Assessment of damage caused by the Sakhalin II oil and gas project in Russia’s Far East can be completed by late summer 2007, a deputy head of Russia’s environmental watchdog said. The ambitious project, formerly led by Shell, was subjected to months of intense pressure last year from Russian authorities, who accused it of causing serious environmental damage to Sakhalin Island, including deforestation, toxic waste dumping and soil erosion. “We promised to conduct work to calculate damage, which is rather complicated, until the end of summer,” Oleg Mitvol said. He said the results of the assessment will depend on how exhaustive the operator company’s proposals to remedy the situation will be. “If the company does not want to do anything, the damage will be calculated in full,” the official said. Earlier, Russia’s Audit Chamber assessed the environmental damage inflicted by the project, off Russia’s Pacific Coast, at USD 5 billion.
