Translated material
Against nature
The Sakhalin-2 project was supported by the court, the prosecutor's office and Viktor Khristenko
The Ministry of Natural Resources seems to be losing ground in the scandal surrounding the Sakhalin-2 project. Yesterday, the Presnensky Court of Moscow refused to consider the claim of Rosprirodnadzor to invalidate the positive conclusion of the state environmental assessment of the second stage of the project. The lawsuit was filed against the Ministry of Natural Resources, which approved the expert’s conclusion in 2003. In addition, today the acting acting officer was summoned for questioning at the prosecutor's office. Dmitry Belanovich, head of Rosprirodnadzor for the Sakhalin region, the operator of the Sakhalin Energy project, complained about the illegality of his department’s actions during control and supervisory inspections of the project. In case of failure to appear, Mr. Belanovich will be held accountable, the Ministry of Natural Resources noted in a statement. And finally, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Energy, Viktor Khristenko, said yesterday: “It’s getting to the point that there are no grounds for revising these agreements (preferential production sharing regime - Ed.).”The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment cannot cancel the conclusion of ecologists from 2003. Rostechnadzor can do this, but it is delaying the consideration of the issue in every possible way, and without its decision, only a court can cancel a positive examination. In connection with this, a lawsuit was filed in the Presnensky Court - Rosprirodnadzor, which is part of the Ministry of Natural Resources, began to sue its own ministry. And the court yesterday refused to consider this claim. “We consider this decision unfounded and illegal and intend to appeal it to a higher authority,” ITAR-TASS quotes Rosprirodnadzor lawyer Dmitry Kolosov.
According to the press secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources, Rinat Gizatulin, the case was considered by a judge who has been dealing with environmentalists’ claims against Rosprirodnadzor, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Sakhalin Energy for several years. “Apparently, Sakhalin Energy has stronger administrative resources than we do, and apparently they have good lawyers,” he noted. Now the Ministry of Natural Resources is pinning its hopes on the trial, which is scheduled to take place on November 15, on the claim of the environmental organization Rodnik against the Ministry of Natural Resources and Rosprirodnadzor, which signed the state expert report. “There will be a different judge there,” Mr. Gizatulin emphasized.
The upcoming hearings will be the fourth in a row, during which environmental organizations and environmental agencies are trying to challenge the decision of the state examination. All previous decisions of the Presnensky Court, including on the claims of environmentalists in May 2005 and August 2006, recognized the positive conclusion of the state examination as lawful. Sakhalin Energy called the allegations about administrative resources “ridiculous.”
The main conflict around Sakhalin-2, as is known, is related to the fact that the Ministry of Natural Resources is trying to annul the positive conclusion of the environmental impact assessment of the second stage, which could lead to a halt in work. Interest in the situation is caused primarily by the fact that there is not a single Russian participant in the project: Shell owns a 55 percent share, and Japanese Mitsui and Mitsubishi have 25 percent and 20 percent. That is why the intentions of the Ministry of Natural Resources caused a great international outcry, and Japan even threatened to sever trade relations with Russia if Sakhalin-2 was stopped. In turn, the Russian authorities drew attention to the lack of interest in doubling the cost estimate for the project, to $20 billion, and carefully suggested that participants in all projects that are being implemented under PSA terms abandon this regime and switch to regular taxation. The discussion was accompanied by several trips by the deputy head of Rosprirodnadzor Oleg Mitvol to Sakhalin and his harsh statements about violations of environmental legislation. Now Yuri Trutnev himself is going to come to the island. His visit is scheduled for October 25. The Minister intends to personally familiarize himself with the situation, and first of all, with how Sakhalin Energy is eliminating the violations identified by Rosprirodnadzor.
According to the minister, before that he is not ready to make any decisions or comment on further developments. “Absolutely anything is possible, depending on how complete and comprehensive the company presents a plan to eliminate violations,” said the head of the Ministry of Natural Resources. According to him, if the presented plan is accepted by the government, then “there will be no reason to stop the project... If such measures are not taken, any sanctions are possible.” In response, the head of Shell in Russia, Chris Finlayson, said that before Mr. Trutnev’s visit to Sakhalin, the company would present to the minister the results of work to correct violations during the construction of the pipeline, identified during the September inspection. According to him, at the moment Sakhalin Energy has already eliminated more than 90% of the violations identified in September by Rosprirodnadzor.
At the same time, Sakhalin Energy appealed to the interdistrict environmental prosecutor's office of the Sakhalin region with a complaint against the Sakhalin Rosprirodnadzor. As written in a press release from the Ministry of Natural Resources, which reported this, the prosecutor’s office asks “to provide a number of documents, in particular, lists of Rosprirodnadzor officials taking part in the inspection of the Sakhalin-2 project, copies of all acts drawn up in October on violations of environmental legislation, a copy of the order of the head of Rosprirodnadzor S.I. Say on verification of the project for the development of the Piltun-Astokhskoye and Lunskoye license areas."
Yesterday, Viktor Khristenko decided to express his position regarding Sakhalin-2, because it is in his ministry that the supervisory board for the project is located. He first clarified that in Russia all companies are required to comply with environmental legislation: “All agreements contain the rule that environmental legislation is not the subject of the agreement (meaning PSA - Ed. ), but applies to all investors" However, in his opinion, environmental violations should not now be associated with the transfer of the project to the national taxation regime: “The abandonment of the PSA and changes to it are the product of an agreement between the two parties that signed it. I do not propose such changes today and cannot discuss them. , since no one offered me this,” Mr. Khristenko told reporters.
In addition, according to him, the question of increasing the estimate for the project “is within the framework of the state examination; then we will have to understand how these costs can be divided by the state.” “But the increase in the cost of the project should not lead to a decrease in the interest received from the project by Russia,” - he pointed out.
An independent examination of Sakhalin-2, which was carried out by the state-owned Zarubezhneft at the request of the project’s supervisory board (this body exists within the Ministry of Industry and Energy), has already been completed. As noted in the conclusion of the examination, “capital costs for the implementation of the second stage of the project for 2001-2014 can be considered justified. in the amount of $17.6 billion." Neither Sakhalin Energy nor government agencies comment on these data.