WWF Russia has just released a comparative analysis of a number of Gazprom’s projects, including the notorious Prirazlomnaya rig.
Screenshot of a video of Prirazlomnaya's ladder collapsing during a small-scale storm in early October. Photo: WWF-Russia
On 6 September Gazprom held a press conference … practically in response to the publicity campaign by NGOs. At the conference, Gazprom Head of offshore technology Vladimir Vovk conceded that a finalised technical plan did not exist by the time the decision to build Prirazlomnaya was taken. Moreover, as construction went on, the client refused the initial project to save costs.
WWF’s release also states,
Gazprom Neft Shelf, an oil unit of Gazprom, refused to give NGOs access to the Prirazlomnoye project documents, including the EIA, Industrial Security Declaration, and oil cleanup plans. The NGOs wanted to study the documents in order to organize a public environmental expertise of the project.
In early September, Gazprom broke federal legislation by starting exploratory drilling of the Pervoocherednaya well on the Western Kamchatka Shelf in spite of the negative opinion of the State Environmental Review. After the information was published by NGOs and media, the operating company (ArcticMorNefteGazRazvedka) deleted the news about starting the drilling from its website, and Russia’s environmental watchdog – Rosprirodnadzor – deleted the information about the negative opinion of the State Environmental Expertise from its official website.
