Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk
Science News Article | Reuters.co.uk: "MOSCOW (Reuters) - Fears for the future of rare whales will not halt the Shell-led Sakhalin-2 gas project in Russia's far east, Shell's country manager said on Friday.
John Barry told Reuters the $10 billion venture, one of Royal Dutch/Shell's biggest, was on track to deliver its first cargo of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) in 2007 as planned.
The consortium recognized environmentalists' concerns and was considering measures such as re-routing pipelines to avoid damage to the gray whales' habitat, he said in an interview.
'The project is going ahead. I want to be unambiguous about that,' Barry said.
He said some statements in a report last week by environmentalists, which was requested by Shell, had been taken out of context, in particular a recommendation to halt the project to take stock of its effect on the whales.
'What it said was, the most precautionary approach would be to stop and gather further data,' he said. 'But it did say that if the project went ahead, mitigation measures were needed.
'That is important because the project is going ahead and there is no question of stopping it. It is an overwhelmingly positive project for Russia, for the shareholders and for the whole Asia-Pacific region,' he said."
- posted by Gp @ 7:24 AM