Energy giant Shell has threatened Greenpeace with a multi-million-pound lawsuit after a climate protest on a North Sea-bound asset earlier this year.
Activists boarded the Penguins floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) while it was in transit from China, north of the Canary Islands.
It is due to become Shell’s first new manned vessel in UK waters in 30 years.
Documents seen by Energy Voice, sister website to The Press and Journal, show Shell and contractor Fluor threatened to sue for £7 million following the incident in January.
Around £1.7m of the total was sought by Shell, with Flour seeking the rest of the sum either directly from Shell or via the Greenpeace suit.
Shell said it would settle for about £1.1m if Greenpeace agreed to never attempt to board, damage, interfere with or obstruct any of its “equipment, installation, asset or vessel” at sea or in port going forward.
Penguins protest came after record year for Shell
In January Greenpeace said its protest, which came ahead of Shell posting record pre-tax profits of £52.8 billion for 2022, was aimed at making the firm pay climate reparations.
Shell later hit the protestors with injunctions against two Greenpeace vessels to stop more activists boarding the FPSO.
But the envirnmental campaign group used other boats to bring in protestors.
A judge at the time said the protestors were putting “their lives and, indirectly, the lives of the crew at risk”.
Shell said the right to protest is “fundamental” but it must be done “safely and lawfully”.
It added the legal costs of the court injunctions were “significant”, as was the cost for companies who had to deal with the action at sea.
The company continued: “The safety of the protestors, as well as the crew, was paramount. We did not hesitate to put in place measures to protect all people involved.
“Shell and its contractors are entitled to recover the significant costs of responding to Greenpeace’s dangerous actions.”
North Sea court action
It is the latest in a run of court action or threatened lawsuits involving Shell and Greenpeace.
In 2019 Shell won a court order preventing environmentalists from going within 550 yards of its unmanned North Sea installations after protests on the Brent oilfield off Shetland.
Greenpeace has, meanwhile, launched a legal challenge against the UK Government over approval of the Jackdaw project, a Shell gas development 155 miles east of Aberdeen.
On the latest Penguins lawsuit threat, Greenpeace said it would agree to such a protest ban if “Shell agreed to stop wrecking the climate.
The Penguins project
Penguins, 150 miles north-east of Shetland, is a planned redevelopment of a former tie-back field to the Brent Charlie hub.
The newbuild FPSO is currently laid up in Norway and due to arrive in UK waters next year.
Penguins is expected to support energy security and help stem decline of domestic production.
Shell said: “Projects like Penguins are vital to that supply and help reduce the UK’s reliance on higher carbon and costlier energy imports. Locally-produced, responsible oil and gas production is critical for UK energy security and entirely consistent with a net-zero pathway as modelled by the UK’s independent Climate Change Committee.”
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