05-11-03 Ecologists will fight an international consortium over the Sakhalin-II oil project, a reported menace to the environment of Russia's Far Eastern island of Sakhalin, director of Russia's World Wildlife Fund (WWF) division said.
"Our coalition of NGOs is against the project implemented by the Sakhalin Energy Investment company, which violates ecological norms," Igor Chestin told.

The consortium, which includes such giants as Shell and Japan's Mitsui and Mitsubishi, "respects neither Russian law nor the international ecological norms and may provoke an ecological catastrophe on the island," the coalition of over 50 environmental activist groups declared.
Sakhalin-II's two new extraction platforms and an 800 km pipeline, which would transport oil and gas from the island's north to its south, are a danger to the island's ecosystem and inhabitants, ecologists charged.

According to Vitaly Gorokhov of the Ekoiuris environment association, the company also neglected anti-seismic norms to cut its expenses in building the pipeline -- a perilous decision in a region often afflicted by earthquakes.
Shell has a 55 % majority holding in Sakhalin Energy, with Japanese companies Mitsui Sakhalin (25 %) and Mitsubishi's Diamond Gas Sakhalin (20 %) holding the remaining shares. Deposits involved in the Sakhalin-2 project are estimated at 140 mm tons of oil and 400 bn cm of gas respectively. Sakhalin island is Russia's richest fishing area and its catch is the local populace's chief source of profit.