THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 18 SEPTEMBER 2026
SLF-2007-061
The Sakhalin Papers LI: The Billion-Rouble Exit Price — Novatek, Gazprom and the US$1 Billion Shell Still Could Not Simply Collect
In April 2023, the Russian government put a precise price on the 27.5% Sakhalin II interest Shell had declined to take in the replacement Russian operator: 94.8 billion roubles. Novatek was approved as purchaser. Shell’s response was immediate — no money had been received and its legal rights remained intact. Eleven months later, Moscow cancelled the Novatek arrangement and substituted a Gazprom-owned company at exactly the same price. The stake changed hands. The cash did not simply pass to Shell. By 2024, the 94 billion-rouble pot had become entangled with restricted-account rules and a much larger Russian claim against Shell. The corporate exit announced in February 2022 had become a battle over who was entitled to the exit proceeds.
1. A price finally appeared
The previous instalment followed Shell out of the operating Sakhalin II project.
By April 2023, Moscow had reached the next stage.
Russian Government Order No. 890-r, dated 11 April 2023, approved the sale of the unclaimed 27.49999998621683%interest in the new Sakhalin Energy LLC for:
94.8 billion roubles
and designated Novatek Moscow Region LLC as purchaser. Interfax reported that the order had been published through Russia’s official legal-information system. (Interfax)
At the exchange rate quoted in contemporaneous Reuters reporting, that amounted to approximately US$1.16 billion. (Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com) read more
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.
68 disputed documents, allegations concerning disclosure of Kent Quinlan’s identity, a reserved Supreme Court judgment—and ASIC has already been urged in Parliament to examine the case
The long-running litigation between former ERM Power executive Kent Quinlan and Shell Energy Operations Pty Ltd has reached another potentially important stage, with the Supreme Court of Queensland being asked to determine how legal professional privilege interacts with Australia’s statutory protections for corporate whistleblowers. read more
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Tagged: Australia · John Donovan · Litigation · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell

Australia’s offshore regulator says a Prelude FLNG technician suffered hand fractures after turning gear moved unexpectedly during a manual engagement task. NOPSEMA found that Shell had not implemented effective engineering controls to prevent automatic operation and was relying too heavily on procedures, communication and worker actions to control hazardous energy.
Shell Australia has been issued with a new occupational health and safety improvement notice at Prelude FLNG after a worker suffered fracture injuries to the hand during the startup of a steam turbine generator. read more
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Shell-led LNG Canada could make a final investment decision on Phase 2 as early as October, according to Reuters. If approved, the expansion would roughly double the Kitimat facility’s capacity from 14 million tonnes a year to about 28 million tonnes. More importantly, it would connect Shell’s enlarged Western Canadian gas position directly to Asian LNG markets at a time when buyers are increasingly concerned about supply security.
Shell may be approaching one of the most consequential investment decisions in its global LNG portfolio. read more
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Shell’s chief economist says global energy markets have so far absorbed an extraordinary loss of oil and LNG supply from the Middle East. But the mechanisms that cushioned the blow — weaker demand, inventory drawdowns, spare infrastructure and rising American production — are wearing thin. Europe enters winter with unusually low gas stocks. Asian buyers are already retreating from expensive LNG. And Shell warns that even reopening disrupted trade routes would not immediately restore normal conditions. read more
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Wikipedia segment, the
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Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
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THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 17 SEPTEMBER 2026
SLF-2007-060
The Sakhalin Papers L: The Exit — Shell Walks Away, Moscow Rewrites the Ownership and Sakhalin II Enters a New Era
On 28 February 2022, Shell announced that it would leave Sakhalin II. Within weeks its directors had resigned from the venture and its managerial and technical personnel were being withdrawn. Then the legal structure itself changed. A Russian presidential decree transferred the project’s licences, rights and obligations from the Bermuda-incorporated Sakhalin Energy Investment Company into a newly created Russian company. Shell declined to join it. The Japanese shareholders stayed. More than four years later, Shell still records an interest in the old Bermuda company — and the financial and legal consequences of the exit remain the subject of litigation in Moscow.


1. Four days that changed Shell’s Russian strategy
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
Four days later, on 28 February, Shell plc announced that its Board intended to withdraw from its joint ventures with Gazprom and related Russian entities.
The announcement specifically included:
Shell’s 27.5% minus one share interest in Sakhalin II;
its 50% interest in Salym Petroleum Development;
the Gydan Energy venture;
and its involvement in Nord Stream 2.
Shell said the decision had been taken in response to the invasion and that it would work through the commercial and energy-supply consequences while complying with sanctions. (Shell) read more
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here. There is also a
Wikipedia segment, the
Shell DPA Files,
"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
*All created and supported by internet wizz,
Nick Gill.
Posted in: AI, ChatGPT, Environment, Gas, Gazprom, GoogleNews, John Donovan, Litigation, Oil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Russia, Sakhalin, Sakhalin 2, Sakhalin II, Shell.
Tagged: Environment · Gas · Gazprom · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Russia · Shell

The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) has completed its investigation into the June 4, 2025 explosion and fire at Shell Polymers Monaca in Pennsylvania, an incident that caused extensive damage to the giant petrochemical complex and could, under slightly different circumstances, have had far more serious consequences.
The central finding is troubling: a known potentially catastrophic hazard was being controlled largely through procedures and human intervention when an engineered safeguard could have provided a stronger line of defence. read more
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Wikipedia segment, the
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Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
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THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 16 SEPTEMBER 2026
SLF-2007-059
The Sakhalin Papers XLIX: “Unfinished Business” — Seventeen Years, 639 Recommendations and the End of the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel
In November 2021, the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel met for the last time. Its seventeen-year experiment in independent scientific oversight had changed pipelines, seismic-survey procedures, vessel management and corporate environmental practice. An independent evaluation concluded that it had materially reduced risks to the whales. Yet when the Panel closed, essential questions about prey, data access, cumulative impacts and long-term monitoring remained unresolved. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Shell and Exxon began withdrawing. The institutional structure that had held companies, scientists, lenders, regulators and NGOs around the same table abruptly entered a different world.



1. The final meeting
The Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel held its 22nd and final meeting at IUCN headquarters in Gland, Switzerland, in November 2021.
It was the end of an experiment begun in 2004, when an Independent Scientific Review Panel was convened to assess the potential effects of Sakhalin II Phase 2 on the gray whales feeding off north-eastern Sakhalin.
The later WGWAP arrangement was unusual.
Sakhalin Energy helped finance the process.
IUCN administered it.
Independent scientists produced the recommendations. read more
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here. There is also a
Wikipedia segment, the
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"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
*All created and supported by internet wizz,
Nick Gill.
Posted in: AI, Business Principles, ChatGPT, Environment, Gas, Gazprom, GoogleNews, John Donovan, Litigation, Oil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Russia, Sakhalin, Sakhalin 2, Sakhalin II, Shell, Shell PLC.
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High Court ruling allows Bille community to argue that Shell is responsible for all relevant oil pollution in the region — including pollution that cannot be traced to one of 106 individually identified spills
A major new dimension has emerged in the long-running litigation over Shell-related oil pollution in Nigeria’s Niger Delta.
On 10 September 2026, Mrs Justice Lambert handed down judgment in Alame & Ors v Shell Plc & Anor [2026] EWHC 2332 (KB).
Much attention has understandably focused on another part of the ruling: allegations that Shell witnesses knowingly relied upon false or misleading factual assertions during the company’s earlier jurisdiction challenge are now to be dealt with as the litigation moves towards trial. read more
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Wikipedia segment, the
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"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
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Tagged: Environment · John Donovan · Litigation · Niger Delta · Nigeria · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 15 SEPTEMBER 2026
SLF-2007-058
The Sakhalin Papers XLVIII: “A Philosophical Difference” — When Regulatory Compliance Was Not Enough for the Scientists
In November 2020, Sakhalin Energy and its independent scientific advisers arrived at an unusually candid point of disagreement. The company could satisfy Russian regulatory requirements and still fail to satisfy the evidential standards expected by the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel. The meeting record captured the difference in a phrase rarely encountered in corporate environmental reporting: there would always be a “philosophical difference” between conservation scientists and an oil company.


1. A meeting held in exceptional circumstances
The 21st meeting of the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel — WGWAP — took place by videoconference from 17 to 19 November 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
By then the Panel had spent well over a decade advising Sakhalin Energy on the protection of the endangered gray whales feeding off north-eastern Sakhalin.
Shell’s own Sustainability Report 2020 described WGWAP as an independent scientific panel established by IUCN to help mitigate environmental impacts. Shell stated that the Panel continued to advise Sakhalin Energy, in which Shell then held a 27.5% interest, and that WGWAP was preparing its final conclusions for release in 2021. (Shell) read more
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here. There is also a
Wikipedia segment, the
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"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
*All created and supported by internet wizz,
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Shell Spying, Corporate Intelligence and Security: Documentary Chronology
Four of the most important emails.
1. 24 June 1998 — Richard Wiseman admits the Shell connection to Christopher Phillips.
This moves the story beyond pure allegation.
Read the document
2. 9 July 1998 — Wiseman: “The activities of Mr Phillips have, of course, been admitted.”
A particularly clear contemporaneous formulation. (johndonovan.website)
Read the document
3. 21 March 2007 — Shell’s global monitoring email.
The strongest evidence that Shell later monitored global internal email and website traffic in an effort to identify sources communicating with Donovan. (shellnews.net)
Read the Shell internal email read more
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here. There is also a
Wikipedia segment, the
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"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
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THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 14 SEPTEMBER 2026
SLF-2007-057
The Sakhalin Papers XLVII: The Feeding Ground Was Losing Its Food — WGWAP’s 2019 Benthos Alarm
For fifteen years, oil companies operating off north-eastern Sakhalin financed a programme that measured the tiny bottom-dwelling animals on which gray whales depended. Then something changed. Amphipod biomass in the nearshore Piltun feeding ground began falling sharply in 2013 and reached the lowest level in the entire monitoring series in 2016. That same year, the industry-sponsored benthic programme ended. Three years later, the independent Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel issued an unusually stark public warning: the whales’ traditional nearshore feeding ground might be losing the capacity to support them.



1. The problem was beneath the whales
Much of the Sakhalin controversy had been visible above or within the water column.
Platforms.
Pipelines.
Ships.
Dredging.
Seismic airguns.
Fishing nets.
But the next warning came from the seabed.
Gray whales are benthic feeders. Off Sakhalin, they descend to the seafloor and consume large quantities of small invertebrates living in or immediately above the sediment.
In the shallow nearshore feeding area around Piltun Lagoon, one of the principal prey species was the amphipod Monoporeia affinis. read more
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Wikipedia segment, the
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"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
*All created and supported by internet wizz,
Nick Gill.
Posted in: AI, Business Principles, ChatGPT, Environment, Fossil Fuels, Gas, Gazprom, GoogleNews, John Donovan, Litigation, Oil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Russia, Sakhalin, Sakhalin 2, Sakhalin II, Shell.
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Beyond the Shareholder Verdict: Four AI Systems Examine Who Gains, Who Loses — and Why the Independent Shell Archive Matters
By John Donovan
The original question was deliberately simple:
Are Shell plc shareholders better off with or without royaldutchshellplc.com?
Claude, Grok, Gemini and use.ai all ultimately reached the same broad conclusion: shareholders are better off with the independent archive than without it.
But the exercise did not end there.
The four AI systems were subsequently asked to look much deeper: at trust in Shell management and corporate PR, at evidential reliability, and finally at the interests of other stakeholders including employees, directors, regulators, trade unions, journalists and the general public. read more
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here. There is also a
Wikipedia segment, the
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"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
*All created and supported by internet wizz,
Nick Gill.
Posted in: Business Principles, Environment, GoogleNews, John Donovan, Litigation, Oil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Shell.
Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell

Shell plc unofficial website
The primary independent and critical unofficial website monitoring Shell plc is Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Key details about the site
Ownership: The website is owned and operated by John Donovan, who has maintained a decades-long public record concerning Shell and the long-running Donovan–Shell dispute.
Content: It publishes critical commentary, current Shell news, historical research and extensive documentary archives concerning Shell’s business activities, corporate governance, litigation and controversies. read more
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here. There is also a
Wikipedia segment, the
Shell DPA Files,
"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
*All created and supported by internet wizz,
Nick Gill.
Posted in: Business Principles, Environment, Gas, GoogleNews, John Donovan, Litigation, Oil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Shell.
Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 13 SEPTEMBER 2026
SLF-2007-056
The Sakhalin Papers XLVI: One in Five Bore the Scars — When Fishing Nets Became the Next Major Threat
The western gray whales feeding off Sakhalin were recovering. Their IUCN status would soon improve. But another danger was becoming impossible to ignore. In 2013, Sakhalin Energy personnel photographed mothers and calves within 100 metres of newly deployed salmon nets near Piltun Lagoon. By 2018, peer-reviewed research found evidence of fishing-gear injury on 28 of 150 photographed whales — 18.7 per cent. The same research classified coastal salmon set nets near Piltun as presenting a “very high” entanglement risk. The documentary record also contains an important complication: this was not an impact caused by Shell’s oil and gas operations. Sakhalin Energy helped identify and report the threat.
1. The recovery did not remove the danger
The previous instalment ended with an apparently contradictory picture.
The whales feeding off north-eastern Sakhalin were increasing in number. By 2018 the IUCN would move the western subpopulation from Critically Endangered to Endangered.
Yet recovery did not mean security.
A small population recovering from historical commercial whaling remained vulnerable to relatively few avoidable deaths — particularly deaths of reproductive females and calves.
And one of the next dangers to emerge was not an oil platform, seismic airgun or tanker. read more
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here. There is also a
Wikipedia segment, the
Shell DPA Files,
"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
*All created and supported by internet wizz,
Nick Gill.
Posted in: A History of Royal Dutch Shell, AI, Business Principles, ChatGPT, Gas, Gazprom, GoogleNews, John Donovan, Litigation, Oil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Russia, Sakhalin, Sakhalin 2, Sakhalin II, Shell, Shell PLC.
THE SHELL LEAKS FILES — 12 SEPTEMBER 2026
Archive reference: SLF-2007-055
The Sakhalin Papers XLV: From Critically Endangered to Endangered — What the Whale Recovery Did, and Did Not, Prove
By 2016, Shell could point to a genuinely encouraging development off Sakhalin: the western gray whales feeding near its giant oil and gas project were increasing in number. Shell’s own Sustainability Report recorded an estimated rise from 115 animals in 2004 to 174 in 2015. Independent conservation organisations reported the same trend. Two years later, the IUCN changed the western gray whale’s status from Critically Endangered to Endangered.
That was real progress. But the documentary record does not establish that Shell caused the recovery, that industrial disturbance had ceased to matter, or that the whales were safe. In fact, the independent scientific record becomes more complicated precisely at the point where the headline numbers begin to look most reassuring. read more
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here. There is also a
Wikipedia segment, the
Shell DPA Files,
"Shell and the Spies",
the Shell Leaks files, as well as books written and published by John Donovan -
Kindle eBooks.
Timeline of the Donovan Shell Feud.
Toxic History of Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell and the Donovans: The Full Media Record — 550+ Articles, 110 Books, 40 Years.
*All created and supported by internet wizz,
Nick Gill.
Posted in: AI, Business Principles, ChatGPT, Environment, Gas, Gazprom, GoogleNews, John Donovan, Litigation, Nigeria, Oil, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Russia, Sakhalin, Sakhalin 2, Sakhalin II, Shell, Shell PLC.
Tagged: Environment · Gas · Gazprom · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Russia · Shell