Russia’s Gazprom PJSC owns the project, with Royal Dutch Shell Plc and four other investors…

A new natural gas pipeline into Europe from Russia is shaking up geopolitics. Nord Stream 2, as it’s called, worries leaders in Eastern Europe, has put German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the hot seat and has prompted calls for sanctions from U.S. senators. Denmark gave approval on Oct. 30 for the pipeline to traverse its sub-sea territory, removing the final hurdle to its completion. Russian gas could be flowing through the conduit as soon as early next year.

1. What is Nord Stream 2?

It’s a planned 1,230-kilometer (764-mile) undersea pipeline that will carry natural gas from Russian fields to the European network at Germany’s Baltic coast. It will double the capacity of an existing undersea route — the original Nord Stream — that opened in 2011. Russia’s Gazprom PJSC owns the project, with Royal Dutch Shell Plc and four other investors including Germany’s Uniper SE and Wintershall AG providing half of the 9.5 billion-euro ($10.7 billion) in cost. As of the end of October, the link was 87% complete, according to Nord Stream. read more

 by Mark Lammey: 31/10/2019, 11:11 am

A boss at Shell insisted today that leaving the huge concrete legs of the Brent platforms at sea was the “right thing to do”.

Chief financial officer Jessica Uhl said she “appreciated the sensitivities” around the issue, but hoped the “strong fundamentals” of Shell’s plans would “come through”.

Earlier this month, Greenpeace activists protested against Shell’s intention not to remove the legs of three of the platforms from the North Sea.

The Anglo-Dutch company submitted its decommissioning programme in 2017, but has yet to receive formal approval from the UK Government, which has the final say on whether to grant a permit for “derogation”. read more

by Tom Baxter: 21 Oct 2019

As someone with a keen interest in decommissioning decision making, I have followed the Brent decommissioning saga with that same keen interest.

A question that keeps coming up for me is why did Shell present such an open goal to Greenpeace, the press and others?

Bearing in mind Shell’s previous experience and reputation hit with Brent Spar, the decision to recommend leaving the concrete cells and their contents is, on the face of it, very perplexing.

Greenpeace’s actions and ensuing headlines were completely predictable.

Shell leave ticking time bomb

Shell ignore international regulations

Shell should clean up its mess

Come on Shell what were you thinking about, why did you make that decision? read more

THEY are the giants of the deep which spent more than four decades pumping billions of pounds worth of oil from the seabed.

But now decommissioned rigs in the North Sea are at the centre of an environmental storm with an oil giant under intense pressure to rethink plans to leave some of the platforms in the sea.

Several hundred oil drilling platforms in the waters o

ff Scotland are due to be decommissioned over the next three decades as they approach the end of their operational lifetime. read more

Germany’s environment ministry has said a “compromise” on Shell’s Brent decommissioning plans may be possible but leaving any oil remains is “not acceptable”.

by Allister Thomas: 18/10/2019, 7:00 pm

A special meeting of Ospar took place in London today to discuss what it said was the UK’s intention to approve Shell’s proposals to leave the legs of the Brent Bravo, Charlie and Delta platforms in the field 115miles off Shetland.

The UK is part of the convention to protect Europe’s marine environment whose rules state oil platforms must be fully removed at the end of their production lives.

Shell wants an exception to the Ospar regulations due to the technical, safety and cost challenges related to removing the giant structures, which they were not originally designed for back in the 1970s. read more

by Allister Thomas: 18/10/2019, 7:48 am

Germany has said a special meeting on Shell’s Brent decommissioning plans will be the “litmus test” for a convention to protect Europe’s marine environment.

Ospar, an agreement of 15 European countries, made a ruling following Shell’s Brent Spar episode nearly 25 years ago requiring complete removal of oil and gas installations at the end of their production lives.

Shell was forced to abandon plans to sink the Brent Spar, an oil storage buoy, in the North Atlantic following sustained protests from Greenpeace in the 1990s.

Ospar meets in London later to discuss Shell’s plans to leave the concrete legs of the Brent Bravo, Charlie and Delta platforms in the North Sea, which contradicts Ospar rules. read more

Shell’s refusal to fully remove four old oil platforms has prompted a special North Sea treaty meeting called by Germany. Environmentalists suspect oil firms also intend to leave hundreds more behind.

Germany’s Environment Ministry said it was “absolutely unacceptable” that Shell intended to leave the “legs” of its platforms — after partial dismantlement — to decay at sea, still containing 12,125 tons (11,000 metric tons) of crude oil residues.

Ministry spokesman Stephan Gabriel Haufe told reporters in Berlin on Wednesday that Germany wanted to avert a repeat of the “Brent Spar” drama of 1995 that saw Shell do a U-turn on disposal at sea — but only after a public outcry. read more

BERLIN — The German government said Wednesday it has called an international meeting over Shell’s refusal to dismantle old oil rigs containing thousands of tons of crude in the Northeast Atlantic.

A spokesman for Germany’s environment ministry told reporters in Berlin that the OSPAR Commission, which oversees a treaty on protecting the Northeast Atlantic, will hold an unprecedented special session in London to discuss the issue Friday.

Stephan Gabriel Haufe said the four Shell platforms in question — known as Brent Alpha, Bravo, Charlie and Delta — contain about 11,000 metric tons (12,125 tons) of crude oil residue. read more

Germany said Wednesday it had called a special meeting of international partners this week to pressure Royal Dutch Shell to remove old rigs containing crude oil in the North Sea.

An environment ministry spokesman said Berlin had convened signatory countries of the Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic (OSPAR) on Friday in London.

“Germany finds it absolutely unacceptable that these crude oil quantities remain in these structures,” said the spokesman, Stephan Gabriel Haufe, citing a “danger for the environment”. read more

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Greenpeace in ‘peaceful protest’ on Shell’s Brent platforms

Greenpeace has announced it is carrying out “peaceful protests” at Shell’s Brent field in the UK North Sea.

by Allister Thomas: 14/10/2019

Activists from the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark are protesting on two platforms in the field, around 115 miles north-east of Shetland – brandishing signs of “Shell, clean up your mess”.

It comes as a special meeting of Ospar, an agreement between 15 governments to protect Europe’s marine environment, takes place in London on Friday.

Some countries have lodged objections to Shell’s plans to leave the legs of three of the platforms – Bravo, Charlie and Delta – in the sea, with concerns around the contents of oil storage cells within them deteriorating. read more

The Dutch government wants Shell to clean up the foundations of three oil and gas platforms in the British part of the North Sea, infrastructure minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen has told MPs.

The minister’s comments follow the publication of a report on the decommissioning operation which recommends the clean up be carried out as agreed over 20 years ago in international treaties.

The licence request ‘does not sufficiently support’ the claim that leaving the foundations and storage units, which contain polluted material, is the best option from an environmental or safety point of view, the minister told MPs. read more

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After a massive outcry from Jewish organizations, maritime unions,  the public and the UK government, and extensive negative coverage by the news media, all following a campaign led by John Donovan (above), the shipping company Allseas renamed its vessel. All of the businesses associated with the Pieter Schelte project, including its first client, Royal Dutch Shell, had previously turned a blind eye to the Nazi name. Shell reversed course in the face of the firestorm. read more

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By John Donovan

Shell commissioned a group of eminent “independent” historians (above) mostly Dutch, to author a history of Royal Dutch Shell to mark the Group’s centenary in 2007.  The introduction in Volume 1 pledged independent research and “a proper and even-handed assessment of Deterding.” Something went amiss because the “history,” as published in regard to his dealings with Hitler, is simply untrue.

Shell internal communications obtained under the UK Data Protection Act revealed pre-publication jitters at Shell prior to the publication of the four-volume history of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. read more

Shell’s toxic Nazi history catching up with the energy giant

By John Donovan

Information and evidence about Shell’s financial support for Hitler’s Nazi regime (and Shell’s anti-Semitism directed at its own employees), remained buried for decades in library books and newspaper archives gathering more and more dust.

Unfortunately for Royal Dutch Shell, it’s reputation, brand value (and shareholders), fast-evolving Internet technology, including digitalisation of newspaper archives, has transformed access, thereby making that toxic information instantly available everywhere. And spread by social media.  read more

Shell requires UK government permission to leave sub-aquatic structures in place

Shell’s Brent Delta Topside offshore oil drilling rig platform is towed by tug boats up the River Tees to Able Seaton Port for decommissioning in England ( Getty )

Thousands of tonnes of hazardous waste including crude oil could be abandoned in decaying North Sea rigs by Shell with the permission of the UK government, prompting growing concerns among other European countries.

Due to the cost and difficulty of dismantling the structures, the oil giant has proposed leaving the vast concrete legs from three oil rigs standing in the waters. read more

Germany leads complaint against plan to leave polluted remains of Shell rigs in place…

Philip Oltermann in Berlin and Jillian Ambrose

Wed 4 Sep 2019 05.00 BST

The British government is facing growing outrage from the European commission and five EU member states over its plans to leave some decommissioned oil rigs in the North Sea, with one senior German official describing the UK’s proposal as a “grotesque idea” that amounts to a “ticking timebomb”.

Disassembling the enormous pieces of infrastructure, each of which can be as tall as the Eiffel Tower, is a costly undertaking, and this year the UK government is intending to endorse plans by Shell to leave behind one steel jacket and the concrete bases beneath three of the platforms of its Brent oilfield installation. read more