Daily Telegraph (UK): Shell reroutes pipelines for rare whales: “Environmentalist groups attacked the decision, saying that moving the pipeline would not be enough to safeguard the whales.” (ShellNews.net) 31 March 05
By Malcolm Moore (Filed: 31/03/2005)
Shell will reroute its oil pipelines off Russia's Sakhalin Island to protect a colony of endangered whales.
The oil company stopped building its pipelines almost a year ago after environmentalists protested that they cut across one of the last feeding grounds of the 100 remaining Western Grey whales.
The £6.7billion project has been under intense cost pressures, but yesterday Shell said the delay and rerouting would not significantly raise costs.
The new route will run 20km south of the current plans and will be 7km away from the feeding grounds. The pipelines will eventually connect an existing platform to a new platform that will soon start construction.
Environmentalist groups attacked the decision, saying that moving the pipeline would not be enough to safeguard the whales. Bankwatch called on the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to withhold funding for the project. Nick Rau, at Friends of the Earth, said: "Unless Shell moves the oil drilling platform, the future of the grey whale is still in serious jeopardy."
He added that Shell had not provided an oil spill response plan for the second part of the project.
A spokesman for Shell said that moving the platform could result in a more dangerous scenario, since it would then be on top of a patch of shallow gas, with the consequent risk of a blow-out. He added that an oil spill response plan would be released as soon as the project became active.
A spokesman for the World Conservation Union, which provided an independent environmental assessment of the Sakhalin project, said: "We are very pleased Shell has made this decision.
"The southerly route is probably the best on the balance of all the criteria we looked at. We are continuing to work with Sakhalin and Shell on other issues because the pipeline may affect reindeers and fisheries."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2005/03/31/cnshell31.xml
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