17+ hour, 31+ min ago   (1604+ words) The previous instalment ended with an apparently contradictory picture. The whales feeding off north-eastern Sakhalin were increasing in number. By 2018 the IUCN would move the western subpopulation from Critically Endangered to Endangered. Yet recovery did not mean security. A small…...

3+ day, 14+ hour ago   (1581+ words) On 7 July 2015, Exxon Neftegas Limited finished seismic acquisition at Odoptu. On 8 July, Sakhalin Energy recorded the first shot point of its own Piltun-Astokh 4-D survey. On 29 July it recorded the last. That compressed timetable matters because almost everything that had…...

4+ day, 2+ hour ago   (1570+ words) Shell’s latest Annual Report and Accounts 2025, published in 2026 and incorporating extensive sustainability reporting, is an impressive document. “More value with less emissions.” There is just one small difficulty. And the answer is not especially mysterious. It intends to remain one…...

4+ day, 16+ hour ago   (1602+ words) The previous instalment ended with a warning. Sakhalin Energy had kept PA-C alive as a future option. Its 2014 appraisal well had disappeared. But another major operation was moving steadily toward the northeastern Sakhalin shelf. A 4-D seismic survey. The purpose…...

5+ day, 17+ hour ago   (1613+ words) The previous instalment ended with a platform location. The 2012 site survey had shown that the alternative “blue location” could work. It lay farther offshore than the earlier preferred PA-C site, farther from the principal Western Gray Whale feeding area and…...

6+ day, 15+ hour ago   (1563+ words) By November 2012, the argument over Sakhalin Energy’s proposed third offshore platform had changed. For almost two years the question had been largely theoretical. Would another platform be necessary? Could South Piltun hydrocarbons be recovered from PA-A or PA-B instead? Could…...

1+ week, 16+ hour ago   (1593+ words) Before a third platform could be built, Sakhalin Energy had to determine exactly where it might stand. That required another seismic operation. The South Piltun high-resolution 2-D site survey was originally planned for summer 2011. It did not happen on schedule....

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (1605+ words) The timing could hardly have been more revealing. At its December 2010 meeting, the Western Gray Whale Advisory Panel was still trying to understand what had happened during an extraordinary year on the northeastern Sakhalin shelf. Three seismic surveys had operated…...

1+ week, 2+ day ago   (1606+ words) The previous Shell Leaks File examined a rare example of an environmental protection system directly constraining an industrial operation. Sakhalin Energy’s Astokh 4-D seismic survey was conducted under an unusually elaborate monitoring programme. The scientists helped design it. Marine Mammal…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (1582+ words) The previous Shell Leaks File followed Sakhalin II’s financing east. Britain’s Export Credits Guarantee Department had spent years considering approximately $650 million of support. A separate judicial review was approaching hearing. Then Sakhalin Energy withdrew its British application on 29 February 2008. The…...