EBRD pulls out of Sakhalin II project

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) has announced that it will no longer consider the financing package of the Sakhalin II oil and gas project.

The EBRD claims that changes to the shareholders and the structure of the company mean that it is not feasible for the EBRD to pursue the current project.

There has been much resistance to the controversial $20 billion project. Friends of the Earth International activists in Japan and England, Wales & Northern Ireland have been campaigning against EBRD financing for several years.

The Sakhalin II project:

• Threatens the world's most critically endangered population of grey whale with extinction.
• Threatens wildlife and endangered species through habitat destruction;
• Threatens the fisheries-rich Aniva Bay through the dumping of industrial wastes and run-off.
• Poses the potential of a catastrophic oil spill not unlike the Exxon Valdez.

Sakhalin II is the biggest integrated oil and gas project and it includes the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing facilities ever build. The project has been plagued with two billion dollars in cost overruns.

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