Russia agency sues to stop Shell project

MOSCOW – Russia’s environmental regulator said Tuesday it had filed suit seeking to revoke approval for a $20 billion international oil project led by Royal Dutch Shell on the Pacific island of Sakhalin.

The Federal Service for the Supervision of Natural Resources had signaled for several weeks that it planned to ask the Natural Resources Ministry to withdraw its approval for the Sakhalin-2 project in Russia’s Far East.

The service said in a statement that the suit was filed due to “unfulfilled recommendations, details of which are included in the state ecological review, and multiple digressions,” along with the project operators’ failure to take necessary anti-erosion measures.

Ivan Chernyakhovskiy, a spokesman for the project’s operator, Sakhalin Energy, said the company had no immediate comment.

AP