer and are believed to have caused severe pressure on the animals. Moreover, the Sakhalin Energy seismic survey for 2011 is planned to be undertaken before the effects of previous surveys on the whales have been fully understood.

“It is possible that cumulative impacts of major oil and gas development operations in the whale’s feeding area off Sakhalin Island have had a significant effect on the whale population, and these impacts have yet to be adequately assessed by whale scientists,” said Doug Norlen, Policy Director at Pacific Environment. Other companies operating in the area include Exxon Neftegas Ltd., Rosneft and BP.

The environmental groups are requesting that activities on the third oil platform planned by Sakhalin Energy be dropped as developers have failed to comply with basic operational standards. The organizations highlight the lack of a dedicated environmental impact assessment for all activities associated with the platform as well as a comprehensive review of the collective impacts of current and planned projects in the area.

Patrick Ramage of the International Fund for Animal Welfare called on companies and financial institutions involved to heed the advice of the scientific body monitoring the Sakhalin project. “What’s the rush? The world’s leading experts say industrial development of this sensitive coastline should not proceed until its environmental impact is properly assessed,” Ramage says. “In the wake of the BP disaster and other unfolding environmental tragedies around the world, we hope and believe the companies and institutions involved will reject the sudden effort to fast track a third drilling platform at Sakhalin.”

The Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel, a group of world renowned experts established to provide independent advice regarding the management of risks to Western gray whales, recently emphasized that “a piecemeal approach to assessment of the impacts of oil and gas development on the Sakhalin shelf, in which each new activity or item of infrastructure is considered in isolation, does not constitute ‘good practice’ from an ecological point of view as it dismisses and ignores cumulative or synergistic effects.”

Editor’s notes:

• The Sakhalin Energy document stating that two rather than three platforms “significantly reduces the potential for environmental impact” is available here.
• The most recent report of the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP) is available here.

For further information:

WWF: Natalia Reiter, email: NReiter@wwfint.org Tel: +41 22 3649550
Pacific Environment: Doug Norlen, email: dnorlen@pacificenvironment.org Tel: +1 202 465 1650
Sakhalin Environment Watch: Dmitry Lisitsyn, email: watch@sakhalin.in Tel: +7 4242 46 16 37
IFAW: Clare Sterling, email csterling@ifaw.org Tel: 020 7587 6708

About WWF

WWF is one of the world’s largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, with over 5 million supporters and a global network active in over 100 countries. WWF’s mission is to stop the degradation of the earth’s natural environment and to build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature, by conserving the world’s biological diversity, ensuring that the use of renewable natural resources is sustainable, and promoting the reduction of pollution and wasteful consumption.

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