THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 5 OCTOBER 2026
SLF-2007-078
The Sakhalin Papers LXVIII: From Siberia to the Arctic — Shell Takes the Gazprom Partnership Into Russia’s New Frontier
Forty days after Shell announced that it would pause its Alaskan Arctic drilling programme following the troubled 2012 season, Royal Dutch Shell chairman Jorma Ollila sat in Amsterdam with Gazprom chief Alexey Miller and signed a memorandum for cooperation on Russia’s Arctic shelf. Vladimir Putin and Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte were present. A parallel Shell–Gazprom Neft agreement targeted liquids-rich shale in Western Siberia. Shell had not abandoned its Arctic strategy after the grounding of the Kulluk. It had begun pursuing another Arctic frontier — this time through the Russian state company that had taken control of Sakhalin II.
Archive reference: SLF-2007-078
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Principal authenticated records: Royal Dutch Shell plc Annual Report and Form 20-F 2013; Gazprom corporate chronology and April 2013 corporate record; US Department of the Interior assessment of Shell’s 2012 Arctic operations; National Transportation Safety Board investigation of the Kulluk grounding
Court record: Shell Offshore, Inc. v. Greenpeace, Inc., 709 F.3d 1281 (9th Cir. 2013)
Contemporaneous reporting: UPI; RIA Novosti reporting; Daily Telegraph reporting preserved in the Donovan archive
Evidence standard: The Alaska pause, Kulluk grounding, US government review, April 2013 Gazprom–Shell memorandum and parallel shale agreement are established documentary facts. The Russian agreement is treated as a framework for potential cooperation, not as evidence that specific Arctic fields were awarded to Shell or that production was authorised. The proximity in time between the Alaska setbacks and the Russian agreement is established; any proposition that the Russian Arctic was a direct replacement for Alaska remains commentary rather than documented Shell policy.
Introduction
The sequence is remarkable.
On 31 December 2012, Shell’s Arctic drilling unit Kulluk grounded on the coast of Sitkalidak Island, Alaska, after a tow encountered severe weather.
On 27 February 2013, Shell announced that it would pause exploration drilling in Alaska’s Beaufort and Chukchi seas for the 2013 season.
On 14 March, the US Department of the Interior published a high-level review identifying shortcomings in Shell’s planning, management and contractor oversight.
Then, on:
8 April 2013
Shell and Gazprom signed a memorandum concerning hydrocarbon exploration and development on:
Russia’s Arctic shelf.
The interval between Shell announcing its Alaska pause and signing the Russian Arctic memorandum was just:
40 days.
That does not establish that one decision caused the other.
But it establishes something almost as important.
Shell’s troubled Alaskan campaign had not destroyed its strategic appetite for the Arctic.
It had changed the geography.
And in Russia, access would depend upon partnership with Gazprom. U.S. Department of the Interior
1. The Kulluk had ended 2012 on the rocks
Shell’s 2012 Alaska campaign had already encountered difficulties before the Kulluk grounding.
Its oil-spill containment system had not been certified in time for drilling into hydrocarbon-bearing zones.
A containment dome was damaged during testing.
The Noble Discoverer, Shell’s other drilling vessel, experienced maritime problems.
Then came the most visible event of all.
While being towed south after the drilling season, the Kulluk encountered worsening weather. Towlines failed. The towing vessel Aiviq lost engine power. The Kulluk crew was eventually evacuated.
On the evening of 31 December 2012, the drilling unit grounded near Ocean Bay on Sitkalidak Island. NTSB
The grounding became the defining image of Shell’s first modern Alaskan Arctic drilling season.
2. Shell itself later acknowledged the difficulties
Shell’s authenticated Annual Report and Form 20-F 2013 is particularly useful because it gives the company’s own account.
Shell said that the 2012 top-hole drilling operations themselves had been conducted safely and that they had prepared the ground for further drilling.
But it also acknowledged:
“there were challenges.”
Shell specifically identified difficulty consistently meeting US Environmental Protection Agency air-permit requirements and problems associated with moving the Kulluk out of Alaska after the drilling season.
The company then recorded that it had paused exploration drilling in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas during 2013 in order to prepare its equipment and plans for a resumption. Shell
That is Shell’s own SEC-filed account.
3. The US government was less restrained
The Department of the Interior published its review on 14 March 2013.
The review examined Shell’s preparations, maritime operations and emergency-response arrangements.
It highlighted:
the delayed certification of the Arctic Challenger containment vessel;
difficulty deploying the containment dome;
serious marine-transport problems involving both drilling units;
and the Kulluk grounding.
The Department concluded that Arctic work required unusually rigorous preparation, contractor supervision and management attention.
Its assessment was blunt:
Shell had performed well in some areas —
but not in others.
The Department recommended that Shell produce a comprehensive integrated operations plan before returning and undergo a full independent third-party audit of its management systems. U.S. Department of the Interior
This was not an environmental campaign assessment.
It was the United States Department of the Interior.
4. The Department identified contractor management as a weakness
The official review also went beyond the individual incidents.
It identified shortcomings in Shell’s management of contractors involved in containment systems, emissions and maritime operations.
That distinction matters.
Shell sometimes characterised its 2012 difficulties as maritime or logistical rather than drilling failures.
That was not entirely wrong: the Kulluk grounded while under tow after the drilling season.
But the government review treated the incidents as relevant to the wider management system necessary for Arctic operations.
The question was not simply whether a drill bit had malfunctioned.
The question was whether the entire system required to operate safely in an exceptionally hostile environment was robust enough. U.S. Department of the Interior
5. A court victory for Shell came two days before the government report
There was another development in March 2013.
On 12 March, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided:
Shell Offshore, Inc. v. Greenpeace, Inc.
Greenpeace had challenged a preliminary injunction restricting activists from approaching Shell vessels or engaging in unlawful interference with the company’s Arctic fleet.
The Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction.
It accepted that interference with the vessels could create risks to people, property and the environment and concluded that the district court had not abused its discretion. Justia Law
But the judicial finding must be stated accurately.
The court did not decide that Shell’s Arctic drilling programme was environmentally safe.
It did not approve Shell’s drilling plans.
It did not adjudicate the Kulluk grounding.
And it did not reject Greenpeace’s environmental criticism of Arctic oil exploration.
The case concerned an injunction against interference with Shell’s vessels.
That is its proper evidential boundary.
6. Then came 8 April
Less than a month after the Interior Department report, the Shell-Gazprom relationship moved into the Arctic.
Gazprom’s own corporate chronology records that in April 2013 it signed with Royal Dutch Shell:
a memorandum setting out principles for cooperation in hydrocarbon exploration and development on Russia’s Arctic shelf
and on a deep-water offshore area outside Russia. Gazprom
Contemporaneous reporting fixes the date:
8 April 2013.
Alexey Miller, chairman of Gazprom’s Management Committee, and Jorma Ollila, chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, signed the memorandum in Amsterdam.
Present were:
Russian President Vladimir Putin
and
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. UPI
This was not a minor technical meeting.
The political symbolism was unmistakable.
7. The agreement was broader than one Arctic field
Contemporary reporting quoted Miller explaining that the agreement covered Arctic cooperation generally rather than a single identified deposit.
UPI similarly described it as a framework for exploration of the Russian Arctic without naming a particular reserve basin. Hürriyet Daily News
That is an important qualification.
Some contemporary Russian reporting identified prospective fields and discussed possible Shell equity percentages.
But the memorandum itself should not be converted into a completed field award.
The authenticated Gazprom record says that principles of cooperation were agreed.
It does not establish that Shell received title to a specified Arctic licence on 8 April.
8. Russia’s legal structure made Gazprom crucial
Contemporaneous RIA Novosti reporting, carried internationally at the time, explained another important point.
Russian rules then restricted development of the country’s continental shelf to companies meeting state-ownership and offshore-experience requirements.
Gazprom and Rosneft were the companies that satisfied those conditions.
An international oil company such as Shell could therefore not simply acquire a Russian Arctic licence and proceed independently.
It needed a qualifying Russian state-controlled partner. Hürriyet Daily News
That made the Shell-Gazprom relationship strategically valuable in a way extending far beyond Sakhalin.
Gazprom did not merely possess resources.
It possessed access.
9. Sakhalin II had provided the operating precedent
The April memorandum did not emerge from an entirely new relationship.
Shell and Gazprom had spent years learning to operate together at Sakhalin II.
By 2013, Shell still owned:
27.5 per cent
of the project.
Shell’s Annual Report says Sakhalin II produced approximately:
320,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day
and more than:
10 million tonnes of LNG
during 2013. Shell
Shell’s equity LNG sales from Sakhalin amounted to approximately:
2.9 million tonnes
that year. Shell
This was the commercial foundation beneath the Arctic diplomacy.
The Shell-Gazprom partnership was not theoretical.
It was already operating one of the world’s largest integrated oil and gas projects.
10. Western Siberia supplied another precedent
Shell also retained its 50 per cent interest in the Salym oilfields.
Its 2013 annual report records production of approximately:
145,000 boe per day
from Salym that year. Shell
Salym was jointly owned with Gazprom Neft.
So by April 2013 Shell’s Russian partnership architecture contained two important models.
At Sakhalin II:
Shell was the minority partner of Gazprom.
At Salym:
Shell and Gazprom Neft were equal partners.
The new Arctic and shale agreements drew directly upon that experience.
11. The same Amsterdam meeting produced a second agreement
The Arctic memorandum was only half the story.
Gazprom Neft chief Alexander Dyukov and Shell Upstream International director Andy Brown also signed a memorandum concerning:
liquids-rich shale development in Western Siberia.
The Gazprom Neft corporate account said this confirmed the companies’ partnership arrangements for exploration and development of shale resources.
The proposed structure envisaged equal participation and built upon the companies’ existing Salym relationship. Euro-Petrole
The April agreements therefore pushed Shell and the Gazprom group in two frontier directions simultaneously:
offshore Arctic hydrocarbons;
and unconventional onshore oil.
12. Shell’s chief executive said the partnership had reached “a new level”
Peter Voser’s public explanation is important.
The Gazprom Neft account quoted him saying that the agreements brought the partnership:
“to a new level”.
Voser specifically invoked the companies’ long experience together at:
Sakhalin II
and
Salym,
and said Shell welcomed the opportunity to apply that experience and its technology to Arctic operations and shale-oil development. Euro-Petrole
The connection to this archive could hardly be clearer.
Sakhalin II was no longer merely an asset whose control Shell had lost.
Shell itself was presenting the partnership developed there as a foundation for future Russian expansion.
13. The timing was noticed immediately
The contrast with Alaska was obvious to contemporary journalists.
On 4 April 2013, before the Amsterdam signing, Daily Telegraph reporting preserved in this archive noted that Shell was preparing a fresh Arctic initiative with Gazprom only weeks after delaying its Alaskan campaign following the setbacks of 2012. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
That contemporaneous observation matters because it removes hindsight from the comparison.
The juxtaposition was evident at the time.
Shell was pausing in one Arctic jurisdiction.
It was simultaneously preparing to expand into another.
14. But “Shell switched from Alaska to Russia” would go too far
There is no document examined for this instalment in which Shell says:
Because Alaska went badly, we will replace it with Russia.
There is no evidence that the Russian negotiations began only after the Kulluk grounded.
Large international energy agreements normally develop over substantial periods.
And Shell continued to describe Alaska as a prospective long-term opportunity.
It would therefore be misleading to suggest that the April agreement represented an immediate geographical substitution.
What the chronology does establish is narrower and more defensible:
the Alaska problems did not cause Shell to abandon Arctic oil as a strategic objective.
Forty days after announcing its Alaska drilling pause, Shell signed a framework to examine Russian Arctic development with Gazprom.
15. Shell’s own annual report confirms that the Arctic remained strategic
The 2013 Form 20-F settles this point.
In its strategy discussion, Shell identified longer-term opportunities including:
tight oil and shale;
heavy oil;
and:
the Arctic.
It said large reserve positions might become available in those areas, with development paced by market conditions, local operating circumstances and regulation. Shell
In other words, the Arctic remained within Shell’s long-term portfolio strategy even after the events of 2012.
Alaska had been paused.
The strategic thesis had not.
16. Shell simultaneously warned shareholders how dangerous the Arctic could be
The same authenticated document contains the necessary counterweight.
Shell’s risk section specifically identified operations in difficult geographical and climatic areas, including the Arctic and maritime environments.
It warned that major HSSE events could lead to:
injuries;
loss of life;
environmental damage;
business disruption;
reputational damage;
and potentially:
loss of licence to operate. Shell
This was generic corporate risk disclosure.
It was not a statement about the Gazprom memorandum specifically.
But once again the juxtaposition is striking.
Shell was identifying the Arctic as both:
a long-term resource opportunity;
and
an environment carrying exceptional operational and reputational risk.
17. Access to reserves also depended on governments
Shell’s same risk disclosure contains another sentence that bears directly upon Russia.
The company said future oil and gas production depended partly upon gaining access to new reserves through:
negotiations with governments and other resource owners. Shell
That observation was global.
It was not written specifically about Gazprom.
But the Russian Arctic was an unusually clear example of the principle.
Shell possessed capital and technology.
It did not control the Russian state’s offshore licence system.
Partnership with Gazprom supplied something Shell could not manufacture for itself:
political and legal access to the resource base.
18. The Kulluk story subsequently became even more serious
The April 2013 Russian agreement preceded the final US investigation of the Kulluk casualty.
The later National Transportation Safety Board finding is therefore included here as a retrospective official record, not as information available to Shell when it signed in Amsterdam.
The NTSB ultimately determined that the probable cause of the grounding was:
Shell’s inadequate assessment of the risks of the planned tow,
which resulted in a tow plan insufficient to mitigate those risks. NTSB
That finding is significant because responsibility was not confined to bad weather or an unfortunate contractor mishap.
The federal accident investigator placed the central deficiency in Shell’s risk assessment and tow planning.
19. That does not establish anything about Russian Arctic operations
The NTSB finding must not be stretched beyond its jurisdiction.
It concerned one tow involving the Kulluk in Alaska.
It did not assess Gazprom.
It did not assess Russian Arctic drilling plans.
It did not determine that Shell was incapable of safely operating elsewhere in the Arctic.
It did not examine the April 2013 memorandum.
The legitimate historical point is therefore comparative, not legal:
Shell was pursuing another Arctic opportunity while the consequences of its first Alaskan campaign were still being investigated.
20. Nor was Shell already drilling with Gazprom in the Russian Arctic
Another distinction is essential.
The April memorandum expressed an intention to cooperate.
It did not mean that Shell immediately began drilling a Russian Arctic well.
Indeed, later in 2013 Shell itself told Dutch media, during controversy over Gazprom and Greenpeace, that it was not then conducting joint Arctic operations with Gazprom.
The framework and the operating project must not be confused. NOS
The April agreement established direction.
Implementation remained ahead.
21. Nevertheless, the direction could hardly have been clearer
By this stage the documentary sequence had become remarkable.
2006
Shell agrees to surrender control of Sakhalin II.
2007
Gazprom becomes controlling shareholder.
2009
Sakhalin LNG begins production.
2010
Shell and Gazprom sign a Protocol on Strategic Global Cooperation.
2011
Shell and Gazprom Neft investigate a wider joint venture.
2013
Shell and Gazprom agree principles for cooperation on the Russian Arctic shelf.
This was not merely the continuation of an inherited investment.
The relationship was expanding geographically and technologically.
22. The partner that took control had become the gateway to the next frontier
This is where documentary fact ends and interpretation begins.
The public record does not establish that Shell trusted Gazprom politically.
It does not establish that Shell had forgotten the events of 2006.
It does not establish that Shell regarded the Russian investment climate as low risk.
Indeed, Shell’s own SEC filings routinely warned about political risk, expropriation and contractual renegotiation.
But Shell’s behaviour demonstrates something important.
Gazprom had become useful to Shell not simply because it controlled Sakhalin Energy.
It controlled access to opportunities that Shell wanted.
The Arctic sharpened that dependency.
A foreign company could possess enormous technical capability and still require a Russian state company to reach the resource.
23. The Alaska experience should have made the Arctic risks impossible to romanticise
By April 2013 Shell had already learned that Arctic exploration involved much more than geological promise.
It required:
specialised vessels;
spill-response capability;
containment systems;
weather forecasting;
marine logistics;
contractor management;
environmental approvals;
regulatory coordination;
and the ability to recover from failures far from conventional infrastructure.
The Interior Department review had made precisely that point.
The Arctic was not merely a large reserve map coloured white.
It was an integrated risk system. U.S. Department of the Interior
The Russian Arctic would not repeal those physical realities.
It would add a different political and legal environment to them.
24. Yet Shell still saw the prize
This is perhaps the central conclusion of the file.
The events of 2012 had demonstrated how badly Arctic logistics could go.
The 2013 government review had demonstrated how closely Shell’s management systems would be scrutinised.
Shell’s own annual report acknowledged environmental and operational risks.
And yet Shell still listed the Arctic among its long-term growth opportunities.
Then it signed with Gazprom.
That combination tells us more about the scale Shell attributed to the potential prize than any corporate slogan could.
For Shell, the Arctic remained worth pursuing.
Documentary Findings
Established
The Shell-owned Kulluk grounded near Sitkalidak Island, Alaska, on 31 December 2012 while under tow. NTSB
Shell announced on 27 February 2013 that it would pause offshore Alaska exploration drilling for the 2013 season. The US Department of the Interior subsequently recorded that decision in its official review. U.S. Department of the Interior
On 14 March 2013, the Department of the Interior published an assessment identifying difficulties involving Shell’s containment system, marine transport and contractor management and recommended an integrated operating plan and independent audit. U.S. Department of the Interior
On 8 April 2013, Alexey Miller and Jorma Ollila signed a memorandum setting out principles for Gazprom-Shell cooperation in hydrocarbon exploration and development on Russia’s Arctic shelf and a deep-water offshore project outside Russia. Putin and Rutte were present. Gazprom
Shell and Gazprom Neft simultaneously advanced cooperation concerning liquids-rich shale resources in Western Siberia. Euro-Petrole
Shell’s 2013 Annual Report recorded a 27.5 per cent Sakhalin II interest, with the project producing approximately 320,000 boe/d and more than 10 million tonnes of LNG that year. Shell
The same filing recorded Shell’s 50 per cent Salym interest, with production of approximately 145,000 boe/d. Shell
Shell continued to identify the Arctic and unconventional resources among its longer-term strategic opportunities. Shell
Established court record
On 12 March 2013, the Ninth Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction restricting Greenpeace interference with Shell’s Arctic vessels.
The litigation concerned vessel interference and safety zones.
It was not a judicial endorsement of the environmental safety of Shell’s Arctic drilling programme. Justia Law
Later official finding
The National Transportation Safety Board subsequently determined that the probable cause of the Kulluk grounding was Shell’s inadequate assessment of tow risk and an insufficient tow plan. NTSB
That later finding concerns the Alaska casualty and should not be treated as a finding about Gazprom or Russian Arctic operations.
Not established
The documentary record examined here does not establish that the April 2013 Russian Arctic agreement was a direct replacement for Shell’s Alaskan programme.
It does not establish that Gazprom promised Shell a particular Russian Arctic field in exchange for any earlier Sakhalin concession.
It does not establish that the April memorandum itself transferred an Arctic production licence to Shell.
It does not establish that any field percentages discussed in contemporary press reports became completed Shell ownership interests.
It does not establish that Shell had begun joint Arctic drilling with Gazprom in April 2013.
And it does not establish that the difficulties in Alaska caused Shell’s decision to deepen cooperation with Gazprom.
Commentary
There is an important difference between retreat and redeployment.
Shell retreated operationally from Alaska in 2013.
It did not retreat strategically from the Arctic.
That distinction is written into the documents.
The Kulluk was grounded on New Year’s Eve.
Shell paused Alaska drilling in February.
The United States government issued its critical review in March.
Then Shell signed the Russian Arctic memorandum in April.
The temptation is to describe that as an extraordinary act of corporate stubbornness.
A more useful interpretation is that Shell still believed the underlying resource opportunity outweighed the difficulties it had encountered.
What changed was the structure through which that opportunity might be pursued.
In Alaska, Shell had acquired leases and was trying to operate its own campaign within the American regulatory system.
In Russia, the starting point was different.
Access passed through a state-controlled partner.
And that partner was Gazprom.
The same company that had acquired control of Sakhalin II during the crisis of 2006 was now potentially opening the door to an even more formidable frontier.
There is a historical symmetry here.
Sakhalin taught Shell that geology alone did not determine access to Russian hydrocarbons.
Political power mattered.
Licensing mattered.
The state company mattered.
By 2013 Shell was no longer trying to work around that reality.
It was building its strategy through it.
And Gazprom, for its part, wanted what Shell could supply:
capital;
technology;
project experience;
and international offshore capability.
That is why the April 2013 agreement belongs in the Sakhalin Papers.
It shows what Sakhalin II eventually became.
Not merely an LNG plant.
Not merely a disputed ownership history.
But the institutional foundation of a much wider Shell relationship with the Russian state energy system.
The irony is difficult to avoid.
Shell had lost control at Sakhalin.
Seven years later it was taking the resulting partnership north —
towards the Arctic.
Source Record
Royal Dutch Shell plc’s authenticated Annual Report and Form 20-F 2013 records the company’s Alaska pause, the difficulties involving the Kulluk, its continuing Sakhalin II and Salym interests, and its classification of the Arctic as a longer-term strategic opportunity. The report states that it also served as Shell’s Form 20-F filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Shell
Royal Dutch Shell plc — Annual Report and Form 20-F 2013
Gazprom’s official 2013 corporate chronicle records the April memorandum with Royal Dutch Shell covering exploration and development on Russia’s Arctic shelf and a deep-water offshore area abroad. Gazprom
Gazprom — Chronicle of Gazprom for 2013
The contemporaneous Gazprom Neft account records the parallel Arctic and Western Siberian shale agreements and the companies’ statements concerning the use of their Sakhalin II and Salym experience. Euro-Petrole
Gazprom Neft corporate account — Arctic offshore and Western Siberian shale cooperation, April 2013
UPI contemporaneously reported the 8 April 2013 Amsterdam signing, the presence of Vladimir Putin and Mark Rutte and the framework nature of the Arctic agreement. UPI
UPI — Shell signals intent for Russian Arctic, 9 April 2013
The US Department of the Interior’s 14 March 2013 assessment is the principal governmental record concerning the problems encountered during Shell’s 2012 Alaska programme and the reforms demanded before further operations. U.S. Department of the Interior
US Department of the Interior — Assessment of Shell’s 2012 Arctic Operations
The relevant US judicial record is Shell Offshore, Inc. v. Greenpeace, Inc., 709 F.3d 1281 (9th Cir. 2013), decided on 12 March 2013. Justia Law
US Court of Appeals record — Shell Offshore v. Greenpeace
The National Transportation Safety Board’s completed investigation records the later official probable-cause finding concerning the Kulluk grounding. NTSB
NTSB — Grounding of Mobile Offshore Drilling Unit Kulluk
The Daily Telegraph report of 4 April 2013, preserved in the Donovan archive, provides contemporaneous evidence that the timing of Shell’s renewed Russian Arctic initiative immediately after its Alaska setbacks was already being remarked upon before the agreement was signed. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Donovan archive — Daily Telegraph: Shell to sign Russian Arctic deal, 4 April 2013
Archive disclaimer: A memorandum setting principles for future cooperation is not treated as a completed field development, licence award or final investment decision. Later investigative findings are clearly separated from information available at the time. Judicial findings are confined to the matters actually decided by the courts. Commentary concerning strategic motives is identified as interpretation rather than documentary fact.
Site-wide disclaimer applies.
Next instalment
SLF-2007-079 — The Sakhalin Papers LXIX: “A Good and Reliable Partner” — The Arctic 30 Put Shell’s Gazprom Alliance to the Test
Only five months after the Amsterdam agreement, the Shell-Gazprom Arctic relationship collided with an international political controversy.
On 18 September 2013, Greenpeace activists attempted to protest at Gazprom’s Prirazlomnaya Arctic platform.
The following day Russian forces seized the Arctic Sunrise.
Its 28 activists and two freelance journalists — soon known internationally as the Arctic 30 — were detained.
Greenpeace then turned directly on Shell.
It called upon the company to break its Arctic cooperation with Gazprom and argued that Shell’s relationship gave it influence it should use on behalf of the prisoners. Shell rejected responsibility for the arrests. When asked about the relationship in October, a Shell spokesman described Gazprom as a:
“good and reliable partner.” RD.nl
Shell also stressed that it was not operating the Prirazlomnaya platform and had no joint Arctic operations with Gazprom underway at that moment. NOS
Then, on 20 December 2013, Gazprom announced that Prirazlomnoye had begun producing oil — the first producing hydrocarbon project on Russia’s Arctic shelf. Gazprom
The next file will examine the collision between Shell’s expanding commercial alliance with Gazprom, Greenpeace’s Arctic campaign, and Russian state power — carefully separating what Gazprom did, what the Russian authorities did, what Greenpeace alleged, and what Shell itself was actually responsible for.
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