Posts Tagged ‘Sakhalin2’

From pages 48 & 49 of “Royal Dutch Shell and its sustainability troubles” – Background report to the Erratum of Shell’s Annual Report 2010

The report is made on behalf of Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands)
Author: Albert ten Kate: May 2011.

The Sakhalin-2 project

According to its developers, the Sakhalin-2 project is the world’s largest integrated oil and gas project. The capital expenditure for this project amounted to USD 21.3 billion from 2001 through 2009, while total costs exceeded USD 24 billion.

The project is about extracting gas and oil offshore Sakhalin Island, in the Russian Far East. The fields are called Lunskoye (mostly gas) and Piltun-Astokhskoye (mostly oil). The company Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Ltd. (Sakhalin Energy) is the operator of the project. Royal Dutch Shell is a partner and lead technical adviser to the operator. Under the shareholding structure of Sakhalin Energy, Gazprom holds 50% (plus one share), Shell 27.5% (minus one share), Mitsui 12.5% and Mitsubishi 10%.

The field development of the Sakhalin-2 project involved:

− two offshore platforms (Lunskoye-A and Piltun-Astokhskoye-B);

− an 800 kilometres onshore pipeline system to the south of the island; − offshore pipelines systems;

− an onshore processing facility;

− a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant;

− offloading terminals for crude oil and LNG.

At the end of 2010 the liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant of Sakhalin Energy reached its full production capacity of 9.6 million tonnes a year. Sakhalin Energy now has a 5% share in the world’s LNG market. The entire output is contracted under long-term arrangements (for 20 and more years). Around 65% of the Sakhalin LNG will be supplied to customers in Japan. The rest is intended for consumers in South Korea and North America. In 2009, Sakhalin Energy produced and offloaded over 5.5 million tonnes of oil and condensate. Oil produced from the Molikpaq and the PA-B is blended with gas condensate from the Lunskoye field. The blend of crude is used to produce petrol, kerosene, diesel fuel, and source materials for the petrochemicals industry. Molikpaq (Piltun-Astokhskoye-A) was the first offshore oil platform, installed in 1998 during phase 1 of the Sakhalin 2 project.

Case: the Western gray whale is on the brink of disappearing forever

The offshore gas and oil extraction by Sakhalin Energy interferes with the feeding grounds of the Western gray whale. Western gray whales feast throughout the summer and autumn in the waters off Sakhalin Island. The estimated population size in 2009 was about 130 whales, including only around 30 mature females. The population, which is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM, could be driven to extinction by the mortality of just a small number of reproductive females.

In 2006 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) created a panel of independent scientists – the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel (WGWAP) – which provides scientific advice and recommendations on the operational plans and mitigation measures by Sakhalin Energy. On the first day of the 9th meeting of the WGWAP (4-6 December 2010, Geneva, Switzerland) Sakhalin Energy announced a plan to construct another offshore oil and gas platform.

The NGOs World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Pacific Environment, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Sakhalin Environment Watch strongly oppose the construction of a new platform and associated subsea pipeline. Subsequently, they also oppose the seismic survey in preparation for this platform, which is announced by Sakhalin Energy to take place during the summer of 2011.

The NGOs have urged the WGWAP to strongly recommend that Sakhalin Energy will not develop the extra platform. To underpin their statement, the NGOs have put forward several arguments:

− The acoustic pollution due to all platform-related activities near an area of high whale density might scare the whales away from their feeding grounds.

− There are increasing risks that a vessel might strike a whale.

− The risk of a Sakhalin-2 platform-related oil spill and/or additional subsea pipeline accident risk increases by 50%.

− The marine ecosystem may get polluted through drilling.

− The Western gray whales are likely already stressed from major seismic surveys which took place in 2010. Assessment of the full range of impacts (including impacts to feeding and reproduction) of the 2010 seismic surveys will not be possible until late 2011.

− It is essential to, at first, evaluate the cumulative impacts on the Western gray whales from the variety of different off shore oil and gas activities off Sakhalin Island.

− There is no good reason why the seismic survey needs to happen in 2011, as Sakhalin Energy has reiterated that a decision whether or not to go ahead with building the new platform would not be taken for several years.

− Sakhalin Energy has already put out a tender for the seismic survey and ruled out some design alternatives. The proposed route of the associated subsea pipeline(s) have not been disclosed even in the most cursory form. All this contradicts the repeated call for information on company activities to be presented to the WGWAP and observer organizations in a timely manner.

− The construction of a new platform fundamentally changes the full Sakhalin II project scope. Prior WGWAP recommendations (which are required by lenders) were based on an assumption that a total of two platforms would be built. The same is true of prior lender decisions, and Russian environmental regulatory decisions. Thus, Sakhalin Energy’s revelation brings into question whether the WGWAP should review the adequacy of prior recommendations.

THE COMPLETE 73 PAGE REPORT (with reference sources)

RELATED ARTICLE: 6 Oil Wells On Sakhalin Go Offline Moscow Times 14 October 2011

By John Donovan

As prominent Internet based critics of Shell senior management, we have received a large number of Shell internal emails over several years. Some have been leaked to us by our network of Shell insiders while countless others, spanning several years, have been obtained from Shell after we made applications to the company as provided under the UK Data Protection Act.

I would now reveal for the first time that our Shell insider sources of leaked internal emails have over the years received alleged threats, including alleged death threats. I have evidence from our sources confirming alleged threats. One such threat for example relates to the Sakhalin2 project. Evidence I provided to the Russian government supplied to me by an insider, cost Shell billions of dollars and also resulted in the resignation of a Shell Managing Director David Greer, who was Project Director of Sakhalin2 and Deputy Chairman of Sakhalin Energy Investment Company Limited. The last message received from the source informed me that they had received a credible serious threat. The source disappeared without trace.

The above and other related information has been added to my recent article: Royal Dutch Shell and the dark arts

Article by Glen Frost, Editor, The PR Report

Yes, 15 billion. This is the claim of John Donovan, a UK blogger who campaigns against  the global oil producing giant Shell (full name Royal Dutch Shell) using his blog www.royaldutchshellplc.com .

Arguably the most powerful blog in the world dedicated to covering one company; and intrigued as to how the site developed such influence, Glen Frost met with the blog’s founders, John and Alfred Donovan, to get the full story.

EXTRACTS

The blog is now so popular, and trusted, the site appears on the front page of major newspapers (see pictures), and has ex‐employees from Shell contributing regular articles

The Russian connection: the scoop that made the  Donovan’s blog famous

The Donovans had been collecting and publishing information online about Shell’s activities since 2001; this information dates back to the mid 1980’s and their former business relationship with Shell. Over the years, more and more people in the oil industry discovered the website, and the Donovan’ s have been swamped with information about Shell from both suppliers, contractors, insiders and former employees.

Some of this information concerned Shell’s activities in Russia from 1996. A Shell‐led consortium (called Sakhalin Energy) and the Russian Government entered into a production sharing agreement. It was information on alleged environmental abuses by the consortium from the Donovan’ s that killed the deal. John Donovan said he suspected his information was the trigger but didn’t know for sure until Oleg Mitvol, a senior figure in the Russian Government, stated so in a media interview.

Asked by a journalist from PetroleumArgus, a trade magazine, who his sources were for the environmental abuse charges that Mitvol laid against the Sakhalin Energy consortium, Mitvol, then deputy head of Russia’s environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor, said he had “email correspondence between executives in Sakhalin Energy management from 2002.”

The compromising material had come from Donovan, owner and blogger of the anti‐Shell website www.royaldutchshellplc.com, Mitvol said.

Donovan estimates the value lost to Shell is US$15 billion.

The Donovan’s website is a full frontal attack on Shell’s management and ethics. Shell has tried to shut the site down on the grounds that it uses the company name. However, the site www.royaldutchshellplc.com  makes no money, and, crucially, is registered in the USA, where laws on websites are weighted in favour of the domain owner.

“Our site receives up to 2.2 million hits a month; we want it to become a magnet for people who have a problem with the
company,” says Donovan.  “Many of the people using the site are Shell employees.

Blog publishes market sensitive information

Donovan publishes market sensitive information on the site, and he, and the website, are now quoted by esteemed news organisations like Reuters and The Financial Times. For example, Donovan  published information questioning the level of Shell’s reserves, in which the company was found to have inflated its oil and gas reserves by some 20% in 2003‐04, which led to negative media headlines.

The picture (right; The Daily mail, UK 8th Sept 2009) shows how Donovan’s blog published details of staff cuts before Shell had announced them to the markets and the media.

Because of the blog, and the Donovan’s insistence on publishing all information he can verify about Shell, good and bad, John Donovan’s influence with the media is now global, instant and at a senior level – John lists the names of all the UK, US and global media outlets, their Editors or senior correspondents covering corporate news or the oil sector as his contacts.

Shell’s external PR advisors

A post on the Donovan’s website links to an article in a recently published book on corporate reputation and the rise of blog sites that attack, or expose, poor corporate ethics and illegal or dubious corporate activity, and what CEOs should do about such sites; http://www.shellnews.net/images/CorporateReputationAED.pdf ‐ the book is written by Dr Leslie Gaines‐Ross, who, incidentally, was previously CMO of Burson‐Marsteller USA, who manage Shell’s public relations.

FULL ARTICLE (FREE SUBSCRIPTION)
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EXTRACT FROM BOOK REFERRED TO ABOVE: “REPUTATION LOSS – 12 Steps to safeguarding and Recovering Reputation”

One such empowered activist is arch Shell critic Alfred Donovan. No one was more surprised than Royal Dutch Shell PLC to learn that this 88-year-old British army veteran had purchased the Internet domain name www.royaldutchshellplc.com. The gadfly Donovan was a well-known, though underestimated, critic of the company. By acquiring the domain name, Donovan obtained the perfect platform to voice his criticisms of the oil giant. Who would have thought a decade ago that such an unlikely individual could stand up to a corporate powerhouse, waging a war of words against one of the world’s largest companies?