THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 31 AUGUST 2026
SLF-2007-043
The Sakhalin Papers XXXIII: The $5.3 Billion Alternative — When Britain’s Proposed Guarantee Disappeared and Japan Stepped In
On 29 February 2008, Sakhalin Energy withdrew its applications for British and US export-credit support. Less than four months later, Japan’s state-backed development bank signed a $3.7 billion loan and commercial banks added another $1.6 billion. The environmental controversy had not disappeared. The source of the money had changed.
Archive reference: SLF-2007-043
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Principal record: Japan Bank for International Cooperation announcement, 16 June 2008
Authenticated Shell record: Royal Dutch Shell plc Annual Report and Form 20-F 2008; Shell SEC filings concerning the Sakhalin Energy ownership restructuring
Court record: Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin)
Contemporaneous reporting: Oil & Gas Journal, June 2008; contemporary project-finance reporting; environmental-group statements issued immediately before and after financial close
Evidence standard: The financing amounts, ownership interests and stated purposes of the JBIC loan are treated as documentary fact. Environmental organisations’ criticisms are identified as allegations or assessments made by those organisations. The decisions of institutions that did not finance the project are not inaccurately characterised as judicial or regulatory findings against Sakhalin Energy.
One of the world’s largest oil companies spent years trying not to look obsessed with a father-and-son website in Essex, while quietly producing internal briefings, issue notes, legal warnings, media lines, Wikipedia strategies, security chatter, source-hunting discussions and reputation-management scripts about exactly that father-and-son website.
Prompt 
The following question was put to copilot.microsoft.com:
Disclaimer 
By John Donovan
