Shell (SHEL) on Wednesday continued to fight a legal challenge underway in a Scottish court brought by environmental groups trying to derail its Jackdaw natural gas project in the UK North Sea, according to court records and multiple media reports.
Shell began work more than two years ago in the Jackdaw gas field after the project located offshore Aberdeen in Scotland received final approval from the North Sea Transition Authority earlier in 2022. Environmental activists Greenpeace and Uplift are trying to block Jackdaw and a related North Sea project by Equinor (EQNR) and London-listed Ithaca Energy, arguing the government agency failed to fully assess the emissions the projects likely could cause.
The Greenpeace and Uplift motions are being heard this week by the Scottish Court of Session in Edinburgh. If successful, the groups want a new environment assessment to also include the impact of using hydrocarbons extracted from the North Sea fields in addition to determining the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the projects during construction and after production begins.
The oil major said its wholly-owned Jackdaw project will eventually produce as much as 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, with the company building a new wellhead platform and drilling four wells as well as laying down pipeline and other infrastructure tying into the Shearwater offshore gathering hub located about 30 kilometers away. The project is slated to come online during the mid-2020s, according to the company.
The Court of Sessions hearings are scheduled to run for four days. It is not known how soon the presiding judge will issue a ruling and Shell did not immediately respond to an email from MT Newswires seeking more information about the project or the lawsuit.
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