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THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 27 SEPTEMBER 2026
Archive reference: SLF-2007-070
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Principal corporate records: Shell/Sakhalin Energy statements; Shell internal Bouman–Van Spronsen emails; Royal Dutch Shell SEC filing of 21 December 2006
Regulatory record: Russian Ministry of Natural Resources/Rosprirodnadzor statements as reported contemporaneously
Contemporaneous reporting: Reuters, Interfax, Oil & Gas Journal, The Guardian, Dow Jones/MarketWatch and Argus
Archive correspondence: John Donovan communications with Oleg Mitvol, August–November 2006
Later judicial context: Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin)
Evidence standard: Russian allegations, Sakhalin Energy responses, internal technical concerns, Donovan commentary and journalistic interpretation are kept separate. The transmission of the Shell emails to Rosprirodnadzor is documented; it is not inferred that those emails caused the Russian regulatory campaign or the subsequent transfer of control to Gazprom.
Yesterday’s file ended with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development unable to progress its Sakhalin II financing decision because the project’s legal position had become uncertain.
The uncertainty had a name.
Order 600.That was the Russian environmental approval associated with the State Ecological Expert Review for Sakhalin II Phase 2.
By September 2006 it had become the centre of a battle involving prosecutors, environmental regulators, Shell, Sakhalin Energy, foreign governments and — increasingly — Gazprom.
But something unusual happened as that battle intensified.
Documents originating inside Shell travelled outside the company.
They reached journalists.
They reached environmental campaigners.
And eventually they reached Oleg Mitvol, the Russian official becoming the public face of the Sakhalin II environmental investigation.
The provenance of those documents can now be reconstructed.
1. 18 September 2006: Russia moves against the permitOn 18 September 2006, Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources announced action against the environmental approval for Sakhalin II Phase 2.
The immediate trigger was a protest from the Russian Prosecutor General’s Office challenging the legality of the 2003 approval.
Sakhalin Energy chief executive Ian Craig subsequently described the sequence: the Prosecutor General issued its protest on 16 September; two days later the Ministry announced that Order 600 should be invalidated, subject to approval by the relevant technical agency. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
Oil & Gas Journal described the practical effect more starkly: Russia had effectively moved to suspend Phase 2 on environmental grounds. Oil & Gas Journal
That distinction matters.
There was an announced governmental decision to invalidate the approval.
But the procedural position remained fluid.
2. Sakhalin Energy said the permit had just survived in courtSakhalin Energy did not quietly accept the decision.
Its response was unusually specific.
The company said there were “no valid grounds” for revoking Order 600 and stated that the environmental approval had been successfully defended in a Russian court as recently as 29 August 2006. Oil & Gas Journal
The company also said the specific environmental issues identified by Rosprirodnadzor and the Natural Resources Ministry were being addressed and were insufficient to justify annulment. Oil & Gas Journal
A publicly accessible copy of that August judgment has still not been located for this archive.
Accordingly, the precise reasoning of the Russian court cannot responsibly be reconstructed here.
The established point is narrower:
Sakhalin Energy publicly stated that its environmental approval had survived a court challenge weeks before the federal authorities moved against it by another route.
3. The Government then pausedEight days after the dramatic 18 September action, Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev altered the immediate trajectory.
Reuters reported on 26 September that construction could continue while a full environmental investigation proceeded.
Trutnev said the authorities should try to remedy the situation without stopping the project and that the permit would not be revoked while the investigation was under way. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
The Russian concerns he listed included deforestation, damage to marine areas, sediment clogging river beds and risks to pipelines from mudslides. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
This is an important procedural detail.
The September confrontation is sometimes compressed into the statement:
Russia revoked Shell’s permit.
The actual chronology was less tidy.
The Ministry moved to invalidate the approval.
Sakhalin Energy contested the legal basis.
Foreign governments objected.
Then Trutnev allowed work to continue pending further investigation.
The permit had become leverage inside an unresolved regulatory process.
That last sentence is commentary.
The chronology is documented.
4. Mitvol denied politics had anything to do with itThe obvious allegation was already circulating internationally.
Was environmental enforcement being used to pressure Shell into allowing Gazprom into Sakhalin II?
Oleg Mitvol rejected that interpretation.
In a contemporaneous interview with The Guardian, he insisted that there were only environmental issues at stake and denied that the action had commercial or political motives. He pointed to alleged damage to rivers and forests and accused Sakhalin Energy of ignoring environmental requirements. The Guardian
Sakhalin Energy denied breaching the regulations. The Guardian
This remains the correct evidential formulation.
Mitvol said it was environmental enforcement.
Critics suspected a political and commercial purpose.
Neither position becomes proven merely by repetition.
5. Shell said it was rapidly clearing the complaintsBy mid-October, Shell was publicly arguing that most of the environmental allegations were already being resolved.
Reuters reported on 17 October 2006 that Shell Russia chief Chris Finlayson said the company had dealt with approximately 97 per cent of the alleged breaches identified during a September audit and expected the remainder to be resolved shortly. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
But another inspection was already under way.
Shell acknowledged that the new audit could produce another set of requirements. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
The regulatory target was therefore moving.
Shell’s position was essentially:
we are fixing the identified problems.
Russia’s position was:
we are still finding problems.
6. Then came the internal Shell emailsRunning alongside the official inspections was a separate documentary story.
In 2002, Shell manager Hans Bouman, then Manager Asset Groningen at NAM, corresponded with Engel van Spronsen, who was associated with Sakhalin technical management.
Bouman had seen presentations concerning the planned Lunskoye wells.
His email was plainly cautionary rather than definitive.
He referred to an earthquake environment, young faults associated with gas plumes, limited winter access and concerns about the well design.
He wrote that several people had come away with the feeling that things were not going well and said he was troubled by hearing that the project was:
“schedule driven.” Shell2004
He was careful to acknowledge uncertainty.
His concerns, he wrote, might amount to hearsay rather than hard scientific evidence.
But his conclusion was unmistakable:
“I get this sinking feeling.” Shell2004
7. “I would NEVER EVER want to be schedule driven”Bouman’s concern centred partly on technical decision-making before final investment approval.
He warned against being schedule driven on a project of roughly $9 billion and recommended bringing in senior specialists to subject the design to a rigorous review. Shell2004
In a later email, he identified several specific concerns:
limited seasonal access to the platform;
gas plumes associated with large faults;
the possibility of fault reactivation;
well reliability;
cuttings injection;
and the consequences of carrying out everything from a single platform. Shell2004
These were technical questions being raised internally.
They were not findings that the wells were unsafe.
They were not evidence that a blowout was inevitable.
And they were not an environmental judgment.
The distinction is essential.
An engineer saying “I am worried” is evidence of an internal concern.
It is not proof that the feared event would occur.
8. Van Spronsen’s reply supplied important contextEngel van Spronsen did not dismiss Bouman.
His response acknowledged concern about the schedule but explained one practical difficulty:
Russia’s approval regime required technical parameters to be fixed relatively early because significant changes could trigger new environmental-impact calculations and approvals. Shell2004
That exchange is valuable precisely because it is not a simple whistleblower accusation followed by corporate denial.
It is an internal professional discussion.
Bouman was worried about technical risk.
Van Spronsen explained regulatory and project constraints.
The correspondence reveals uncertainty and pressure inside the design process.
It does not by itself establish negligence.
9. Dow Jones checked the emailsThe provenance became stronger when the emails left the archive and entered mainstream reporting.
The material reproduced in the Donovan correspondence includes an October 2006 MarketWatch/Dow Jones account stating that Bouman confirmed the emails were genuine.
The same report said Sakhalin Energy responded that the well design had subsequently been revised in 2005 but declined to discuss the specific issues raised by Bouman. Van Spronsen disputed suggestions that the project’s cost escalation resulted from poor technical solutions chosen under schedule pressure. Shell2004
This matters enormously for evidential purposes.
We are no longer dealing merely with documents that appeared anonymously on a website.
One of the authors confirmed them to a mainstream financial news organisation.
10. 7 August: the first approach to Oleg MitvolThe regulatory connection actually began before the September permit crisis.
On 7 August 2006, John Donovan emailed Oleg Mitvol at the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources.
The message drew Mitvol’s attention to the Shell website and its anonymous Live Chat facility, where people claiming Shell knowledge had posted concerns relating to Sakhalin II.
The email explicitly cautioned readers to use their own judgment when evaluating anonymous postings. Shell2004
This was not the transmission of the Bouman emails.
It was an initial approach.
But it established contact between the Donovan archive and the official who would shortly become central to Russia’s Sakhalin environmental campaign.
11. 17 October: an offer of confidential informationOn 17 October, Donovan faxed Mitvol again.
This time the message said he possessed confidential inside information concerning Sakhalin II and asked how the Ministry wished to receive it. Shell2004
The following day, the information was sent.
12. 18 October: the Shell emails go to MoscowThe 18 October 2006 fax is one of the more consequential documents in the archive.
It is headed:
“Shell Insider Information Regarding Sakhalin.”
It states that leaked Shell internal emails were enclosed and tells Mitvol that the material concerned potentially serious design and construction questions.
The fax then reproduced the Dow Jones report and the underlying Bouman–Van Spronsen correspondence. Shell2004
At this stage, one must distinguish two things.
The authentic internal Shell emails raised technical concerns.
Donovan’s covering correspondence went considerably further in its interpretation of the potential consequences.
Those interpretations are not transformed into Shell findings simply because Shell emails were attached to them.
The strongest evidence is the original correspondence itself.
13. The link to Rosprirodnadzor was independently reportedThe most important corroboration appeared outside the Donovan archive.
Interfax reported on 13 November 2006 that Oleg Mitvol had written to Sakhalin Energy chief executive Ian Craig on 19 October asking the company to confirm or deny information contained in the confidential Shell correspondence.
Interfax expressly reported that copies of the emails had been supplied to Rosprirodnadzor by John Donovan, whom it described as a Shell shareholder and operator of a Shell news website. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
That is a significant independent checkpoint.
The sequence was no longer simply:
Donovan says he sent documents to Mitvol.
There was now contemporaneous reporting that the Russian regulator had received the documents and acted upon them.
14. Sakhalin Energy supplied a technical rebuttalThe same Interfax report supplies another important safeguard against one-sided reconstruction.
It reported that Sakhalin Energy’s technical director had responded in a letter dated 8 November.
According to that account, Sakhalin Energy rejected suggestions that platform access was as restricted as alleged.
The company said the development programme provided for round-the-clock staffing and year-round supply-vessel access.
It also said well trajectories had been designed to avoid problematic formations, considered fault reactivation unlikely, and noted that test drilling had assisted in producing the designs for the first Lunskoye wells. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Interfax further recorded that Russian technical authorities had previously approved industrial-safety conclusions and that Rosprirodnadzor itself had issued an ecological approval concerning the relevant projects in August 2006. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
That response must sit beside the original emails.
The internal engineers had raised concerns.
Sakhalin Energy later said the final design and operating arrangements addressed them.
15. Russia was making much wider allegationsThe emails were only one part of Rosprirodnadzor’s case.
Interfax reported the Natural Resources Ministry alleging that the environmental-restoration measures proposed by Sakhalin Energy were inadequate and saying 529 rivers required restoration because of contractor activity. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
That figure was a Russian government assertion.
It should not be written as:
“Shell damaged 529 rivers.”
The documentary formulation is:
the Ministry said 529 rivers required restoration.
That distinction may appear small.
It is the difference between archiving an allegation and adopting it.
16. The Argus interviewAnother independent strand appeared in an interview with Mitvol published by Argus and preserved in the archive.
Mitvol said he possessed internal management correspondence dating from 2002 and explicitly identified John Donovan as the source.
He said the material had been received on 19 October and forwarded to Sakhalin Energy for an official response. Shell2004
Mitvol characterised the emails as evidence that management knew of technical-standard problems and continued working to meet deadlines.
That was Mitvol’s interpretation.
It was not a court finding.
He also spoke of possible proceedings and a rough environmental-damages estimate exceeding $10 billion, while acknowledging that the figure was preliminary and would require expert assessment. Shell2004
17. There is an apparent discrepancy in the contemporary recordThe Argus interview, as preserved in the 19 November Donovan correspondence, quotes Mitvol saying he had not yet received a response from Sakhalin Energy to his request concerning the emails. Shell2004
But the Interfax report dated 13 November refers to a Sakhalin Energy technical response dated 8 November. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Those accounts do not sit comfortably together.
There may be an innocent explanation.
They may concern different communications.
The Argus interview may have been conducted before the date on which it was distributed.
Mitvol may have meant that he had not received the particular formal response he wanted.
Or the reporting may simply be inconsistent.
The available archive does not resolve the discrepancy.
Accordingly, this instalment does not.
That is precisely the sort of small contradiction that should remain visible in a documentary archive rather than being silently smoothed away.
18. 29 November: another document is offeredThe documentary exchange continued.
On 29 November, Donovan told Mitvol that he possessed an internal Shell PowerPoint presentation concerning Sakhalin II and offered to send it if the regulator supplied an email address. Shell2004
This proves the offer was made.
It does not establish from the document presently examined that Mitvol received the presentation.
It does not establish that Russian investigators relied upon it.
And it does not establish that it influenced any later governmental decision.
Those propositions would require separate evidence.
19. Meanwhile the regulatory threat became more seriousBy late October, Russia was escalating the language surrounding the investigation.
Natural Resources Minister Trutnev said alleged violations potentially engaged provisions of Russia’s criminal law and extended the environmental investigation. The Guardian
In November, Mitvol was publicly discussing the possibility of international proceedings for environmental damage. The Guardian
Whatever the ultimate legal strength of those threats, the commercial effect was obvious.
Shell was attempting to complete a roughly $20 billion development while simultaneously facing uncertainty over its environmental approval, possible sanctions, investigations, legal claims and continuing negotiations over Gazprom’s participation.
20. Then the ownership negotiations acceleratedOn 11 December 2006, Reuters reported that Shell was offering Gazprom control of Sakhalin II.
The report described threats involving licences, fines and litigation as continuing to disrupt the project and noted industry expectations that regulatory pressure might ease if Gazprom obtained control. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Mitvol publicly rejected any suggestion that a change in ownership would change his regulatory approach.
He said environmental law would continue to apply regardless of who owned Sakhalin Energy. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Again, both sides of the contemporary record need preserving.
Observers suspected regulatory leverage.
Mitvol said ownership was irrelevant to enforcement.
21. Ten days later, Shell surrendered majority controlOn 21 December 2006, the transaction became official.
A Shell filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission records the agreement.
Gazprom would acquire:
50 per cent plus one shareof Sakhalin Energy for:
$7.45 billion in cash.Shell’s holding would fall from 55 per cent to 27.5 per cent.
Mitsui would fall to 12.5 per cent.
Mitsubishi would fall to 10 per cent.
Sakhalin Energy would remain operator and Shell would remain technical adviser. SEC
The filing also records that Phase 2 was more than 80 per cent complete and approximately $12 billion had already been invested by the end of the third quarter of 2006. SEC
Those are authenticated corporate facts.
22. What the emails proveThe Bouman–Van Spronsen correspondence establishes that technically knowledgeable Shell personnel raised concerns in 2002 about aspects of the Sakhalin well concept, including seismic faults, gas plumes, limited access and schedule pressure. Shell2004
The correspondence also establishes that the concerns were discussed rather than simply ignored: Van Spronsen responded and sought further technical clarification. Shell2004
Contemporaneous Dow Jones reporting said Bouman confirmed the emails were genuine. Shell2004
The archive establishes that Donovan sent the emails to Oleg Mitvol in October 2006. Shell2004
Interfax independently reported that Mitvol received the correspondence from Donovan and sought a response from Sakhalin Energy. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Those propositions are well supported.
23. What the emails do not proveThey do not prove that Sakhalin II’s completed wells were unsafe.
They do not prove that drilling through or near geological faults would have caused a blowout.
They do not prove that Shell deliberately endangered the environment.
They do not prove that regulators would have revoked the project’s permits absent the emails.
They do not prove that Mitvol’s environmental-damages calculations were correct.
And they do not establish that the emails caused Gazprom to obtain control of Sakhalin II.
The emails became part of the evidential environment surrounding the regulatory dispute.
That is significant enough.
There is no need to claim more.
24. Nor can the environmental case simply be dismissed as Kremlin theatreThere is another equally important boundary.
It would be wrong to argue that because the environmental campaign coincided with Gazprom’s ambitions, every environmental complaint was necessarily fictitious.
Shell itself had previously acknowledged contractor failures at sensitive river crossings.
International lenders had already raised environmental concerns.
Independent scientists had challenged aspects of the project.
And Shell’s own internal correspondence reveals genuine technical unease.
The political context therefore does not erase the environmental record.
25. Nor can the political context be erasedThe opposite simplification is equally unsatisfactory.
Russian regulatory pressure intensified during the same period in which Gazprom was seeking entry into Sakhalin II.
The original asset-swap concept involved minority participation.
The final agreement gave Gazprom majority control.
Contemporaneous journalists repeatedly interpreted the environmental campaign as leverage.
Western governments expressed concern.
And Shell subsequently discussed the episode in the broader context of resource nationalism.
Those facts make it impossible to treat the environmental battle as though it unfolded inside a political vacuum. The Guardian
26. The later High Court case provides context — but not validationSakhalin II subsequently reached the English High Court in:
Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin).
Mr Justice Mitting dealt with a dispute concerning disclosure of UK government environmental information connected with contemplated export-credit support for the project. vLex
The case confirms the extraordinary level of governmental and environmental scrutiny surrounding Sakhalin II.
But it did not adjudicate the Bouman emails.
It did not determine Russian environmental violations.
It did not decide whether Mitvol’s claims were correct.
And it did not rule that Shell had been coerced into selling control.
The judgment is relevant institutional context.
It is not retrospective proof of the Russian case.
Documentary FindingsEstablished. On 18 September 2006 Russia’s Natural Resources Ministry moved to invalidate the environmental approval associated with Sakhalin II Phase 2 following intervention by the Prosecutor General’s Office. Oil & Gas Journal
Established. Sakhalin Energy publicly said the approval had been successfully defended in a Russian court on 29 August 2006 and maintained that there were no valid grounds for revocation. Oil & Gas Journal
Established. On 26 September, Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev said the project could continue while an environmental investigation proceeded. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
Established. Internal Shell correspondence from 2002 records technical concern about well design, seismic faults, gas plumes and schedule pressure. The correspondence itself expresses uncertainty and does not claim that catastrophic failure was inevitable. Shell2004
Established. Contemporaneous Dow Jones reporting said Hans Bouman confirmed the authenticity of his emails. Shell2004
Established. John Donovan supplied the correspondence to Oleg Mitvol in October 2006. Shell2004
Independently corroborated. Interfax subsequently reported that Mitvol had received the emails from Donovan and requested a response from Sakhalin Energy. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Established as Sakhalin Energy’s position. The company responded with technical explanations concerning platform access, well trajectories, fault risk and prior regulatory approvals. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Established as Russian allegations. Russian authorities claimed widespread environmental damage and discussed substantial compensation and possible legal proceedings. Those assertions were contested and were not adjudicated in the records examined here. Shell2004
Established. By 11 December, Reuters was reporting negotiations under which Gazprom might obtain control of Sakhalin II. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Established by Shell’s SEC filing. On 21 December, Gazprom agreed to acquire 50 per cent plus one share for $7.45 billion, reducing Shell’s stake from 55 per cent to 27.5 per cent. SEC
CommentaryThere is something unusual about this particular documentary chain.
It begins inside Shell.
An experienced manager looks at a proposed well design and becomes uneasy.
Another senior technical figure answers him.
The correspondence leaves the corporation.
A financial news organisation checks it.
One of the authors confirms it.
A campaigning website sends it to a foreign regulator.
The regulator asks Shell’s operating company for an explanation.
The exchange is reported by Interfax and Argus.
And all of this happens while the Russian state is threatening the project’s permits and Shell is negotiating with Gazprom.
That is not a theory.
That chain can be reconstructed from documents.
What cannot be reconstructed with equal certainty is causation.
Did the emails materially alter the Russian investigation?
Did they simply provide useful ammunition for a regulatory campaign already well under way?
Did they expose a genuine technical issue that had already been resolved?
Or did they do several of these things at once?
The archive does not yet provide a definitive answer.
That uncertainty is itself part of the historical record.
The importance of provenanceHad these emails survived only as anonymous internet material, their evidential value would have been limited.
Instead, the provenance has several layers.
The correspondence bears the names of Shell personnel.
Bouman reportedly confirmed authenticity to Dow Jones.
Sakhalin Energy gave a substantive technical response.
Interfax reported that Russia’s environmental regulator had received the material.
Mitvol publicly identified its source.
And Shell’s own later internal material shows that the Donovan website and Sakhalin stories were being monitored inside the company.
That does not prove every allegation surrounding the emails.
It does make the documentary trail unusually strong.
The permit war was therefore about more than a permitBy late 2006, several different contests had converged.
There was a legitimate environmental debate.
There was a technical engineering debate.
There was a dispute over whether project promises had been followed on the ground.
There was a dispute over project costs.
There was a geopolitical struggle over Russian energy assets.
There was a negotiation with Gazprom.
And there was an information war in which internal Shell material was no longer staying inside Shell.
On 21 December, one of those contests was resolved.
Gazprom got control.
The others did not disappear quite so neatly.
Source RecordThe Sakhalin Energy statement reproduced by Oil & Gas Journal on 19 September 2006 records the Russian move against Order 600, Sakhalin Energy’s denial that legal grounds existed for revocation and its statement that the environmental approval had survived a Russian court challenge on 29 August.
Oil & Gas Journal — Russia suspends Sakhalin-2 development project, 19 September 2006
The 19 September 2006 statement from Sakhalin Energy chief executive Ian Craig records the Prosecutor General protest and the Ministry’s decision concerning Order 600.
Sakhalin Energy — Ian Craig statement on the Natural Resources Ministry action
Reuters reported on 26 September 2006 that Yuri Trutnev would allow work to continue during the environmental investigation and would defer a final permit decision.
Reuters — Russia calls time-out in campaign against Shell
Reuters reported on 17 October 2006 that Shell said approximately 97 per cent of identified September audit issues had been dealt with, while acknowledging that another audit could produce new requirements.
Reuters — Shell awaits more Sakhalin environmental claims
The 7 August 2006 Donovan email to Oleg Mitvol documents the first approach drawing the regulator’s attention to Shell-insider material concerning Sakhalin II.
Archive document — Email to Oleg Mitvol, 7 August 2006
The 17 October 2006 fax records Donovan’s offer to supply confidential information concerning Sakhalin II.
Archive document — Fax to Oleg Mitvol, 17 October 2006
The 18 October 2006 transmission contains the Bouman–Van Spronsen emails and reproduces the contemporaneous Dow Jones/MarketWatch reporting in which Bouman confirmed their authenticity.
Archive document — Shell internal emails sent to Oleg Mitvol, 18 October 2006
The preserved Interfax report of 13 November 2006 independently records that Mitvol received the correspondence from John Donovan, sought answers from Sakhalin Energy and received technical explanations concerning the Lunskoye development.
The Argus interview with Oleg Mitvol, reproduced in the 19 November Donovan correspondence, records Mitvol identifying Donovan as the source of the internal emails and setting out his own interpretation of their significance. Those statements are Mitvol’s allegations and forecasts, not judicial findings.
The 29 November 2006 correspondence records a further offer to supply an internal Shell presentation. No conclusion is drawn here about whether it was subsequently received or used.
Archive document — Further communication to Oleg Mitvol, 29 November 2006
Reuters’ 11 December 2006 report records the emerging proposal for Gazprom to obtain control while environmental proceedings and licence threats remained unresolved.
Reuters — Shell offers control of Sakhalin-2 to Gazprom, 11 December 2006
Shell’s 21 December 2006 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission is the principal authenticated corporate record of the ownership agreement: Gazprom would acquire 50 per cent plus one share for $7.45 billion, while Shell’s holding would fall to 27.5 per cent.
US SEC — Gazprom, Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi Sakhalin II protocol
The later judicial context is Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin). The High Court case concerned disclosure of UK government environmental information and does not adjudicate the Russian enforcement campaign or the internal Shell emails.
High Court — ECGD v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin)
Archive disclaimer: Internal technical concern is not equated with proof of defective final design. Russian regulatory allegations are not presented as established environmental liability. Donovan correspondence is used to establish what material was transmitted and when; Donovan commentary within those communications is not treated as independent technical evidence. The documented transmission of Shell emails to Rosprirodnadzor does not establish that those documents caused permit action, environmental claims or the Gazprom transaction.
Site-wide disclaimer applies.
Next instalment The Sakhalin Papers LXI: The Kremlin Deal — $7.45 Billion and the Day Shell Lost ControlBy December 2006 the permit war had reached its climax.
Shell faced unresolved environmental claims.
The Russian government was still disputing project costs.
Gazprom wanted a controlling stake.
And Shell had already invested billions in a development that was more than 80 per cent complete. SEC
Then the participants entered the Kremlin.
On 21 December 2006, Vladimir Putin sat with Jeroen van der Veer, Alexei Miller and representatives of Mitsui and Mitsubishi.
The environmental dispute was discussed.
The project budget was discussed.
And a transaction was announced that transformed the ownership of Sakhalin II.
Gazprom would pay $7.45 billion.
Shell would lose half of its 55 per cent stake.
Russia’s state-controlled gas company would obtain:
50 per cent plus one share.The next file will reconstruct that day from the corporate filings, contemporaneous reporting and official records — examine what the $7.45 billion price actually represented, what Shell retained, what it surrendered, and why the distinction between a negotiated sale and a transaction concluded under extraordinary state pressure remains central to understanding the Sakhalin II story.
THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 27 SEPTEMBER 2026 was first posted on September 27, 2026 at 7:57 pm.©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net
assembly:2026:indonesia:bangung_report_eng.pdf - created
THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 26 SEPTEMBER 2026
Archive reference: SLF-2007-069
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers
Principal institutional record: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Sakhalin II records and Independent Recourse Mechanism file
Authenticated corporate record: The Shell Sustainability Report 2006
Contemporaneous reporting: AFP, Oil & Gas Journal, RIA Novosti, The Guardian, El País
Campaign submissions: WWF, Friends of the Earth, The Corner House and Friends of the Earth Japan
Later judicial context: Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin)
Evidence standard: EBRD determinations are distinguished from campaign-group interpretations of them. Sakhalin Energy statements are attributed to the company. Russian environmental allegations are distinguished from contemporaneous claims that regulatory action was being used to influence Gazprom’s entry into the project. No court identified in this file determined that the 2006 Russian enforcement campaign was either fabricated or politically motivated.
The previous file ended with an audit.
This one begins with a public examination.
By December 2005, prospective lenders had been examining Sakhalin II for years. The project had already accumulated controversy over western gray whales, salmon rivers, pipeline construction, oil-spill preparedness and contractor performance.
Yet construction continued.
The project cost had doubled to approximately $20 billion.
And Shell remained the 55 per cent shareholder in Sakhalin Energy. Shell News
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development now faced a question.
Was the project ready to move from technical assessment into the final stage of public scrutiny before a financing decision?
Its answer was:
Yes — but only for consultation. 1. “Fit for the purpose of consultation” did not mean approvedOn 14 December 2005, EBRD decided that Sakhalin II’s environmental and social documentation was:
“fit for the purpose of consultation.”
Its Independent Recourse Mechanism record preserves that date and decision. EBRD
Contemporaneous Oil & Gas Journal reporting explained the practical consequence: the determination opened a 120-day period of public disclosure and consultation concerning environmental, social, health and safety issues and proposed mitigation measures. Shell News
That phrase has to be handled carefully.
It did not mean the project had passed every environmental test.
It did not mean EBRD had approved financing.
And it did not mean all earlier deficiencies had disappeared.
It meant the documentation had reached the point at which the Bank considered public consultation capable of proceeding.
2. EBRD itself had already identified procedural shortcomingsThe environmental organisations later relied heavily upon wording from EBRD’s own December 2005 press release.
Their April 2006 submission to the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department reproduced EBRD’s acknowledgment that procedures prescribed in its Environmental Policy:
“were not fully followed in the planning phases”
in relation to important aspects of Sakhalin II.
The same submission quoted EBRD as saying that the decision-making process for the siting of an oil-production platform had not been in conformity with the Bank’s policy. WWF Europe
That evidence requires a qualification.
The wording is preserved in a contemporaneous campaigning submission citing the EBRD press release; the original release is no longer readily retrievable through the Bank’s current website.
But it materially changes the historical picture.
The consultation did not begin because EBRD had concluded that nothing was wrong.
It began despite the Bank having identified planning-stage shortcomings which it believed subsequent documentation had addressed sufficiently to permit consultation. WWF Europe
3. London heard the first argumentsBy March 2006, consultation had already taken place in London.
A later submission by WWF, Friends of the Earth and The Corner House records that critics supplied the London meeting with a list of approximately 100 press articles concerning Sakhalin II and its environmental and governance controversies. WWF Europe
The significance was not the number itself.
The consultation was becoming a forum in which prospective lenders were being asked to assess not simply an engineering project, but the credibility of Shell and Sakhalin Energy’s environmental management.
That was precisely what the 120-day procedure was designed to expose to challenge.
4. Moscow produced six hours of oppositionIn March, the consultation moved to Moscow.
AFP reported that lawyers, environmentalists, geologists and community representatives spent approximately six hoursarguing that Sakhalin II should not receive EBRD financing.
Their objections included western gray whale risks, salmon spawning rivers, seismic instability and alleged breaches of Russian law. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
Those were allegations made by project opponents.
Sakhalin Energy did not accept them.
A company representative responded that while opponents were entitled to pursue legal challenges, the company was confident that it would be found to be complying with the law. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
That exchange captures the 120-day process in miniature.
The critics were not merely demanding mitigation.
Some were saying the project should not qualify for EBRD support at all.
Sakhalin Energy was saying the project remained lawful and manageable.
5. The consultation extended beyond RussiaThe Moscow report said consultation had already occurred in London and would continue on Sakhalin and in Hokkaido, Japan. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
Hokkaido was especially significant because Sakhalin lies only tens of kilometres from northern Japan and a major marine spill could have transboundary consequences.
Friends of the Earth Japan records an EBRD consultation meeting in Hokkaido on 10 April 2006. 国際環境NGO FoE Japan
The organisation strongly criticised how that meeting had been conducted and argued that local concerns had not been given sufficient weight.
That was FoE Japan’s assessment of the consultation process, not an EBRD finding.
But the fact that Hokkaido was included at all demonstrates that Sakhalin II’s environmental risk was no longer treated as exclusively Russian.
6. Oil-spill planning remained one of the hardest questionsWWF’s February 2006 submission argued that Sakhalin Energy still lacked an adequate comprehensive response plan for a major spill under winter sea-ice conditions.
It maintained that conventional response techniques such as booms could be severely constrained by ice and that dispersant use raised separate ecological concerns. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Those were WWF’s assertions.
They should not be converted into a finding that no spill plan existed.
As earlier files have documented, lender records show that Sakhalin Energy had produced contingency plans and that EBRD experts had reviewed oil-spill arrangements during Phase I. EBRD
The dispute was therefore more precise:
not whether Sakhalin Energy had any oil-spill planning,
but whether the planning was adequate for the scale, remoteness and winter conditions of Sakhalin II.
7. The whale issue had not gone away eitherWWF continued to argue during the consultation that the protections for the western gray whale were insufficient.
The organisation said independent whale specialists remained unconvinced that the project could proceed without significant risk to a population then estimated at roughly one hundred animals. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Shell’s later 2006 Sustainability Report presents the company side.
It says Sakhalin Energy had rerouted the offshore pipeline approximately 20 kilometres farther from the whales’ feeding grounds, imposed vessel controls and acoustic monitoring, and helped establish a long-term scientific advisory panel convened by the World Conservation Union, now IUCN. Shell
Both facts belong in the archive.
Scientific criticism continued.
Mitigation measures also changed.
8. The salmon rivers provided Shell with an uncomfortable admissionThe pipeline crossed approximately 180 sensitive salmon rivers.
Shell’s own 2006 Sustainability Report records that some contractors had failed to follow required low-impact crossing techniques during the winter of 2004–05.
Sakhalin Energy stopped work, strengthened controls, sought outside expertise and brought in independent observers and environmental-agency representatives to monitor subsequent crossings. Shell
Shell also acknowledged that some rivers experienced more sedimentation than planned, while maintaining that the likely effects on spawning habitat were limited and temporary. Shell
This was therefore not an argument in which Shell simply denied every environmental problem.
Its own reporting acknowledged failures and remedial measures.
The dispute was over their seriousness and whether remediation was sufficient.
9. The project was already being built while the public was being consultedThis was one of the fundamental tensions.
Environmental organisations argued that meaningful consultation was difficult when construction was already far advanced.
By April 2006, WWF and its partners described the project as already roughly two-thirds constructed. WWF Europe
That matters because consultation normally implies the possibility of changing what is proposed.
But substantial infrastructure, pipelines and offshore facilities were already committed.
The consultation therefore operated partly as an examination of mitigation for decisions already taken.
That was one reason opponents questioned whether the process could genuinely influence the project.
10. 21 April 2006: the consultation period closesWWF recorded 21 April 2006 as the closing date of EBRD’s consultation.
Its final submission again urged the Bank not to finance Sakhalin II without stronger environmental safeguards, particularly concerning the western gray whales. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
At this point the next expected step was relatively straightforward.
EBRD would digest the submissions.
Its technical and environmental teams would continue their work.
And eventually the Bank’s board would decide whether to lend.
But Sakhalin II was about to stop behaving like an ordinary project-finance case.
11. There was already another negotiation in the backgroundWhile EBRD was conducting its environmental consultation, Shell was separately negotiating with Gazprom.
Contemporaneous reporting records that Shell had signed a memorandum of understanding under which Gazprom was expected to obtain 25 per cent of Sakhalin Energy in exchange for Shell receiving an interest in a major Siberian gas field. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
The prospective transaction was commercial.
But it placed the Russian state-controlled gas champion directly beside the environmental financing process.
And another problem was developing.
Sakhalin II’s cost estimate had doubled.
12. The $10 billion project became a $20 billion projectThe cost escalation was enormous.
Contemporaneous reporting records Sakhalin II’s projected cost increasing from roughly $10 billion to $20 billion. Shell News
That increase affected more than Shell’s shareholders.
Under the production-sharing agreement, development costs were recoverable from project revenues before Russia received some of the profits it expected.
The cost revision therefore had implications for the Russian state.
It also disrupted the commercial logic of the contemplated Gazprom asset swap.
Contemporaneous reporting described Gazprom as dissatisfied that the economic basis of the earlier arrangement had changed. El País
Environmental controversy and commercial negotiation were now moving toward each other.
13. September 2006: the regulatory confrontation eruptsIn September, Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources moved against a crucial environmental approval for Sakhalin II.
RIA Novosti reported that the Ministry annulled the project’s Sakhalin Environmental Expert Review, originally approved in 2003, citing environmental concerns including landslide risks around pipeline construction. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
The action threatened substantial delays.
A Sakhalin Energy executive warned publicly that withdrawal of the approval could delay the project by 17 months and put thousands of jobs at risk. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
This was no longer a lender asking questions.
It was the Russian state exercising regulatory power over a project already deep into construction.
14. Were the environmental objections genuine — or leverage?This is where the documentary record must resist a tempting simplification.
Environmental concerns surrounding Sakhalin II were real and long pre-dated the 2006 ownership dispute.
EBRD, independent scientists, environmental groups and even Shell’s own reports had documented problems concerning river crossings, whales, spills and contractor compliance.
It would therefore be inaccurate to dismiss every Russian environmental complaint as invented.
But contemporaneous observers also interpreted the sudden escalation of regulatory action as pressure on Shell to improve the terms on which Gazprom could enter Sakhalin II.
El País reported explicitly that Russia was pressuring Shell while Gazprom sought a stake and noted that the original asset-swap understanding had been destabilised by the project’s cost doubling. El País
The Guardian later described months of pressure from Russia’s natural-resources and environmental authorities preceding the ownership negotiations. The Guardian
Those were contemporary interpretations.
They were not judicial findings.
15. The Russian government denied that interpretationRussian officials publicly rejected accusations that foreign investors were being driven from the energy sector.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the environmental inspections did not necessarily mean termination of the production-sharing agreement and described claims that Russia intended to squeeze out foreign investors as groundless.
Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev likewise said the authorities hoped to avoid shutting the project but insisted that environmental violations had to be corrected. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
That position must be recorded alongside the allegations of political pressure.
The Russian government said the issue was regulatory compliance.
Critics and market observers suspected strategic leverage.
The surviving record establishes the simultaneity of environmental enforcement and ownership negotiations.
It does not, by itself, prove the motive behind every regulatory decision.
16. The EBRD process is overtaken by eventsBy 26 September 2006, the financing process had stalled.
AFP reported that EBRD had expected to reach a decision on potential financing during the summer or by September.
Instead, the Bank said that uncertainty surrounding the project’s legal position:
“does not allow the EBRD to progress.” Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
This is an important turning point.
The 120-day public consultation had been completed.
The environmental submissions had been gathered.
But the lender could not proceed toward a decision because the legal and regulatory status of the underlying project had become uncertain.
The environmental financing process had collided with Russian state action.
17. That did not amount to an EBRD environmental rejectionThis distinction is crucial because the later history is often compressed.
EBRD did not announce in September 2006:
Shell has failed our environmental test and we refuse to lend.
It said the Russian legal uncertainty prevented the financing process from progressing. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
Environmental issues remained central to the Bank’s assessment.
But the immediate obstacle had changed.
The project itself was now being challenged by the state whose resources it was developing.
18. By the end of 2006, control was movingThe eventual outcome is documented in an SEC filing.
On 21 December 2006, Gazprom, Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi signed a protocol under which Gazprom would acquire 50 per cent plus one share of Sakhalin Energy for $7.45 billion.
Shell’s interest would fall from 55 per cent to 27.5 per cent. SEC
The filing records that Phase II was then more than 80 per cent complete and that approximately $12 billion had already been invested by the end of the third quarter of 2006. SEC
Shell’s own 2006 Sustainability Report later called the year:
“tumultuous.”
It welcomed Gazprom’s entry and presented the new ownership arrangement as helping the project move toward completion. Shell
The corporate language was conciliatory.
The change in control was undeniable.
19. The later court record supplies an independent institutional frameTwo years later, the English High Court considered a dispute over access to British government environmental information relating to proposed ECGD support.
In Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin), Mr Justice Mitting recorded that Shell had held the majority stake when British support was originally sought, while Gazprom subsequently acquired a 50 per cent interest.
He also recorded that approximately US$650 million of UK-backed project finance had been under consideration and described the project as potentially having major effects on western gray whale habitat. vLex
The case did not decide whether the Russian regulatory pressure of 2006 had been politically motivated.
It did not decide whether EBRD should have financed Sakhalin II.
And it did not adjudicate whether individual environmental allegations were correct.
Its value here is narrower.
It confirms that the financing and environmental controversy surrounding Sakhalin II became serious enough to generate formal litigation over what the British government knew.
Documentary Findings EstablishedEBRD decided on 14 December 2005 that Sakhalin II’s documentation was fit for public consultation, thereby opening the final 120-day disclosure and consultation process. That was not a loan approval. EBRD
Consultation occurred internationally, including meetings in London and Moscow, with further consultation in Sakhalin and Hokkaido. The Moscow meeting included extensive opposition from environmentalists, lawyers, scientists and community representatives. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
EBRD’s December 2005 position, as reproduced in contemporary submissions, acknowledged that some procedures required by its Environmental Policy had not been fully followed during project planning. WWF Europe
WWF and other organisations opposed financing and raised concerns over whales, oil-spill preparedness, salmon rivers, indigenous communities, seismic risk and the effectiveness of consultation. Those were campaigning assessments, not judicial findings. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Shell’s own reporting acknowledged contractor failures at some sensitive river crossings and described subsequent remedial controls, independent monitoring and mitigation measures. Shell
The 120-day consultation closed in April 2006. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Russia’s environmental authorities moved against a key Sakhalin II environmental approval in September 2006 while Gazprom was simultaneously pursuing entry into the project. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
EBRD then delayed its financing decision because the project’s legal position had become uncertain. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
On 21 December 2006, a protocol was signed under which Gazprom would obtain 50 per cent plus one share for $7.45 billion and Shell’s stake would fall from 55 per cent to 27.5 per cent. SEC
Shell and Sakhalin Energy’s stated positionSakhalin Energy maintained during the consultation that it was complying with Russian law and that environmental issues were being addressed. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
Shell’s authenticated reporting records strengthened river-crossing controls, outside expert involvement, independent monitoring and measures to protect western gray whales. Shell
After the 2006 ownership agreement, Shell publicly welcomed Gazprom’s participation and portrayed the restructuring as a step toward completing the project and meeting environmental and community commitments. Shell
The critics’ stated positionEnvironmental organisations argued that Sakhalin II still failed to meet EBRD standards and that major risks remained unresolved despite years of review.
Some also argued that meaningful consultation was compromised because much of the project was already under construction before the final 120-day process began. WWF Europe
Those assessments remain attributed to the organisations making them.
The Russian government’s stated positionRussian officials said the 2006 inspections and environmental enforcement concerned compliance with the project’s obligations.
They rejected claims that the purpose was to force foreign companies from Russian energy projects or to terminate the production-sharing agreement. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
Those were the Russian government’s stated explanations.
Not establishedIt is not established that EBRD approved Sakhalin II environmentally in December 2005.
It is not established that EBRD rejected Sakhalin II on environmental grounds after the 120-day consultation.
It is not established that every environmental criticism made by NGOs during consultation was correct.
It is not established that Sakhalin Energy was free of environmental non-compliance; Shell’s own reporting acknowledged some contractor failures.
It is not established that Russia’s September 2006 regulatory action was fabricated solely to obtain control of Sakhalin II.
It is not established that the Russian enforcement campaign was entirely divorced from the commercial negotiations with Gazprom.
It is not established by any court record identified here that Shell was unlawfully coerced into selling control.
And the 2008 English High Court case did not adjudicate the motives of the Russian government, EBRD’s financing merits or Shell’s environmental liability.
CommentaryThe 120-day consultation is important because it marks the last moment when Sakhalin II still looked primarily like an environmental-finance problem.
The questions were difficult but recognisable.
Were the whales adequately protected?
Could oil be contained under sea ice?
Were salmon rivers being crossed properly?
Were contractors obeying the rules?
Could local communities influence decisions?
Did the project satisfy the standards required for public-backed finance?
Those were questions a development bank was equipped to examine.
Then the ground moved.
The same environmental issues that international lenders had been scrutinising became instruments within a confrontation involving the Russian state, a strategic gas asset, a production-sharing agreement, a doubled project budget and Gazprom’s demand for entry.
At that point, environmental governance and energy politics became almost impossible to separate.
The most important distinctionThe documentary record does not permit either of the two easiest stories.
The first easy story is:
Russia invented environmental complaints and stole Shell’s project.
That ignores years of documented environmental concern preceding the ownership battle.
The second is:
Russia simply enforced environmental law and Gazprom’s acquisition was unrelated.
That ignores the extraordinary timing, the contemporaneous reporting, the simultaneous ownership negotiations and the eventual transfer of control.
The evidence supports a more disciplined conclusion.
Environmental problems existed.
Regulatory pressure escalated dramatically.
Gazprom wanted into the project.
The earlier asset-swap economics had been disrupted by the doubling of costs.
And within months, Shell surrendered majority control.
Those facts can be established.
The precise mixture of environmental enforcement, commercial bargaining and state strategy behind them remains a matter requiring evidence, not assumption.
What the 120-day test actually achievedEBRD never reached the simple yes-or-no conclusion many participants expected during the consultation.
But the process was not meaningless.
It forced disclosure.
It created records.
It exposed project assumptions to outside challenge.
It required Shell and Sakhalin Energy to respond publicly to issues involving whales, rivers, spills and local communities.
And it preserved an evidential trail later available to parliaments, courts, journalists and this archive.
The loan decision was overtaken by politics.
The documents survived.
Source RecordThe European Bank for Reconstruction and Development Independent Recourse Mechanism record preserves the 14 December 2005 determination that Sakhalin II documentation was fit for consultation and records the wider accountability process. EBRD
EBRD — Sakhalin II Independent Recourse Mechanism record
Contemporaneous Oil & Gas Journal reporting explains that the EBRD determination triggered the 120-day disclosure and consultation period and notes the project’s rising cost and continuing environmental controversy. Shell News
Oil & Gas Journal — Sakhalin II Phase 2 clears EBRD consultation hurdle, December 2005
AFP’s March 2006 account records the six-hour Moscow consultation, the objections raised by lawyers, environmentalists, scientists and community representatives, Sakhalin Energy’s response, the preceding London consultation and planned meetings in Sakhalin and Hokkaido. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
AFP/TODAY — EBRD urged to refuse Sakhalin II finance, March 2006
The WWF, Friends of the Earth and The Corner House submission of 28 April 2006 reproduces relevant wording from EBRD’s December 2005 press release and sets out the organisations’ criticism of the project. It is advocacy evidence and is treated as such. WWF Europe
WWF/Friends of the Earth/The Corner House — Sakhalin II submission
Friends of the Earth Japan’s contemporaneous submission records the 10 April 2006 Hokkaido consultation and the organisation’s criticisms concerning transboundary effects and consultation procedures. 国際環境NGO FoE Japan
Friends of the Earth Japan — Sakhalin II consultation submission, April 2006
WWF’s statements during and at the close of the consultation document its objections concerning western gray whales, spill response, pipeline construction and EBRD financing. These remain WWF’s assessments. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
WWF — EBRD should not fund Sakhalin II, 28 February 2006
WWF — Consultation closing statement, 21 April 2006
The authenticated Shell Sustainability Report 2006 records Shell’s account of the year, its remedial measures on sensitive river crossings, western gray whale mitigation and the December 2006 Gazprom agreement. Shell
Shell — Sustainability Report 2006
RIA Novosti’s September 2006 reporting records the Russian environmental action, the government’s stated rationale and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s rejection of claims that Russia intended to drive foreign investors out. Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com
RIA Novosti — Sakhalin II inspections and environmental approval, 27 September 2006
Contemporaneous El País reporting records the parallel Gazprom negotiations, the earlier asset-swap arrangement, the doubling of project costs and international concern over Russian regulatory pressure. El País
El País — Russia pressures Shell over Sakhalin II, 20 September 2006
AFP reported on 26 September 2006 that EBRD had delayed its financing decision because the project’s legal position had become too uncertain to permit progress. Royal Dutch Shell Group .com
AFP — EBRD delays Sakhalin II financing decision, 26 September 2006
The SEC filing of December 2006 provides the authenticated corporate terms of the Gazprom protocol: $7.45 billion for 50 per cent plus one share, reducing Shell’s interest from 55 per cent to 27.5 per cent. SEC
US SEC — Gazprom, Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi Sakhalin II protocol, December 2006
The later judicial context is Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin). Mr Justice Mitting recorded the proposed approximately $650 million of UK-backed finance and the potentially significant environmental implications of Sakhalin II. The judgment concerned disclosure of environmental information and did not adjudicate Russian motives or Shell’s environmental liability. vLex
High Court — Export Credits Guarantee Department v Friends of the Earth [2008] EWHC 638 (Admin)
Archive disclaimer: This instalment distinguishes EBRD determinations, Shell statements, NGO submissions, Russian government statements, contemporaneous journalistic interpretation and later judicial context. The coincidence of environmental enforcement and negotiations over Gazprom’s entry is documented; motive is not treated as judicially established. “Fit for consultation” is not represented as environmental approval or financing approval.
Site-wide disclaimer applies.
Next instalment The Sakhalin Papers LX: The Permit War — When Russia Turned Environmental Enforcement Against Shell’s Flagship ProjectBy September 2006, the 120-day EBRD consultation was over.
But Russia’s own environmental authorities were only beginning.
Inspectors moved across pipeline routes, forests, rivers and Aniva Bay.
A crucial environmental approval was challenged.
Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev warned that violations had to be corrected.
Sakhalin Energy warned of delays and thousands of lost jobs.
Foreign governments demanded legal certainty.
And behind the environmental confrontation stood an unresolved commercial question:
On what terms would Gazprom enter Sakhalin II?Within three months the answer would be extraordinary.
Gazprom would not receive the 25 per cent stake originally contemplated.
It would obtain:
50 per cent plus one share.The next file will reconstruct the September–December 2006 regulatory offensive, separate documented environmental violations from allegations of political coercion, and follow the pressure campaign to the meeting at which Shell finally surrendered control of the project.
THE SHELL LEAKS FILES: 26 SEPTEMBER 2026 was first posted on September 26, 2026 at 11:22 pm.©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net
The Future Of Food Education Is In Classrooms, On Farms, And Everywhere In Between
The intersection of food and education goes well beyond just school lunches; food systems can be a tool for instruction on a variety of subjects and values, educators, farmers, chefs, and other experts said during the “Future of Food Education” Summit during Climate Week NYC.
The event, presented in partnership with Pilot Light and with support from Nielsen Massey, focused on ensuring that children from a young age are thinking critically about where food comes from, developing tools to fuel their bodies and minds, and reflecting on how they can be change agents for climate action.
“You can teach any subject through food,” says Alexandra DeSorbo-Quinn, Executive Director of Pilot Light. “Food makes learning relevant.”
Watch the livestream recording on Food Tank’s YouTube channel.
“The food system is flawed; it’s no secret. It’s important to remind ourselves—and our kids—that they are a part of a change. It’s important that we plant those seeds,” says Shanon Morris, Chief Program Officer at Harlem Grown.
In schools, food can give teachers permission to be creative, says Caitlin Arens, Food Education Fellowships Director at Pilot Light. Teaching is a form of food system action, she says.
To facilitate this, Pilot Light has created the United States’ first-ever Food Education Standards, benchmarks for teaching food systems and using food as a pathway for broader learning.
“We think of those standards as a common language that we can all speak,” says Taylor Meredith, Education Policy Advisor at Pilot Light. “When everybody is speaking the same language in the classroom, that’s when we have impact in the broader community.”
Food education can also take place outside of traditional classroom settings, including on farms and in gardens.
“The power of bringing people together for shared experiences is transformational,” and school gardens bring that to kids, says Lyndsey Waugh, Executive Director of the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation. “Human connections spark around food.”
“If we can eat better, we can teach the next generations to love the garden and the harvest and the things that we can pull from the ground,” says Rev. Linda Carmen Bryant, Co-Founder of San Antonio Million Gardens Project and Pastor of Grant Community AME Church in San Antonio, Texas. “If we get the kids excited (about growing food), they will lead us.”
But teaching kids to grow food is not enough alone. Preparing young people for careers in agriculture also means teaching them business skills and guiding them in navigating financial resources.
“There’s power in the fact that your kids are the next generation. I am not too scared about the next generation of producers; what I am scared about is their ability to access (resources),” says Gerardo Martinez, Founder of Wild Kid Acres and a Marine Corps Veteran.
It’s true that land is becoming more commoditized and more difficult for younger farmers to obtain, says Karen Washington, a Food Justice Advocate, Farmer, and Author—but the solution cannot simply be to give them land without also making sure they can afford access to water, electricity, equipment, and agricultural inputs. Collective ownership makes this more feasible, she says.
“Now is the time to organize. People are forming ecosystems, cooperatives, collaborative organizations; they are doing the work,” Washington says. “Make sure that you’re connecting with your community, connecting with your growers. … The remedy is, know your local farmer.”
And this connection between eaters and food can start in schools, including at lunchtime. In New York City’s public schools, nutrition educators collaborate with students to get feedback on menu items and model healthy eating patterns, says Jeremy Walter, Executive Director of Food & Nutrition Education for New York City Public Schools.
“We’re more and more trying to optimize the cafeteria as a classroom,” says Nancy Easton, Executive Director and Founder of Wellness in the Schools.
In her classroom at P.S. 072 Dr. William Dorney, educator Amanda Torres uses food to teach multiplication and division—but she also wants school to be a place where kids feel empowered to be curious, find their voice, and create change.
“People talk about the past and talk about the future, but what we’re doing now matters,” she says. “We all have the power to change. Don’t wait on anyone to change for you.”
Explore the entire Food Tank event schedule during Climate Week NYC 2026, and live-stream every Summit on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel.
Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.
Photo by Ryan Rose for Food Tank.
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Dutch Government Looks to Industry to Shoulder Gas-Storage Costs as LNG Dependence Grows
The Netherlands wants private energy companies to shoulder more of the cost of keeping enough gas in storage for winter — as the country confronts the expensive consequences of becoming increasingly dependent on imported natural gas and LNG.
According to DutchNews, the Dutch government is considering making commercial energy suppliers responsible for building up their own strategic gas reserves rather than continuing to rely so heavily on the government-backed company Energie Beheer Nederland (EBN).
The immediate problem is money.
EBN is reportedly facing losses approaching €1 billion from filling Dutch gas-storage facilities when market conditions provide private traders with little commercial incentive to do the same.
And behind that financial problem sits a much larger question:
Who should pay to guarantee energy security when the market itself does not provide enough incentive to do it?
A billion-euro storage problemThe Netherlands has four major seasonal gas-storage sites at Norg, Grijpskerk, Bergermeer and Alkmaar.
At present, EBN has played a central role in ensuring those facilities are filled sufficiently ahead of winter.
But DutchNews reports that unusually unfavourable market conditions mean the operation could cost EBN around €1 billion.
Normally, gas traders have an incentive to buy gas cheaply during the summer, store it and sell it when winter prices rise.
The economics currently look different.
Prices are expected to decline after autumn, meaning a trader buying expensive gas now could potentially lose money by storing it for later sale.
From a commercial perspective, therefore, leaving storage capacity unused may make sense.
From the perspective of national energy security, it may not.
That is the conflict the Dutch government is now trying to resolve.
Government: Why should taxpayers carry the bill?The cabinet is considering shifting more responsibility to private energy suppliers.
DutchNews says companies including Essent, Eneco and Vattenfall could be required to maintain their own reserves, broadly following a model already operating in Austria.
The Ministry of Economic Affairs has questioned whether Dutch taxpayers should continue paying for storage needed partly to ensure suppliers can meet customer demand during winter.
The underlying policy question is straightforward.
Gas storage is effectively an insurance policy.
Nobody particularly wants to pay the premium when supply is plentiful.
But when temperatures plunge, pipelines fail or geopolitical events disrupt supplies, the value of that insurance suddenly becomes obvious.
The government is now asking whether private companies that sell gas should bear more of the cost of maintaining that security.
The storage target has already been loweredThe debate comes at an awkward moment.
The Netherlands recently reduced its winter gas-storage target.
Gasunie confirmed on 11 September 2026 that the government had lowered the national filling objective from 115 terawatt hours to 93 TWh.
The original 115 TWh target was based on Gasunie Transport Services calculations of the gas required to keep customers supplied during the coldest winter experienced in the previous 30 years.
Gasunie was careful not to suggest that the lower target automatically meant shortages were coming.
But it made the consequence clear:
the Netherlands would be less well prepared for an exceptionally cold winter.
DutchNews subsequently reported that the percentage target had effectively fallen from around 74% to 64%, while storage was then approximately 57.5% full.
That does not amount to an immediate supply crisis.
It does show how delicately economics, weather and security of supply are now intertwined.
Groningen changed everythingThere is considerable historical irony here.
For decades, the Netherlands was one of Europe’s great natural-gas producers.
The enormous Groningen gas field made the country a major exporter and helped underpin European energy supplies.
But extraction caused increasingly serious earthquakes and associated damage in the province of Groningen.
Production was progressively curtailed and ultimately ended.
The underground infrastructure created during the era of abundant domestic gas did not disappear.
The Netherlands still has substantial storage capacity.
What changed was the source of the gas being put into it.
As DutchNews notes, storage caverns that once sat within a country exporting Groningen gas must increasingly be filled with imported gas.
That is a profound reversal.
Enter LNGThe Netherlands has responded to the loss of Groningen production and the collapse of much of Europe’s former dependence on Russian pipeline gas by greatly expanding its ability to import liquefied natural gas.
LNG can arrive by tanker from suppliers around the world, be converted back into gaseous form at European terminals and fed into the pipeline network.
It has become a crucial part of European energy security.
But flexibility has a price.
DutchNews identifies imports of LNG from the United States as an important contributor to current Dutch gas costs.
That illustrates one of the fundamental changes in Europe’s post-Groningen, post-Russian-pipeline gas system.
Gas security increasingly depends not simply on wells and pipelines close to home, but on:
global LNG production;
ocean-going tankers;
international commodity prices;
regasification terminals;
storage facilities;
and competition with buyers elsewhere in the world.
The Netherlands is therefore exposed far more directly than before to the international gas market.
Where Shell fits into the pictureThere is an obvious Shell dimension — but it needs to be described carefully.
The reported Dutch government proposal is not specifically a measure directed at Shell.
DutchNews identifies major commercial suppliers such as Essent, Eneco and Vattenfall when discussing companies that could face mandatory storage obligations.
Shell nevertheless remains highly relevant to the wider story.
Natural gas and LNG have become central to Shell’s global strategy.
Shell buys, produces, transports and trades gas internationally and has repeatedly identified LNG as one of the businesses in which it intends to grow.
Indeed, as we have just reported separately, Shell is currently considering another enormous expansion of its LNG position through Phase 2 of LNG Canada, while its recently completed acquisition of ARC Resources has substantially increased its access to Canadian gas reserves.
So while the Dutch storage proposal should not be portrayed as a Shell-specific measure, it is part of the same global gas system in which Shell is one of the largest commercial participants.
Energy security has a priceThe Dutch dilemma also exposes something that is sometimes obscured by discussions of energy markets.
Security of supply is not free.
Maintaining reserve capacity costs money.
Holding gas underground that might never be needed in a particular winter costs money.
Building LNG terminals costs money.
Keeping pipelines available costs money.
Maintaining backup infrastructure costs money.
And somebody ultimately pays — whether through taxes, energy bills or obligations placed on energy suppliers.
The Netherlands has so far used EBN and therefore public money to shoulder much of the risk involved in filling strategic storage.
The government is now questioning whether that balance should change.
The taxpayer or the supplier?There are arguments on both sides.
Requiring private suppliers to hold strategic gas could place the cost more directly on companies benefiting from the security those reserves provide.
But commercial companies will not simply absorb substantial additional costs indefinitely.
Some portion could ultimately be reflected in energy prices paid by consumers.
Government-funded storage, on the other hand, spreads the cost through the public finances.
Either way, maintaining resilience has a price.
The real debate is therefore not whether someone will pay.
It is who pays, how much, and through which mechanism.
Europe learned the value of stored gas the hard wayThat question has acquired much greater importance since Europe’s energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Gas storage went from being an obscure part of energy infrastructure to a strategic national concern almost overnight.
European governments discovered that apparently mundane percentages showing how full underground caverns were could influence:
wholesale prices;
industrial production;
household energy bills;
government spending;
and geopolitical leverage.
The Netherlands’ latest dispute over storage costs is another consequence of that transformation.
A new Dutch energy realityThe old Dutch gas model was relatively simple.
Produce enormous quantities at Groningen.
Supply the domestic market.
Export the surplus.
Maintain infrastructure around an abundant indigenous resource.
That world has gone.
Today’s Netherlands increasingly relies upon gas originating elsewhere, including expensive LNG transported across oceans.
It must then decide how much of that imported gas to hold in reserve against a difficult winter.
Gasunie says the reduced storage target does not automatically put supply at risk.
But it also says plainly that the Netherlands will be less prepared for a very cold winter than it would have been under the previous target.
And when filling those stores could leave the state-backed operator facing losses approaching €1 billion, the political question becomes unavoidable.
The Dutch government increasingly appears to have an answer:
energy companies that depend upon secure winter supplies should shoulder more of the cost of providing them.
Whether the industry agrees — and how much of that cost eventually reaches consumers — could become the next significant chapter in the Netherlands’ rapidly changing gas story.
Sources: DutchNews, 25 September 2026; Gasunie, 11 September and 26 August 2026.
Dutch Government Looks to Industry to Shoulder Gas-Storage Costs as LNG Dependence Grows was first posted on September 26, 2026 at 6:48 pm.©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net
Shell Monaca Gets New Air Quality Approval — Weeks After $15 Million Pollution Settlement
Shell’s giant plastics complex in Pennsylvania has received another significant environmental approval — just weeks after the company agreed to a $15 million settlement over air-quality violations at the same facility.
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has issued Air Quality Plan Approval PA-04-00740D for Shell Polymers Monaca, the huge ethane-cracker and polyethylene complex in Beaver County.
On its face, this is a permit story.
Placed alongside the plant’s recent history, however, it becomes rather more interesting.
Only on 4 September 2026, Pennsylvania DEP announced that Shell Chemical Appalachia had formally acknowledged violations involving emissions and other environmental requirements occurring between 2023 and August 2026.
Shell agreed to pay a $7.5 million civil penalty and contribute a further $7.5 million to a new Beaver County Environment and Community Fund.
Now the same regulator has approved modifications to air-pollution control systems and associated equipment at the plant.
That does not mean DEP has excused or overlooked the earlier violations.
Quite the opposite: the approval forms part of an increasingly detailed regulatory framework surrounding a facility that has experienced repeated environmental compliance problems since beginning production.
What has DEP approved?The approval — PA-04-00740D — was originally put forward for public review earlier this year.
DEP said the proposal would authorise several changes and improvements at Shell Polymers Monaca.
Among them were:
- updates to flare systems intended to meet newer federal air-quality standards;
- permanent upgrades to the wastewater-treatment plant designed to improve removal of oils, grease and air pollutants; and
- administrative changes reflecting the plant’s final construction and operating configuration.
DEP said during the proposal stage that it had reviewed expected emissions, pollution controls and potential impacts on air quality and public health, and concluded that the proposed changes met applicable state and federal standards.
The department held a public information meeting on 19 March 2026 and a formal public hearing on 7 April.
The permit was therefore not issued quietly or without scrutiny.
But the timing is strikingThe new approval arrives against an extraordinary compliance background.
On 4 September, DEP announced a consent order and agreement covering violations extending from 2023 through August 2026.
According to the department, Shell formally acknowledged exceeding total emission limitations for air contaminants and violating other environmental requirements.
The settlement requires Shell not only to make payments but also to undertake further operational improvements.
DEP specifically required Shell to submit plans to improve the plant’s elevated flare system and complete upgrades to the wastewater-treatment plant.
Those two areas are particularly noteworthy because they overlap directly with subjects covered by the newly approved Air Quality Plan.
In other words, the permit and the enforcement action should not be viewed as entirely separate stories.
Together, they show DEP simultaneously allowing improvements to the facility while requiring Shell to address the consequences of earlier compliance failures.
$15 million — and not the first settlementThe September agreement requires Shell to pay a $7.5 million civil penalty.
A further $7.5 million will establish the Beaver County Environment and Community Fund.
DEP says that, once the legally required portion of the civil penalty directed to Potter Township is included, the latest agreement will provide $9.375 million in direct community benefit.
This is also not Shell Monaca’s first major air-quality enforcement settlement.
In May 2023, DEP reached another agreement with Shell after the company exceeded air-emission limitations during commissioning.
That earlier agreement included a civil penalty of approximately $4.9 million and a further $5 million commitment for environmental mitigation projects benefiting communities around the plant.
The regulatory history is therefore becoming substantial.
Shell Polymers Monaca only began polyethylene production processes in fall 2022.
Within four years, the site had already generated multiple major enforcement agreements, extensive public scrutiny and continuing permit modifications.
The Monaca plantShell Polymers Monaca is one of the largest petrochemical investments in Pennsylvania.
The complex uses ethane derived from natural gas to manufacture polyethylene, one of the world’s most widely used plastics.
The site contains ethane cracking furnaces, polyethylene production units and three gas-fired electricity-generating turbines.
Its scale was one reason the original project attracted enormous attention.
Supporters emphasised jobs, industrial investment and the development of a petrochemical industry based on Appalachian shale gas.
Environmental organisations and neighbouring residents raised concerns about air pollution, greenhouse-gas emissions, plastics production and potential health impacts.
Those competing arguments did not disappear when construction ended.
If anything, the plant’s operating history has intensified scrutiny.
Flare problems remain centralFlaring has repeatedly featured in Shell Monaca’s regulatory story.
Industrial flares are safety devices designed to burn off gases that cannot safely remain within a process system.
But excessive or poorly controlled flaring can also produce substantial emissions.
DEP’s latest settlement requires further improvement of Shell’s elevated flare system.
The newly approved Air Quality Plan likewise incorporates updates intended to bring flare systems into compliance with newer federal standards.
That convergence is important.
It suggests that flaring is not simply a historic commissioning problem but remains part of the plant’s continuing environmental-control programme.
Wastewater tooThe wastewater-treatment system is another recurring issue.
DEP’s March description of the proposed air permit specifically included permanent upgrades intended to improve removal of oils, grease and air pollutants from wastewater treatment.
The September enforcement settlement separately requires Shell to complete wastewater-treatment upgrades.
And DEP is also considering renewal of the plant’s wastewater discharge permit.
That permit covers regulated discharges affecting waters including the Ohio River, Rag Run, Poorhouse Run and Raccoon Creek.
So while this latest development concerns an air-quality approval, the wider regulatory picture extends well beyond air emissions.
Safety scrutiny as wellEnvironmental regulation is not the only area in which Shell Polymers Monaca has recently been under examination.
The US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board recently issued its final report concerning the November 2025 explosion and fire at the complex — a report we covered separately.
That investigation dealt with process safety rather than environmental permitting.
The distinction matters.
But together the various proceedings reveal a facility being examined simultaneously from several directions:
air emissions;
wastewater;
process safety;
flare performance;
pollution-control equipment;
and operating permits.
Each involves a different regulatory mechanism.
Collectively, however, they form the operating history of the same enormous industrial complex.
Approval does not erase the compliance recordThere is an important point of interpretation here.
The issuance of Air Quality Plan Approval PA-04-00740D should not be portrayed as Pennsylvania DEP declaring the Shell plant environmentally trouble-free.
That is not what a plan approval means.
The department’s task is to determine whether the proposed modifications satisfy applicable regulatory requirements.
DEP concluded that they did.
At the same time, the department has separately documented and penalised past violations.
Those two facts are perfectly capable of existing together.
Indeed, that is precisely what environmental regulation is supposed to do: punish violations where appropriate while requiring facilities to install, modify and operate pollution controls that meet current standards.
The more revealing question is why a relatively young facility has already required such sustained regulatory intervention.
A plant still finding its feetShell Polymers Monaca was promoted as a technologically sophisticated, world-scale petrochemical facility.
Yet its first years of operation have involved repeated emissions problems, multimillion-dollar settlements, process-safety scrutiny and continuing modifications to pollution-control infrastructure.
That does not mean every regulatory approval represents another violation.
It does mean each new approval deserves to be read against the plant’s documented history.
PA-04-00740D may therefore be best understood not as the closing of a chapter but as another stage in the long process of bringing Shell’s Pennsylvania plastics complex into stable regulatory compliance.
The permit has been issued.
The monitoring, enforcement and public scrutiny are plainly not over.
Sources: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection; PA Environment Digest; Pennsylvania DEP Shell Polymers Monaca facility records.
The headline is deliberately restrained. “Gets New Air Quality Approval — Weeks After $15 Million Pollution Settlement” states the contrast without implying that DEP’s approval itself represents misconduct. Pennsylvania Government
Shell Monaca Gets New Air Quality Approval — Weeks After $15 Million Pollution Settlement was first posted on September 26, 2026 at 2:41 pm.©2018 "Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at john@shellnews.net
Raising A Toast To Food Politics Expert Marion Nestle On Her 90th Birthday
Happy birthday, Marion Nestle!
At Climate Week NYC, Food Tank held a 90th birthday celebration to honor the legendary food policy expert, writer, thinker, and Professor Emerita of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University.
During the evening, Marion received the Rodale Institute Organic Stewardship Award for Lifetime Achievement in Education.
“Marion really is a total badass who, for decades, has told some of the most powerful industries in the world exactly what they didn’t want her to say, and she said it loudly—with footnotes,” says Renée Baran, Dean of Education at the Rodale Institute.
Watch the entire livestream of the event, hosted in partnership with New York University and the Rodale Institute, on Food Tank’s YouTube channel.
Throughout the celebration, Marion’s food system friends and colleagues joined the stage to offer toasts:
“Marion is a changemaker. Marion is a force of nature…She has taught us how to think about food, argue about food, question and challenge food, and how to eat.”
—Jennifer Berg, Clinical Professor and Department Chair of Nutrition and Food Studies at New York University
“(Food) is sociology, agriculture, history, and community, but above all, it’s politics. Today it’s obvious, but 30 years ago, it certainly was not…It’s because of Marion that we have a new generation of food people.”
—Ruth Reichl, Author and Former Editor-in-Chief of Gourmet
“Marion can walk into a supermarket and see an entire political economy. Marion’s voice is needed now more than ever.”
—Frances Moore Lappé, Author and Co-Founder of the Small Planet Institute
“Marion, as we say in the business, gives a good quote…but she also tells the truth.”
—Kim Severson, National Food Culture Reporter at The New York Times
“Marion occupies a place no one else does in our understanding of the world. Years ago I called her matchlessly lucid, and she hasn’t changed a bit.”
—Corby Kummer, Executive Director of Food & Society at the Aspen Institute, Senior Editor at The Atlantic, and Senior Lecturer at the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science
“Marion has never been interested in telling people what they want to hear. She asks the uncomfortable questions. She follows the money. She looks at who has power, who doesn’t, and why. And she has spent decades helping all of us understand that food is never just about what is on our plates.”
—Danielle Nierenberg, President of Food Tank
Explore the entire Food Tank event schedule during Climate Week NYC 2026, and live-stream every Summit on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel.
Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.
Photo by Ryan Rose for Food Tank.
The post Raising A Toast To Food Politics Expert Marion Nestle On Her 90th Birthday appeared first on Food Tank.
Data And AI Tech Can Speed Up Our Responses To Climate Change, Not Replace Them
The climate crisis moves quickly. That means our solutions need to move even faster, panelists said during Climate Week NYC.
The Summit “Acting at the Speed of Crisis: Challenges & Opportunities for Food Security and Rapid Response,” held in partnership with RAAPID and Arrell Food Institute, brought global leaders together to explore how we can use fast-moving tech to build resilience.
“There are a lot of evolving crises where, if we work together, bringing in both the tech side and the local expertise…we can move faster to get not only early warnings but action when we need it,” says Inbal Becker-Reshef, Managing Director of Microsoft AI for Good Lab, Founder & Co-Director of NASA Harvest, and Founder of RAAPID.
Watch the livestream recording on Food Tank’s YouTube channel.
“It’s easy to get numb to these issues…and the underlying assumptions of the global food trading system are getting eroded,” says Evan Fraser, Executive Director of the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph. “We need the data to anticipate where the problems are going to lead.”
Indeed, says Simon Winter, Vice President for Reimagining Humanitarian Nutrition Security at RF Catalytic Capital, “the prevalence and availability and access to very advanced data is increasing.” But to be able to analyze this data and actually turn information into action, panelists said, we need to work with technological tools like artificial intelligence (AI)—not against them.
“A big part of the challenge is the fact that (we have) vastly more information than human beings can look at, so we need AI,” says Andrew Zolli, Chief Impact Officer at Planet. “Human attention is the scarcest resource we have right now.”
As an example, Planet Remained and the Hewlett Foundation presented a case study of Grapevine, a way to create and replicate city-level policy using AI tools. Broadly speaking, if we don’t adopt AI, we’ll be entering at a disadvantage compared to oil and plastic industries that already do use the tools, says Adam Met, Musician of Multi-Platinum band AJR, Founder and Executive Director of Planet Reimagined, and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University.
“When you gather enough of this data…it makes it easier and easier for a city to say, OK, my city looks like this other city, to be able to implement it,” Met says. “This tool allows them to do it from home,” metaphorically speaking.
Dave Turk, Program Director of Environment at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, echoes the value of AI for making the right choice be the easy choice.
“Especially when you get to the local level, it just gets down to pragmatism and problem solving,” Turk says. “The power of AI done right is to make it super efficient.”
Better information-gathering can also help us respond to geopolitical conflicts and wars on a global scale, other panelists explained.
“We are in a very tight situation right now globally,” says Máximo Torero Cullen, Chief Economist of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). “In the case of agriculture, AI is an opportunity.”
For example, because a significant portion of agricultural lands in Ukraine are occupied or impacted by the Russian war, “satellite data is of crucial importance,” H.E. Taras Vysotskyi, Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, told us via video remarks.
“Globally, we are seeing an increase in the weaponization of food,” says Michael Werz, Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Food security is one of the few areas where AI doesn’t totally freak me out.”
But technological tools like AI are only valuable if they’re used well and paired with other solutions, says David Beasley, Trustee of The Rockefeller Foundation and the Former Governor of South Carolina and Former Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Programme.
“You’ve got to make sure you have good data; bad data can create a lot of harm,” he says. “You get data, and if you don’t use it strategically, what good is it?”
Better data might help us know where to target our philanthropic dollars and policy resources—but, of course, we can only accomplish these goals if funding and legislation already exist. Just as we need action on strengthening our data collection, we need action on these other social factors, too.
“We have more data, and that data allows us to predict crises better, but unfortunately it doesn’t give us the capacity to act,” says Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, Founder and CEO, Food Systems for the Future. “What does (enable action) are the permissions from government and finance, and that speed has not changed with data.”
We have to be both optimistic and realistic, panelists said: Data can guide us in changing behavior, but data alone does not change behavior. Data can highlight the climate protections that local and renewable energy provide; data can highlight how critical plant-rich diets are toward tackling the climate crisis—but we’re still responsible for building momentum, says Helen Clarkson, CEO of Climate Group.
“It doesn’t just magically happen,” she says.
Explore the entire Food Tank event schedule during Climate Week NYC 2026, and live-stream every Summit on FoodTank.com and Food Tank’s YouTube channel.
Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.
Photo by Ryan Rose for Food Tank.
The post Data And AI Tech Can Speed Up Our Responses To Climate Change, Not Replace Them appeared first on Food Tank.
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