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)
THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 14 SEPTEMBER 2026
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