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File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

File:  ltr to Congress, 76 scientists 2012.pdfResource Type: Letters

This article Will historic protests against ICE shape the midterms? was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Tomorrow’s midterm elections are widely viewed as a referendum on Trump’s second presidency. Prior studies have found strong associations between protest and U.S. election outcomes, including the 2010 and 2018 midterm elections. Protests can influence popular opinion on policy issues, boost turnout among eligible voters, and shape how candidates set policy priorities.

At the Crowd Counting Consortium, or CCC, we have tallied an extraordinary number of protests since Donald Trump’s second inauguration in January 2025. The majority of protests in Trump’s second term so far have named democracy or the presidency itself as a primary claim — think the nationwide Hands Off and No Kings protests in 2025 and 2026. 

But among protests focused on more specific policy domains, one key theme stands out. The administration’s anti-immigration policies and expansive, violent crackdown on immigrants have generated active, grassroots support networks in neighborhoods across the country and fueled a wave of protests in support of immigrants’ rights. During Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis and St. Paul, protests took place in over 30 percent of counties containing 80 percent of the nation’s population. March 2026 may have been the month with the highest number of pro-immigrant protests in U.S. history. A significant proportion of these protests occurred in counties that Trump won in 2024. 

Trends in immigration-related protests since January 20, 2017

Of course, the current wave of protest builds on a longer-term foundation of pro-immigrant demonstrations. Since the CCC started collecting data on protest in the United States in 2017, we’ve seen that protests against the federal government’s immigration policies have been a constant feature of the protest landscape across all three presidential administrations — Trump 1, Biden and Trump 2 (see Table 1). 

Table 1: Immigration protest events as a share of all left/liberal protests

Little more than a week after Trump’s first inauguration in January 2017, numerous protests took place around the country in response to his Jan. 27 signing of Executive Order 13769, sometimes called the “Muslim Ban,” which restricted citizens of seven majority-Muslim countries from entering the U.S. On Jan. 28 and 29, mass protests occurred in and around airports, where immigrant rights groups and community members assembled to ensure the safe arrival of citizens of those countries who were in transit when the executive order went into effect. Protests against the executive order continued in February 2017 under the slogan “No Ban No Wall.” The Trump administration ultimately revised the executive order to a narrower version that the U.S. Supreme Court upheld as lawful; multiple protests followed on June 26, 2018. 

But the biggest jumps in protest participation came on coordinated, nationwide days of action related to the administration’s immigration policies. The first, on June 30, 2018, was a national day of action declaring that “Families Belong Together.” These protests demanded an end to the administration’s “child separation policy” — the practice of separating migrant children from parents and caretakers upon arrival at the U.S.-Mexico border — which was in effect under the Obama administration but escalated under Trump. This protest campaign was highly effective: The pressure placed on the administration led the White House to end the policy through an executive order, though loopholes remained.

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On Jan. 19, 2019, the third annual Women’s March on Washington represented an additional increase in coordinated nationwide protests in which immigrants’ rights were a core issue. And July 12, 2019 saw the Lights for Liberty day of action, which attempted to pressure elected officials (particularly in the newly Democratic Congress) to close detention centers and adopt more humane immigration policies. Ultimately, congressional Democrats introduced legislation in 2021 to reunite immigrant children with their families. In sum, the first Trump administration saw an impressive range of protests on behalf of immigrants’ rights, some of which had powerful impacts. 

Overall, the Biden administration saw a decline in such protests, with about 60 percent fewer than during the first Trump administration (seven percent to 11 percent as a share of overall left/liberal protests, respectively). Notable days of action during the Biden administration included continued protests calling for closure of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detention centers, as well as protests against ongoing family detention and separation practices, and protests against asylum restrictions during a major surge in deportations in 2024. 

During the second Trump administration, such protests have seen a breathtaking rise. 

Figure 1 provides a comparative view of the number of immigration-related protests under the second Trump administration, compared to the first. The y-axis, showing the cumulative number of immigration-related protests since Trump’s two inaugurations, demonstrates the massive scale and steady climb of protests during his second term so far.

Figure 1: Counts of pro-immigrant protest events during Trump’s first and second terms

Figure 2 shows the frequency of such events on a monthly basis. There have been more protests in support of immigrants in seven of the months since January 2025 than in any of the 48 months of Trump’s first term. In 10 of the first 17 months of the current term, protests against Trump’s immigration policies made up over 20 percent of total protests. Few other protest claims have animated the public with such enduring salience over time.

Figure 2: Pro-immigrant protests in the U.S., January 20, 2017 – May 31, 2026

Figure 2 also shows clear increases in the number of immigration-related protests during nationwide anti-Trump protests. Spikes in activity occurred on April 19, 2025 during the Hands Off protests; on October 18, 2025, when many No Kings protests adopted opposition to ICE and Trump’s mass deportation agenda as a central claim; and on March 28, 2026, when the third No Kings protests again made immigration a primary claim. Our tallies have also documented 170 repeater events (protests that are scheduled to take place daily, weekly or monthly) that specifically mention immigrant rights or opposition to ICE in their stated claims.

In Illinois and Minnesota, protests started local and went national

Trump’s immigration policies have produced particularly intense local mobilizations in areas that saw escalated ICE deployments, which then diffused to solidarity protests nationwide. For example, from early September to mid-November 2025, ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz targeting immigrants in Chicago. During that period, the CCC documented 3,491 protest events in opposition to Trump’s immigration policies, starting in Chicago and spreading across the country during the No Kings mobilization on Oct. 18, 2025, which named immigration as a central issue.

Operation Metro Surge, the federal immigration enforcement operation in the Minneapolis-St. Paul region, also provoked powerful opposition locally and beyond, with over 4,400 protests taking place between Dec. 2, 2025 and Jan. 31, 2026. Significant numbers of protests responded to specific, publicized government abuses, such as aggressive law enforcement actions against immigrants, the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, and the detention of a 5-year-old child of a Colombian immigrant. Three waves of action stood out: the ICE Out For Good weekend of action on Jan. 10-11; the Day of Truth & Freedom on Jan. 23, which was concentrated in Minnesota; and the National Shutdown and ICE Out of Everywhere actions, which mainly spanned Jan. 30-31, with some events lasting into Feb. 1. 

Figure 3 shows the number of counties that saw pro-immigrant protests in Illinois and Minnesota, respectively, after Operation Midway began in Chicago and Operation Metro Surge began in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Overall, these two states saw higher-than-average numbers of counties featuring protests, including among counties far afield from the major cities in which ICE focused its deployments. 

Figure 3. Pro-immigrant protests in Illinois and Minnesota during and after ICE operations in Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul

Nationwide, the total volume of protest produced during early 2026 is extraordinary. 

January 2026 alone featured the fourth-most protest events recorded in all 10 years of CCC data, owing to the massive number of protests in Minnesota and around the country in opposition to Operation Metro Surge and its impacts, and to Trump’s immigration agenda in general. 

And the events in Minnesota seem to have been a flashpoint. Anti-ICE protests continued in February and March 2026, and anti-ICE claims were central to the nationwide No Kings mobilization on March 28. March 2026 may have been the month with the highest number of pro-immigrant protests in U.S. history (see Table 2).

Table 2: Top 10 months by total protest events, January 20, 2017 – May 31, 2026

Protests opposing Trump’s immigration policies were reported in 933 counties during Operation Metro Surge, between Dec. 2, 2025 and Feb. 1, 2026 — about 30 percent of all counties in the U.S. These counties were densely populated: Together, they contain more than 80 percent of the U.S. population (see Figure 4). From March 2026 through May 2026, the CCC continued to record thousands of events protesting ICE, with hundreds of distinct civic organizations and hundreds of thousands of people participating. 

Figure 4: U.S. immigration protests following ICE deployments to Minneapolis

Nor are protests against ICE operations an exclusively liberal phenomenon. Instead, there has been a stark increase over time in the number of pro-immigrant protests in counties that Trump won in 2024 by at least a 5-point margin (see Figure 5). Among the pro-immigrant protests that occurred in March 2026, about 40 percent of them occurred in such counties. 

Figure 5: Pro-immigrant protests in counties Trump won by >5 Points in the 2024 Presidential Election, January 20, 2017 – May 31, 2026

Across the country, a broad range of constituencies using a variety of means have expressed opposition to Trump’s immigration policy. Demonstrations have just been one method. Those activating on behalf of and in support of immigrants include people forming human chains to protect immigrant workers; neighborhoods organizing support networks for affected immigrant families; students engaging in walkouts from schools and protests at college career fairs; people engaging in hunger strikes in support of international and undocumented students; knitters engaging in “craftivism”; people holding encampments outside of ICE facilities or noise demonstrations outside of hotels in which ICE agents were housed; consumers engaging in boycotts and sell-backs at Target and Home Depot; clergy engaging in civil disobedience; communities holding vigils for slain immigrants or those killed while advocating for them; community members building raised beds across thoroughfares to prevent ICE vehicles from accessing facilities, and more. Institutions and employers have raised their voices: Local businesses and business associations have called for the end of ICE operations in their towns, ranchers and farmers have decried treatment of their immigrant employees, and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has condemned mistreatment of immigrants as well.

Counter-protest was minimal

Trump’s immigration policies have supporters in the country, particularly among Republicans. But few people have rallied or marched in defense of them. Right-leaning protests made up fewer than two percent of all immigration-related protests during the first 14 months of the first Trump administration, and less than 0.7 percent of immigration-related protests during the same stretch of his second administration. 

The frequency of pro-immigrant protests during Trump’s second term has eclipsed that of anti-immigration protests by 145 to 1. The vast majority of anti-immigration protests have been counter-protests occurring at demonstrations in support of immigrants and their rights. 

However, right-leaning protests have been increasingly characterized by anti-immigrant claims over the past three presidencies. Whereas anti-immigrant protests constituted 1.68 percent of all right-learning protests during Trump’s first term, that proportion has increased sevenfold so far during his second, to 12.43 percent. 

Table 3: Anti-immigration protest events as a share of all right/conservative protests

A powerful and growing pro-immigrant constituency

Today’s mass protests in support of immigrants’ rights build on a durable pattern of pro-immigrant and anti-ICE protest in the U.S. To wit, the CCC has documented a prayer protest outside an ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois that has been held every Friday for the past 20 years. 

But the recent increase in pro-immigrant protests and their intensity is notable. The breadth and volume of pro-immigrant protests show that committed activists and organizations have succeeded in rallying huge numbers in favor of justice and dignity for immigrants, indicating a durable underlying infrastructure. In this essay, we focused on street protest as one indicator in the overall picture. But community mobilization on behalf of immigrants has meant far more than demonstrations. Mutual aid and neighborly support, observing and documenting ICE operations, litigation, support to immigrants in detention, and direct appeals to public officials have all been central to America’s response to Trump’s immigration policies. The growth of pro-immigrant protests reflects a (potentially growing) constituency willing to take risks to defend a multicultural vision of America, potentially widening its appeal. 

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In short, we see capable organizers and the mass public pushing hard for humane treatment of immigrants for the foreseeable future. Neither political party has figured out how to address immigration in a way that resolves the need for safe and secure borders and the need to treat everyone on U.S. soil with dignity, decency and due process. But the impacts of Trump’s policies on immigrants, their families and their broader communities provide a galvanizing issue for Americans who otherwise agree on little else. For example, some conservative faith communities and various progressive groups increasingly find themselves on the same side when it comes to immigration. 

Policymakers often resist turning to activists, civil society organizations and community groups for policy solutions. But the persistence of multi-sectoral immigration activism, as seen through protest alone, also reflects a powerful and growing constituency in favor of just and humane approaches to immigration. Protests reflect and shape the existing moral consensus but also can reorient constituencies in favor of a new consensus. We hope the members of the next Congress pay attention.

This article Will historic protests against ICE shape the midterms? was originally published by Waging Nonviolence.

Adrian Ramsay, Green MP and former co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, has told the BBC, that the party is at a crossroads, on what kind of party it is to be. He cited the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion adopted at the party’s recent autumn conference, as a break with the traditional philosophy of environmental focus.

Ramsay said "One option is to sort of dig in more down this approach, not only in relation to this motion, but I think that there's a risk it brings with it - a quite divisive, a quite internally focused approach to politics."

Ramsay said this is "perhaps seen from small groups of people on the hard left of politics who go around different parties trying to influence how those parties are run."

As reported by The Guardian, Ramsay went on to say, “There is also a small number of people who have joined, perhaps from the very hard left of politics, who might be more at home in the SWP or with George Galloway or with Your Party. [They] not only want to adopt some very hardline positions on certain issues, but have a very different culture to how they go about it.” Those members were seeking to “seeking to change the direction of the party.”

What is taking place here, is that this is part of an ongoing attempt by the establishment of the party to regain control after Zack Polanski was elected as leader of the party last year. Ramsay, along with Ellie Chowns, another Green MP, stood against Polanski for the leadership, and were endorsed by former leader and former Green MP, Caroline Lucas.

Polanski won with 84% of the vote, a crushing defeat for the party establishment who didn’t want him to become leader, and they were worried about losing their influence in the party. They bided their time and waited for an opportunity to strike back.

The party’s membership shot up from about 60,000 to 230,000 which made it difficult to complain about things not going well, so they needed a cause. Something that would appeal to more traditional type of member and would lead to the newer, suspect members to leave to leave the party.

The ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion passed at autumn conference became the trigger. I think the establishment thought there was a chance it would pass, and started preparing. When the motion did pass, they went into action. What made this an even better vehicle for the fight back was that the Holborn and St Pancras Parliamentary byelection would take place a few days later, where Polanski was the Green party candidate.

On mainstream media, even before the vote was declared, although Lucas probably knew that Labour would retain what is a very safe seat, launched into a speech about how the ‘Zionism is Racism’ motion had cost the party winning the seat. There is no evidence for this, but once she said it, it became a news story in itself for mainstream media. So, the campaign had begun. Ramsay’s latest media intervention is just the campaign moving along.

Mainstream media reports that 18,000 people have left the Green party since Zionism motion was passed. I don’t know if this true, but I have seen a few members saying on social media they have left over the motion, but I’ve also seen some say they left over the pro-nuclear policy passed at the same conference. I’ve also seen some say they have joined the party because of the Zionism motion.

The whole thing has the uncomfortable feeling that this is another right-wing coup, similar to what happened in the Labour party when Jeremy Corbyn was leader. Spread smears about antisemitism, demand expulsions of members on spurious grounds for being antisemitic and creating an atmosphere where the newer members will leave the party.

I’m proud to be a Green Lefty or ecosocialist, as we say, and have been a member of the Green party for over twenty years. Our numbers were fairly small, but now many left-wing people see the Green party as the most viable party to deliver any kind of socialism and anti-neoliberalism.

This minority establishment should stop waging this divisive civil war and realise that the party has moved on. Ecological justice cannot be separated from social justice, because the effective cause of both of our ills is the same, capitalism. If we don’t want to challenge this system, the party will remain on the margins of politics and so be completely irrelevant.

The Trump administration is trying to allow more electric bikes onto national park trails, according to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). New rules being finalized by the National Park Service (NPS) weaken the environmental reviews required under a successful PEER lawsuit brought during the first Trump term challenging an attempt to allow e-bikes wherever pedal bikes are allowed to travel.

Today marks the end of the public comment period for these proposed new rules. In its public comments, PEER raises concerns that the rules expanding e-bike access to park trails:

• lack any provisions to monitor or prevent injuries and conflicts with other trail users, such as hikers and horseback riders;
• do not address disturbing wildlife or the danger of wildfires caused by overheated e-bike batteries; and
• dramatically reduce public involvement in decisions to expand e-bike access.

“This is yet another example of the Trump administration’s deep aversion to considering consequences before acting,” stated PEER Executive Director Tim Whitehouse, noting that the primary rationale for the rules are executive orders promoting deregulation and reducing environmental reviews. “Safeguards against abuse from e-bikes will depend upon shrinking cadres of park law enforcement rangers trying to cope with ever-growing demands on their time.”

One major issue PEER raises is e-bike access to park wildlands. While e-bikes and other mechanized transportation are not allowed inside congressionally designated wilderness, there are 26 million acres of park backcountry lacking such protection. Several “flagship” parks such as Yellowstone, Glacier, Big Bend, and Grand Canyon, for example, do not have any designated wilderness and are “protected” only by NPS policies that can be waived or changed. The proposed NPS rules open doors for park managers to allow e-bike access to backcountry trails.

“Our concern is that e-bikes could be allowed in the most remote, wild places within the national park system,” added Whitehouse, pointing out that PEER has no objection to e-bike access on paved roads or trails in parks’ developed front-country. “It will become harder to appreciate the wonder of nature above the constant whir of e-bike motors.”

Another complication is that the new NPS rules would not preempt the growing number of state laws governing e-bike equipment and use. As a result, future e-bike restrictions may vary widely from park to park.

###

Read the PEER comments

See NPS’ proposed rule

Look at vast park backcountry lacking wilderness protection

Revisit PEER e-bike lawsuit

At first glance, it looks almost like an embrace.

One coral fragment is pale, its branching form pressed against a smaller, richly colored counterpart. Nine weeks later, the pale fragment has regained its color. Seen against the black background, the transformation is unmistakable. Something living has made contact with something struggling, and the struggle has changed course.

I keep returning to the place where they meet.

There is a scientific explanation for what happens there. There is also an emotional response that arrives before the explanation, before the species’ name, before any understanding of the experiment. We recognize vulnerability. We recognize proximity. We see what looks like help.

Giving Recovery a Shape

The research behind this remarkable coral moment, led by Stanford doctoral student Danny Collins and captured in a series of photographs, concerns a particular kind of recovery. Bleached coral fragments placed in contact with healthy, genetically identical fragments fused tissues, allowing beneficial algae to move into the depleted coral. Recovery followed within weeks.

Photos © Danny Collins. Used with permission.

“We thought that some transfer could take place, but we never would have expected it to be so fast, clear, and beautiful,” Collins wrote in an email.

The paired photographs released with the study give that discovery a shape, a before and after. We can locate it, follow it, see where it begins. The point of contact becomes the center of the story.

For someone unfamiliar with coral biology, it also offers a way into science. Collins, whose background includes visual and media studies alongside marine science, was thinking about that invitation from the start.

Collins holding coral fragments. © Dan Griffin GG Films, used with permission

“I had a broad audience of all ages and backgrounds in my mind throughout this entire study,” he said. “I wanted everyone to be able to understand our study in just one image and have them say, ‘Wow, I get it.’”

The close view brings the coral into an intimate scale. Its textured surface becomes visible. The contrast between the fragments gives the eye somewhere to begin. The second photograph rewards the attention paid to the first.

When the Sequence Changes

For those accustomed to environmental before-and-after photographs, this sequence can feel almost disorienting. We know the usual direction. The forest becomes a clearing. The glacier retreats. The reef loses its color. “Before” holds abundance; “after” records what has been taken away.

Here, “after” means recovery.

The reversal does not diminish the importance of documenting destruction. Such photographs provide evidence, preserve memory, and make damage harder to deny. I would never want conservation to surrender that work. But I worry about what happens when loss becomes the only future our images teach us to anticipate.

If every sequence ends with less life, where do we learn to picture the work of repair?

An image of recovery makes room for a different question. Instead of stopping at what happened to the coral, we begin to wonder what helped it. Attention moves toward a process, toward the conditions that made a different outcome possible. There is still damage in the frame, but there is also something to investigate.

The Beauty Survives Explanation

And then there is the metaphor, which is difficult to resist.

Healthy coral comes to the rescue. It melds with its bleached counterpart. Life appears to pass across a boundary. Anyone who has ever needed another person during illness, grief, or exhaustion may find something familiar in that arrangement. The photographs seem to offer a small, wordless account of being helped.

The fragments are genetically identical, and their fusion is no evidence of compassion. The embrace is something I see.

The healthy coral extends its polyps underwater. © Danny Collins, used with permission

But Collins also finds meaning beyond the mechanism. “I find this represents the power and importance of contact, an idea that can be extended well beyond corals,” he said.

The apparent gesture has physical substance: Tissue connects, and beneficial algae move through it. The beauty survives explanation.

What One Coral Can Promise

A powerful photograph travels easily — and these generated headlines around the world. The qualifications attached to a scientific paper travel less reliably. These two panels offer a satisfying ending that the research itself cannot yet promise.

“I want people to recognize that these experiments were just done in the lab and we have not solved coral bleaching, the ocean is still getting warmer, but that this research opens a door to new possibilities for recovering corals that have already bleached,” Collins said.

Supplying a healthy genetic match for every bleached coral is not feasible at the scale that reefs require. The finding opens a research direction; making it useful in the ocean remains work ahead.

This coral does not owe us reassurance about the whole ocean. Its recovery is worth understanding without asking it to settle the fate of reefs.

Between Damaged and Lost

The photographs also ask us to reconsider the boundary between damaged and lost. To an unfamiliar eye, the pale fragment may already look finished. Its recovery exposes the risk in that assumption. A living thing can be in profound trouble while still retaining capacities we have not learned how to support.

What can still be done, by whom, under what conditions, and with what prospect of success? Those questions remain worth asking after the dramatic injury, when the headlines have moved on.

There is human labor beyond the edges of the photographs, too. Someone maintained the experiment, observed the changes, made the images, examined the evidence, and worked with colleagues to understand it. The apparent simplicity of the two panels compresses a process that requires time, skill, and resources.

Tissues bridge between the two coral fragments. © Danny Collins, used with permission

A useful public response would follow that work outward. Who supports it? What would the next experiment need? How can people help sustain the institutions, environmental protections, and communities on which conservation depends? The photograph opens those questions; communication needs to carry them further.

Otherwise, even the most moving image risks becoming another brief encounter in an endless scroll.

An “After” Worth Working Toward

There is something else missing from these photographs: a picture of the coral before it bleached.

The sequence begins with injury already present. We never see an original, undamaged condition against which to measure everything that follows. We enter the story at a moment when something has gone wrong, and the question is what happens next.

That feels familiar. Much of conservation begins in places already altered, with populations already diminished and relationships already disrupted. People arrive with concern, skills, and resources long after the opportunity to prevent all harm has passed. They must decide what remains possible from here.

Collins’ own description of the research begins in that uncertain territory. “This all started from a simple experiment that has blossomed into a fascinating deep dive with surprises at every corner,” he told me.

The finished photograph can conceal that uncertainty. Placing two moments beside each other makes the passage between them look almost inevitable. But the researchers did not begin with the second image in hand. They had to ask a question whose answer they could not yet see.

Anyone considering whether to support conservation faces some version of that problem. The outcome is unavailable when commitment is needed. A restored habitat cannot be photographed in advance. The work asks people to invest attention, money, and effort in a future that remains contingent.

Here, at least, we can see that an intervention was followed by recovery. That does not tell us how the next experiment will end. It gives the next question a basis.

It also makes me think about what we demand of restoration. An imagined return to an untouched world can be a powerful aspiration, but it can leave every achievable improvement looking inadequate. Historical conditions matter: they help us understand what has been lost and resist accepting impoverishment as normal. Yet the distance from those conditions cannot be the only measure of whether work is worth doing.

A damaged place may have a future worth protecting even when its past cannot be fully recovered. Deciding what that future could support requires evidence, local knowledge, and difficult choices about priorities. There is no photograph that can make those choices for us.

But this one offers a useful starting position. The injury has already happened. Something remains alive. Someone decides it is worth finding out what might help.

The second panel exists because that question was pursued.

A Reason to Stay

As an ocean conservationist, I want images like this to do more than provide a moment of relief. I want them to make people curious enough to stay, to learn the limits, to discover where their own abilities might be useful. Feeling something can be the beginning of participation if we make the next step visible and possible.

I return to the two panels and find the injury still there in the first. Nothing has been erased from the record. The second panel simply prevents the first from having the final word.

Republish this article for free! Read our reprint policy. Previously in The Revelator:

Ghost Reefs of 2083: The Paleontology of Color (A Speculative ‘Fiction’)

The post When ‘After’ Means Alive appeared first on The Revelator.

Budgeting for a slow march to war when a “mad dash to net zero” is what we need to be safe

Photo by flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/

John Healey’s first budget nudged and nurdled but  certainly didn’t challenge 45 years of neoliberalism and chart the “new course” that Andy Burnham hinted at in September.

And, while there was a resounding statement about being “unshakably committed to net zero” the measures taken indicate a hollowing out of that commitment under the pressure to prepare for war. 

In particular, it showed a willingness to bend the knee to Trump’s demands on the North Sea, with headlines announcing that Healey will veto new offshore wind projects “if they will not lower bills” at the same time as Treasury tax calculations factored in income from the development of Rosebank. As there are about half a dozen other fields waiting in the wings for this decision, this looks like an attempt to defy geology, economics and safety to appease the White House and its local attack dogs.

In the rest of the budget that was clear from what was not said as much as what was. 

To end the upward pressure on energy pieces we need to end the war on Iran

The fact that the increases in energy bills that have already had a big impact on the cost of living – and are hovering over the future like a pyro-cumulonimbus cloud – has been caused by the US/Israeli attack on Iran was acknowledged. But this was taken as a given. Just one of those things that happens. Least of all was there any commitment by the UK government to oppose it, or step back from complicity in it; and “defensive” attacks on Iran will still be launched from Diego Garcia. 

As a result of the war, Fossil Fuel companies are making colossal windfall profits. Shell’s have nearly doubled and BPs have quadrupled. This enables them to invest in more marginal oil and gas extraction; because the increased prices everyone is paying for them makes that potentially profitable, though a sign that the industry doubts its own future is that it is not rushing to do that. Increased emissions if they do. Increased damage. The banks that finance them -and arms companies – are also quids in from this war. A 100% tax on war profiteering would act as a disincentive to all this while raising billions to invest in the transition. Silence on that. Free pass.

Breaking with neoliberalism requires putting social needs above profitability. The chancellor appears to be as relaxed about these companies getting ”filthy rich” from war profiteering as Peter Mandelson was; and he’s not proposing to increase their taxation even though there is majority support for it.

The proposed Energy Wealth Fund from current rates of taxation on Fossil Fuels is a gesture in this direction so minimal as to constitute deflection more than commitment.

Clean energy is the solution

The recognition by the chancellor that the renewable energy already installed in the UK has massively cut the impact of fossil fuel prices rises is vital – especially in the face of the Fossil Opposition in Reform and the Conservative Party – who argue (with a straight face) that an 83% increase in wholesale gas prices since this time last year means that we need to use more of it to bring bills down – and that investing much, much more in the most expensive possible source of electricity generation – nuclear power – will do the same. 

In 2020 gas set the price for electricity 90% of the time. It is now much more expensive, but sets it for just 60% of the time, and it’s coming down. That cuts bills. The chancellor’s stated ambition to “break the grip of gas on bills” is vital. But, how far do the measures in his budget rise to that challenge?

The decision to hold back on new renewable capacity that cannot easily be connected to the grid requires prioritising investment into grid upgrades to open up bottlenecks like the one between Scotland and England, which causes frustrating curtailment costs and unnecessary gas back up use. Without that investment, all this will do is slow up the growth of renewable capacity. 

Approving Jackdaw, Rosebank and, by implication, the other fields that are queuing up for approval, the government will lock us into expensive fossil fuel dependence, and the planet wrecking emissions that go with them, and the costs of that, for longer than we need to. The phrase that we will “rely on oil and gas for decades to come” is designed to fudge the key question of how much; and avert the obvious point that the less we have to use the better it will be. 

Bombs not Jobs

While the forced march of military expenditure increases is now being set at a slower pace than he was arguing for when he resigned as Defence Minister in the Summer – a 3.5% increase projected for 2035, not the 5% he saw as an imperative then – nevertheless, he’s still undermining security through climate action by diverting funds to war. And there remains the risk that the 10 year plan spending review will seek to step up the pace again. Meanwhile:

• £1 billion will be cut from the Warm Homes Fund “to help cover a shortfall in defence expenditure”. The WHF is set to provide loans of between £7500 and £35,000 for households to install solar panels, heat pumps and batteries; initially with £15 billion in funding and aiming to support 5 million households. Leaving aside GJA’s longstanding critique of this market led subsidy approach – which benefits those who can afford it, leads to work being done in penny packets by small firms which are not always competent or even honest, misses out on economies of scale and thereby gets a smaller bang for a buck – this cut will lead to over 330,000 households missing out. There’s also a threat that a further £4.7 billion will be “reallocated” from this scheme to pay for “Your First Home” scheme. That would cut a further 1.5 million households from benefitting from this. Higher bills, Higher emissions. A lower level of economic activity doing this work, so fewer jobs.
• The heat pump grant via the Boiler Upgrade Scheme will be cut by £800, leading to 100,000 fewer installations in the next 3 years. Again. Higher bills. Higher emissions, A lower level of economic activity. Fewer jobs.

Wider aspects of the transition are also being undermined.

• The continuing freeze on the fuel duty escalator will cost £4.3 billion by 2030. This continuing Fossil subsidy is presented as providing a relief for drivers but as Social Market Foundation Chief economist Gideon Salutin points out: “it does not work. Many savings are gobbled up by fuel retailers, who keep the price level and pocket the difference. Most of what’s left is taken by rich motorists who tend to drive more and own less fuel-efficient cars. Previous freezes have seen the richest tenth of earners save three times as much as the poorest tenth….  If government really wants to help hard-up drivers, it would support them into an EV, which are cheaper to operate than petrol cars, and support affordable transport services like buses and rail.”

• The welcome but minimal £100 million to cut the cost of public EV charging is 1/43rd of the fuel duty freeze cost. Charging 20% VAT on workplace charging will also slow the shift to EVs.
• There is to be no extension of the 0% VAT rating on “energy saving materials” including solar panels from next April – increasing costs, slowing the transition, increasing emissions, depressing jobs.
• At the same time, 10,000 “energy hungry” companies will get a 20-25% discount from next April, with back payments to cover this year comes with no conditional requirement to reduce energy or provide renewable on site supply.
• Data Centres difficult to connect to the grid that are considered “exceptionally strategic projects” will be allowed to generate their own power with gas or diesel generators even though the experience of the United States is that the surge in construction of gas-fired power plants to run AI data centres is “set to undo 15 years’ worth of greenhouse gas reductions from US electricity generation”.
• New planning powers will also be used to accelerate Data Centre grid connections; which begs the question, over what?
• Exempting brownfield development sites of <1.5 hectares from biodiversity net gain regulations is a bit like Donald Trump paving over the White House Rose Garden; but doing it again and again and again, all over the country.

Social Justice Measures?

• The £100 Council Tax rebate for households in bands A-D will do little to dent the impact of the sharp rise in the energy price cap; which is projected to be £470 above current levels by the middle of next year. This is in a context of household energy debt projected to total £7 billion by the end of the year. 
• The VAT relief on electricity bills worth £45 a year is already in place, so won’t dent this any further.
• The cut in the gas standard charge is a small but progressive measure that will benefit lower income households, also by about £45 a year, and marginally reduce the price differential between gas and electricity per unit from 3.3 to 3; because the loss of the standing charge will be covered by an increase in charges per unit. So, those who use the least will benefit the most, so this is a small nudge towards electrification away from gas for heating and cooking. The electricity standing charge remains in place until next year, but if the same method is employed to get rid of it, it would make the price imbalance between gas and electricity worse.
• This is a marginal, and typically market led, gesture when it has been established that installing solar panels with batteries could cut energy costs for the poorest households by two thirds.  But that would require a state led investment plan carried out as a social service, not a vehicle to generate business for micro firms, as it would not be affordable for the people who need it most, nor profitable for private companies to deliver. That is what a break with neoliberalism would actually look like.

The chancellor sticks with the mantra that “growth” will solve all problems, without reflecting on the problem that expenditure on war preparation – leaving aside more profound objections to it – is one of the least effective ways of generating any; because the kit you buy with it won’t do anyone any good – just harm if it is used. Investing in any other sector of the economy – health, education, transport, social housing and infrastructure construction – generates actual benefits as well as the economic activity that goes with it. 

If you want a “growth sector” that will pull the rest of the economy into a healthier place, it’s the green sector; currently growing at 9% a year as the rest of the economy flatlines. So, if you want a healthier, livelier economy, green it! 

The “breathing space” the Chancellor has given the government, before its course is set by the pending 10 year plan, should be used to push them in the right direction, because there is no breathing space in the rate at which climate breakdown is accelerating.

The GJA’s model motion is a useful way to take up the debate about the policies we need in union and party branches, and student unions too. Feel free to adapt it to your circumstances.

By Paul Atkin

 

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The post Budgeting for a slow march to war when a “mad dash to net zero” is what we need to be safe first appeared on Greener Jobs Alliance.

AFSA Delegation’s Closing Reflection | Yerevan, Armenia | 31 October 2026

The world cannot continue negotiating the future of biodiversity while the communities who sustain it struggle to protect their seeds, lands, knowledge and livelihoods. This was the conviction that guided the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) throughout the 17th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP17) in Yerevan, Armenia. Over two intensive weeks, our six-member delegation stood alongside African farmers, Indigenous Peoples, local communities, youth movements and civil society allies to defend a simple but fundamental principle. Biodiversity justice must put people, rights and nature before corporate interests.

COP17 delivered the Yerevan Pathway and completed the first global review of progress under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. The findings were sobering. The world remains off track to meet its 2030 biodiversity targets, while inadequate financing, harmful subsidies and gaps in implementation continue to undermine progress. For AFSA, this reinforces a central concern. Global commitments mean little unless they bring meaningful change to the communities conserving biodiversity every day. We cannot continue financing the destruction of nature while promising to restore it.

Throughout the conference, AFSA carried Africa’s priorities into negotiation rooms, high-level panels, side events and public mobilisation spaces. We defended farmer-managed seed systems and the right of farmers to save, use, exchange and share their seeds. We championed agroecology as a practical pathway to biodiversity conservation and food systems transformation, consistent with Target 10 of the Global Biodiversity Framework. We challenged the promotion of false solutions, including approaches to synthetic biology that fail to adequately address equity, precaution, sovereignty and community rights. We called for fair and transparent benefit-sharing and a Cali Fund that genuinely serves the farmers and communities whose stewardship of genetic resources makes scientific and commercial innovation possible.

A major highlight of our engagement was AFSA’s side event on 24 October, titled “Digital Sequence Information (DSI): Understanding the Debate and Defining an African Civil Society Position.” Organised in collaboration with African civil society partners, the event brought the critical questions of equity, biodiversity sovereignty and community rights to the centre of the DSI debate. It provided a platform to examine how the growing use of digital genetic information affects Africa’s biological resources and the communities that have conserved them for generations. At the heart of the dialogue was a fundamental question. Who benefits when biodiversity becomes digital, and who has a voice in deciding how those benefits are shared? The event reinforced AFSA’s call for fair, transparent and accountable benefit-sharing arrangements, stronger protection of traditional knowledge and farmers’ rights, and coordinated African civil society advocacy to ensure that scientific innovation advances biodiversity justice rather than deepening existing inequalities.

Our delegation amplified these demands through strong interventions, strategic alliances and collective action. From the call to “Stop financing destruction!” to the pan-African campaign “Seed Is Life”, AFSA reaffirmed that Africa’s agricultural biodiversity is a living heritage, not simply a resource for commercial exploitation. Our engagement with the Just Transformations Network and other civil society allies strengthened solidarity across movements. As negotiations reached their final stages, we stood with young people inside the Blue Zone, raising our voices against false solutions and reminding world leaders of a truth too often forgotten. “You cannot eat money!”

We leave Yerevan with renewed solidarity, stronger alliances and a clear sense of the work ahead. Progress in global biodiversity governance must be judged not only by negotiated decisions, but by whose rights are protected, who controls resources, who benefits from their use and whether communities have the power to shape their own futures. AFSA will continue working with its members and partners to translate these demands into national policies, community action and sustained advocacy.

COP17 may have concluded, but our message remains uncompromising. No future in false solutions. Yes to real, rights-based solutions. Protect farmers’ seeds. Invest in agroecology. Uphold community sovereignty. Make biodiversity justice a reality.

 

The movement to end seasonal time changes may be gaining momentum — but what would it mean for the safety of vulnerable road users?

The perennial debate over whether or not to roll back the clocks on the first Sunday in November hit a milestone this summer when the House of Representatives passed the Sunshine Protection Act, which would get rid of the fall and winter’s “standard time” hours and adopt spring and summer’s “daylight savings time” hours year-round.

That would effectively mean that Americans with nine-to-five work schedules would leave for their jobs in darker conditions on the shortest days of the year, in exchange for up to an extra hour of sunshine after work — with accompanying tradeoffs for U.S. travel patterns.

The bill has since stalled in the Senate transportation committee, but its proponents — which include nothing less than President Trump himself — claim that it still deserves serious consideration for its potential to encourage outdoor recreation in the evenings, and to narrow the likely window for nighttime crime.

Its potential to reduce traffic crashes, though, has been hotly debated for years, particularly among people who advocate for the safety of people outside cars.

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Since the concept of “standard time” arrived in 1883, North America’s transportation landscape has profoundly shaped our country’s approach to setting our clocks.

That’s because prior to the proliferation of railroads, U.S. residents observed a staggering 144 different local times that needed to be at least somewhat standardized into four standard mainland “zones” once communities were linked together by trains — at least until Daylight Savings Time came along and confused matters more.

Originally intended as an effort to conserve some of the energy used for indoor lighting at night during the first and second world wars, DST stubbornly hung on in some (but not all) U.S. states after the conflicts ended. That created an inconsistent map of varying temporal rules that still persists in part today, despite efforts to bring order to the chaos with the Uniform Time Act of 1966. Hawaii, Arizona, and US territories around the world still refuse to change their clocks, despite the fact that the other 48 states all do it.

Recommended Research: Permanent Daylight Savings Time Could Save Human and Animal Lives on Our Roads Kea Wilson November 9, 2022

Now, most U.S. residents say they’d prefer to skip the hassle of resetting their microwaves twice a year — though they split on which of the two seasonal adjustments they’d prefer to give up.

And the research isn’t clear on which one would be better for safety, either.

A 2022 study on which this website reported, for instance, found that not rolling clocks back in the winter could save at least 33 human lives and 36,550 deer in car-on-cervidae collisions every year, since drivers would get back a little more daylight for their evening commutes before nocturnal ungulates began crossing highways as part of their evening migration patterns.

Meanwhile, a 2025 study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety suggested that change could have an even more dramatic safety benefit for drivers, since “fatal crashes among motor-vehicle occupants decreased in the 5 weeks after the fall time change (-7.1%) and increased in the 5 weeks after the springtime change (+12%).”  

Disturbingly, though, the opposite was true for fatal crashes among pedestrians and bicyclists. Their death tolls surged 13 percent after clocks fell back in the fall — and dipped 24 percent after they sprang forward in the spring.

Recommended Dusk and Dawn Are Deadly for Walkers — But Traffic Pros Don’t Know the Full Extent of It Kea Wilson May 11, 2022

IIHS researcher Amber Woods said no single variable fully explained that contradiction, though “for bicyclists and pedestrians, the biggest factor appears to be the changing light conditions during key driving periods.”

Drivers, by contrast, may get more drowsy in the springtime when they lose an hour of sleep to the time change, and may drive better in the fall when they abruptly gain one; they also might be less inclined to speed on sometimes-icy late fall roads than they are to hit the gas on dry spring streets when they slept through an alarm.

Data isn’t yet available on how this past weekend’s change impacted roadway death totals,  — though considering that it gave Halloween revelers an extra hour to party on a Saturday night, the news isn’t expected to be good, particularly given the holiday’s association with increased drunk driving and phone distraction. And there’s no telling how many other confounding factors may complicate the picture of what time changes more broadly might mean for road safety.

“These findings won’t end the debate about daylight saving time,” IIHS President David Harkey said in a release. “The benefits for bicyclists and pedestrians are important because that’s where the fatality numbers have increased the most over the past decade. However, they’re largely offset by an increase in crashes in which vehicle occupants were killed.”

Recommended The Other Reason American Pedestrian Deaths are Rising After Dark Kea Wilson December 11, 2023

Of course, Vision Zero advocates argue that since all road deaths are preventable, it’s not enough to just pick the time change that nets out to the fewest casualties overall — and certainly not to offer people outside cars as sacrificial lambs. Rather, we must reckon with the fact that three quarters of pedestrian deaths happen in the dark no matter what number appears on the clock — and take an aggressive, systemic approach to saving those lives.

That means we have to do the obvious things, like installing streetlights, HAWK signals, and other infrastructure to make pedestrians and bicyclists more visible after sunset. Redesigning roads and cars to slow motorists to less-deadly speeds when they do crash is essential, too, as is doing more to limit the functionality of distracting cell phone features when drivers are behind the wheel — particularly when time changes coincide with major holidays that tempt motorists to text about their party plans.

But it also means thinking more expansively about how our national street safety epidemic and our national epidemic of car dependency reinforce one another — particularly after nightfall.

And that means addressing the suburbanization of poverty that has late-shift workers schelpping home along busy arterials after the bus stops running. It means dismantling an unsustainable work culture where drivers have to rush to punch a clock even when they’re too exhausted from a time change to drive, and where few have the freedom to leave their jobs to travel home at a safer daylight hour. It means taking dedicated action to stop hit-and-runs, which spike after dark and disproportionately injure people outside of automobiles.

And it certainly means providing more mobility alternatives, like increased nighttime transit service, if only to halt the cycle of unwalkability that leaves so many vulnerable road users traveling alone at night.

However we do it, it’s time to shine a light on the unique dangers of walking and biking after dark — and stop pretending that ditching seasonal time changes will make a significant difference if we don’t.

Streetsblog reported this summer  that Waymo robotaxis were involved in 68 percent fewer police-reportable crashes than human drivers, according to an independent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety study. That is meaningful progress. The same article also made the limitation of crash statistics clear: they do not capture problems such as vehicles blocking bike lanes or emergency responders, passing school buses, or creating other street-level hazards.

That gap matters now. In July, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration warned that it had identified a pattern of driverless vehicles interfering with law enforcement and other first responders. Later that month, NHTSA said it was accelerating development of the first federal performance standards for automated vehicles.

But those standards should cover more than whether a robotaxi can drive well in ordinary conditions. They should also make automakers spell out what the vehicle is allowed to do when the street stops behaving like the test course.

‘Safer on average’ — but not at every moment

A robotaxi can be safer than a human driver overall and still create a serious problem in an unusual situation.

An ambulance may need it to clear an intersection. A police officer may wave traffic through in a way that conflicts with the usual signal. A construction worker may direct cars around an obstruction. A cyclist may have to move around a vehicle stopped where it should not be.

These situations involve driving skill, but they also involve limits. The vehicle needs rules for when it can act on its own, when it must slow or stop, and when a person with legitimate authority can override its normal behavior.

Those rules should be part of the safety test.

Regulators do not need access to every line of software. They need evidence that the vehicle recognizes situations outside its normal playbook, takes a safe default action, and gives authorized people a reliable way to intervene.

Make the limits a part of the test

Believe it or not, NHTSA can build exceptional situations into the performance standards already under development.

First, manufacturers must identify high-risk road conditions in which ordinary driving rules may conflict with emergency directions, temporary street conditions, or the safety of people outside the vehicle. Next, they should demonstrate what the vehicle will do in each case — and what happens when its confidence drops.

Remote assistance also needs clear limits. A remote operator who helps a stuck vehicle should have defined powers rather than an open-ended ability to make anything happen. Regulators should know what actions a remote helper can authorize, how those actions are logged, and how quickly the authority can be withdrawn if something goes wrong.

This idea has a broader foundation in AI research. A peer reviweed analysis of explainable artificial intelligence by Plamen Angelov and colleagues highlights “knowledge limits” as a core principle: a system should identify situations it was not designed to handle reliably.

The transportation version is one of the more concrete samples. A robotaxi should know when the situation has moved beyond ordinary driving — and follow a tested procedure for what comes next.

Give road users a visible safety contract

The public does not need a technical manual. Cities, regulators, and road users need a plain-language safety contract that explains how robotaxis behave around first responders, temporary traffic control, blocked lanes, school buses, cyclists, pedestrians, and other predictable exceptions.

That would strengthen the case for automated driving rather than weaken it. Better crash performance deserves recognition. Clear limits make that performance more trustworthy because people can see what happens when averages stop being useful and the street presents the system with an exception.

The next generation of AV safety standards should therefore test two things together: how well the vehicle drives, and how safely it behaves when ordinary rules no longer tell the whole story.

• The Trump administration’s announced policy tying transit grants to marriage and birth rates will only serve to hold up projects even further, and to funnel more money to rural counties that need it less than denser areas. (Transportation for America)
• One reason why U.S. cities have too much parking is that people feel like there’s never enough even when plenty is available, according to Paul Supawanich. And of course, all that parking is never free, even if the big-box store doesn’t charge customers directly.
• On the eve of Election Day, Smart Growth America highlights past ballot victories for complete streets.
• Whether California can set its own emissions standards could hinge on the outcome of tomorrow’s elections. (Politico)
• Prop 319 would ban traffic enforcement cameras in Arizona. (KTAR)
• An ICE agent was charged with aggravated assault in Houston for using his SUV to run over a man fleeing on foot. (Jezebel)
• Fort Worth and TEXRail officials broke ground on a light rail extension to the city’s medical district. (Report)
• CityNerd examines how you go about fixing sprawl in a city like Las Vegas that barely existed until the automobile era.
• Jacksonville has not always been using gas tax revenue set aside for bike and pedestrian projects for its intended purpose. (First Coast News)
• Four-minute peak frequencies are driving ridership on Seattle’s busiest light rail segment. (The Urbanist)
• London Mayor Sadiq Khan is calling for a cap on robotaxis. (The Guardian)
• Dozens of people in Toronto spent their Halloween protesting the Ontario government removing bike lanes. (CBC)

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES — 1 NOVEMBER 2026 SLF-2007-105 The Sakhalin Papers XCV: The Molecule Problem — When Russian Crude Became “Indian Diesel” and Europe Rewrote the Rules

By John Donovan — 1 November 2026

On 5 May 2022, Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden acknowledged a fundamental weakness in efforts to exclude Russian petroleum from international markets. Once Russian crude had been refined in another country, he explained, there was no worldwide system capable of tracing individual fuel molecules back to their geological origin. Diesel produced in India from Russian crude could consequently be classified as Indian diesel. Four years later, the European Union has introduced legislation specifically targeting petroleum products refined in third countries from Russian crude. The authenticated Shell statements, contemporary Reuters reporting and subsequent EU legal instruments reveal how a problem identified publicly by Shell in 2022 became the subject of binding European import restrictions in 2026.

Archive reference: SLF-2007-105
Publication date: 1 November 2026
Collection: The Sakhalin Papers — Shell, Gazprom and Russia
Previous instalment: SLF-2007-104 — The Blending Loophole, 31 October 2026

Principal documentary evidence: Shell’s announcement of 8 March 2022; Shell’s first-quarter results of 5 May 2022; Reuters and S&P Global Commodity Insights reporting of 5 May 2022; Shell’s 2022 year-end financial disclosures; the European Union’s sixth sanctions package of 3 June 2022; Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1494; the European Commission’s June 2026 implementation guidance; the EU’s 21st sanctions package of 23 July 2026.

Evidence classification: Authenticated Shell corporate announcements and financial statements; attributed contemporaneous executive remarks; independent financial and commodity-market reporting; official EU legislation and regulatory guidance; separately identified editorial commentary.

Evidential qualification: Van Beurden’s remarks are documented through independent contemporary reporting. They were not presented as a formal Shell undertaking guaranteeing the absence of Russian-origin crude from every refined product. No cargo-level evidence has been identified establishing that Shell knowingly violated sanctions through purchases of third-country refined products.

Introduction: The problem hidden inside a barrel of diesel

On 27 April 2022, Shell tightened its trading conditions to exclude refined petroleum products containing Russian-origin material.

The decision followed controversy over the company’s earlier purchasing rules, which had permitted certain blended fuels containing less than 50% Russian material.

Reuters documented the change.

Shell confirmed that it was tightening its conditions as part of its withdrawal from Russian hydrocarbons.

At first sight, the revised rules appeared to settle the issue.

Russian-origin petroleum was no longer acceptable simply because it had been mixed with products from another country.

But there was a much more complicated problem.

What happened when Russian crude oil was refined abroad?

A cargo of Russian crude could be shipped to India, processed in an Indian refinery and converted into diesel.

The diesel could then be exported to Europe.

Under relevant origin rules operating at the time, the resulting product might be classified as Indian rather than Russian.

The material had undergone substantial processing.

It was no longer the original crude oil.

And the international petroleum supply chain lacked a universal system for establishing the geological origin of every component of the resulting fuel.

On 5 May 2022, Shell’s chief executive publicly acknowledged the difficulty.

His remarks were reported by Reuters and S&P Global Commodity Insights.

The significance of those statements has become clearer with the passage of time.

In July 2025, the European Union adopted restrictions specifically designed to prevent Russian crude from reaching European markets after being refined in third countries.

The prohibition took effect on 21 January 2026.

The problem Shell identified in May 2022 had become the subject of an explicit European legal restriction.

The history of that development is the subject of this instalment. euronews

1. The setting: Shell announces extraordinary quarterly profits

The relevant remarks were made on Thursday, 5 May 2022.

Shell had just announced its first-quarter financial results.

The figures were substantial.

Adjusted earnings reached:

US$9.130 billion.

Cash flow from operating activities amounted to:

US$14.815 billion.

Income attributable to Shell shareholders was approximately:

US$7.116 billion.

These were different financial measures and should not be confused.

Adjusted earnings excluded identified items, including significant charges associated with Shell’s withdrawal from Russia.

The company recorded approximately $3.9 billion in post-tax Russia-related charges during the quarter.

The financial results reflected exceptionally strong conditions in international energy markets.

Oil and gas prices had increased substantially.

Shell’s trading businesses benefited from volatility and changing market conditions.

The company’s Chemicals and Products division also reported significantly improved refining and trading margins.

The war in Ukraine was contributing to major disruptions in international energy supplies.

Shell was simultaneously recognising substantial losses on Russian investments and generating considerable earnings elsewhere.

The company’s chief executive acknowledged that the war represented a human tragedy and had caused serious disruption to global energy markets.

It was against this background that journalists questioned him about Russian oil.

The subject was especially sensitive because Shell had apologised for purchasing a discounted Russian crude cargo in March.

It had subsequently tightened its petroleum purchasing conditions in April.

Now the company’s chief executive was addressing a problem that neither decision could resolve completely.

Authenticated corporate source: Shell plc — First Quarter 2022 Unaudited Results, 5 May 2022.

2. The Reuters report: Shell acknowledges a tracing problem

On 5 May 2022, Reuters reported Van Beurden’s remarks concerning Russian crude refined in other countries.

The report appeared under the headline:

Shell CEO: No Way to Trace Russian Crude Refined Overseas.

The central point concerned the practical limits of identifying the origin of petroleum after industrial processing.

Van Beurden explained that the world did not possess a comprehensive system for tracing individual fuel molecules back to their original geological source.

His illustration concerned an Indian refinery.

Russian crude could enter the refinery.

The refinery could process it into diesel.

That diesel could then be exported internationally.

Under the origin treatment he was describing, it could be regarded as Indian diesel.

This was not a hypothetical problem invented by campaigners.

It was publicly acknowledged by the chief executive of one of the world’s largest international energy companies.

The Reuters report also distinguished between Shell’s withdrawal from new Russian oil trading and the process of unwinding existing long-term contracts.

This distinction mattered because Shell had not promised that every historical contractual obligation would disappear immediately.

The company had announced a phased withdrawal.

The difficulties surrounding refined-product origin were part of the wider challenge of implementing that decision.

Contemporaneous source: Reuters — Shell CEO: No Way to Trace Russian Crude Refined Overseas, 5 May 2022.

3. S&P Global independently records the same remarks

S&P Global Commodity Insights published its own report on 5 May 2022.

Written by Robert Perkins, it examined the difficulties facing Europe’s proposed restrictions on Russian oil.

The report recorded Van Beurden’s acknowledgement that there was no worldwide system for identifying the geological origin of an individual fuel molecule after refining.

It also addressed how substantial industrial processing could affect the origin classification of petroleum products.

This is significant corroborating evidence.

Reuters and S&P Global were reporting on the same public remarks.

They are therefore not two independent confirmations of separate internal Shell decisions.

But they provide contemporaneous accounts of what the chief executive said and the context in which he said it.

S&P Global also reported that Van Beurden believed Shell was ahead of the sanctions measures then being contemplated by the European Union.

He was referring to Shell’s stated progress in reducing Russian oil purchases and the wider industry’s difficulties in implementing restrictions.

The report placed the comments within the context of Europe’s efforts to reduce imports of Russian crude and refined products.

The problem was larger than Shell.

It concerned the structure of international petroleum markets.

A government could prohibit direct imports from Russia.

A company could prohibit purchases of products identified as Russian.

But if Russian crude was refined in another country, determining whether the resulting petroleum product remained subject to an origin-based restriction required more complicated rules.

That is precisely the question later addressed by European legislation. S&P Global

4. A scientific distinction: Molecules are not shipping documents

Van Beurden’s explanation requires careful interpretation.

Crude oil contains complex mixtures of hydrocarbons.

Refining separates, converts and processes those hydrocarbons into products including petrol, diesel, aviation fuel and other petroleum derivatives.

The composition of the resulting products depends upon the crude feedstocks, the refinery’s configuration and the processing operations undertaken.

Where several crude streams are processed together, the individual components become integrated into the refinery’s output.

It is therefore difficult to identify the precise geological origin of an individual fuel molecule simply by examining the finished product.

That is the physical problem Van Beurden described.

But it is not identical to the administrative problem of tracing a shipment.

Commercial records can establish where crude oil was produced, where it was loaded, which refinery received it and what products were subsequently manufactured.

Relevant evidence may include bills of lading, certificates of origin, refinery intake records, production records, cargo documentation and contractual declarations.

Such records can support an assessment of provenance.

Their accuracy and completeness may vary.

They may become difficult to reconcile when products are blended, stored with other material or sold through multiple intermediaries.

But the absence of a universal molecular tracing system does not mean that provenance can never be established through documentation.

Physical traceability and documentary traceability are different questions.

The distinction is central to understanding subsequent European sanctions.

The EU did not need to invent a technology capable of identifying the geological origin of each individual diesel molecule.

Instead, it introduced requirements directed towards the documented origin of the crude oil used in refining.

That approach cannot eliminate every possibility of inaccurate declarations.

But it addresses the commercial and administrative problem in a different way.

5. The Indian refinery example: Why it mattered

India was a particularly relevant example in May 2022.

The country was a major energy consumer and possessed substantial refining capacity.

It also maintained commercial relationships with Russia.

Following the invasion of Ukraine, Russian crude became available to some buyers at significant discounts.

European energy companies were reducing their Russian exposures.

Indian refiners, meanwhile, had commercial incentives to purchase discounted crude.

The underlying economic logic was straightforward.

A refinery could purchase crude at a competitive price.

It could process that crude into petroleum products.

Those products could then be marketed internationally.

The products’ customs treatment might depend upon where the refining took place and the applicable rules of origin.

The location of crude extraction and the location where the finished product acquired its customs origin were not necessarily the same.

Van Beurden’s Indian refinery example therefore illustrated a genuine structural feature of international trade.

However, it is essential not to exaggerate what the example established.

It did not prove that every Indian refinery was processing Russian crude.

It did not establish that every shipment of Indian diesel contained Russian-origin hydrocarbons.

It did not identify a particular Shell purchase of Indian diesel derived from Russian crude.

Nor did it establish that India was acting unlawfully by purchasing Russian petroleum.

Those would be separate factual and legal questions requiring transaction-specific evidence.

The significance of Van Beurden’s remarks lay in the general problem he identified.

A restriction based solely on the declared origin of a finished petroleum product might fail to exclude products manufactured abroad from Russian crude. EnergyNow

6. The earlier blending controversy had exposed a related weakness

The previous instalment examined Shell’s April 2022 trading conditions.

Reuters reported on 27 April that Shell had tightened its restrictions on refined-product purchases.

The revised terms excluded products containing Russian-origin material, including blended fuels.

The change followed controversy over an earlier contractual threshold allowing certain products containing less than 50% Russian material.

The distinction between the two problems should be maintained.

The April controversy concerned blending petroleum products.

The May remarks concerned crude oil refined into new products in another country.

These are not identical processes.

Blending may combine finished petroleum products or intermediate components.

Refining involves industrial processing that can materially transform crude oil into different products.

The applicable rules of origin may therefore produce different results.

This helps explain why Shell could tighten its contractual restrictions on blended products while Van Beurden still identified a wider traceability problem.

The company could prohibit purchases of products knowingly blended with Russian-origin material.

But the problem of a third-country refinery purchasing Russian crude and exporting finished products remained.

Shell’s April trading restrictions did not themselves resolve that problem.

Nor did they constitute a comprehensive international legal framework governing the origin of refined petroleum.

They were company purchasing conditions.

A distinction between private commercial restrictions and government sanctions remained essential.

Contemporary Donovan–Shell archive: Shell Tightens Restrictions on Russian Oil Buying — 27 April 2022.

7. June 2022: Europe adopts its first major Russian oil embargo

On 3 June 2022, the European Commission announced the adoption of the EU’s sixth package of sanctions against Russia.

The measures included restrictions on Russian crude oil and refined petroleum products.

Their implementation was phased.

For seaborne Russian crude, existing contracts and certain transactions could continue during a six-month transition period.

For refined petroleum products, the corresponding period was eight months.

The package also contained specified exemptions and transitional arrangements.

The intention was to reduce the EU’s dependence on Russian oil without creating immediate and uncontrolled disruption to energy supplies.

But there was an important limitation.

The embargo primarily addressed petroleum falling within the specified Russian-origin or export categories.

It did not at that stage establish a comprehensive prohibition covering every refined product manufactured in a third country from Russian crude.

That was the type of problem Van Beurden had identified.

A prohibition on Russian-origin crude and finished petroleum products did not necessarily address all subsequent transformations outside Russia.

The distinction is important when evaluating the effectiveness of the original sanctions.

The EU had adopted substantial restrictions.

But the existence of a prohibition did not mean that all Russian crude was eliminated from the wider international market.

Russian petroleum could continue to be purchased and processed by countries not subject to the same import restrictions.

The legal consequences for subsequent exports depended upon the applicable rules.

Official source: European Commission — EU Adopts Sixth Package of Sanctions Against Russia, 3 June 2022.

8. Shell’s year-end accounts: What the company actually stopped purchasing

Shell’s subsequent 2022 financial disclosures help establish how its withdrawal developed.

By the end of the year, the company reported that it had stopped all spot purchases of Russian crude, LNG and cargoes of refined products directly exported from Russia.

It also stated that its long-term third-party purchases of Russian crude had ceased when contractually permitted, with all such purchases ending by the close of 2022.

Contracts to purchase refined products exported from Russia had also ended.

Its two pipeline-gas contracts terminated during the year.

But Shell still held two long-term LNG offtake contracts with Russian entities at the end of 2022.

The counterparty to one had stopped delivering cargoes during the third quarter.

Those contractual details have been examined in earlier Sakhalin Papers concerning the missing LNG cargoes and Shell’s surviving Russian LNG commitments.

The relevance here is narrower.

Shell’s financial statements distinguish several categories of Russian energy exposure.

They distinguish spot purchases from long-term contracts.

They distinguish crude oil from refined products.

They distinguish pipeline gas from LNG.

And they identify when particular categories of purchasing activity ceased.

What the disclosures do not provide is a complete cargo-by-cargo audit of all refined petroleum products purchased internationally by Shell after May 2022.

They therefore do not establish that no Russian-origin crude entered any refinery supplying Shell through a third-country supply chain.

Equally, they do not establish that Shell knowingly purchased such products in breach of applicable restrictions.

The absence of a comprehensive public provenance audit should not be converted into an allegation of wrongdoing.

Authenticated Shell record: Shell plc — Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Results, Note 8: Withdrawal From Russian Oil and Gas Activities.

9. July 2025: The European Union moves to close the refining loophole

The most important development in the subsequent documentary record occurred on 18 July 2025.

The Council of the European Union adopted its eighteenth package of sanctions against Russia.

The package introduced a prohibition specifically targeting refined petroleum products manufactured in third countries from Russian crude.

This was a substantial change.

The EU was no longer relying exclusively upon restrictions directed towards Russian-origin finished products or direct exports from Russia.

It was addressing the origin of the crude oil used in the refining process.

The Council explained that the measure was intended to prevent Russian crude from entering the European market indirectly through third-country processing.

The legislation implementing the measure was Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1494.

It inserted Article 3ma into Regulation (EU) No 833/2014.

The operative prohibition took effect on:

21 January 2026

The new provision covers specified petroleum products obtained in third countries from crude oil originating in Russia.

The regulation uses customs classifications.

Crude oil is identified under CN code 2709 00.

The relevant petroleum products fall under CN code 2710.

The provision also addresses evidence of the original crude oil’s country of origin.

This is a significant legal development when compared with the position described by Van Beurden in May 2022.

A problem originally discussed in terms of international market limitations had become the subject of a specific legal prohibition.

Official sources: Council of the EU — Eighteenth Sanctions Package, 18 July 2025 and Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1494 — Article 3ma.

10. The new rule does not require scientists to identify individual molecules

The structure of Article 3ma is important.

It does not require a laboratory to determine the geological birthplace of every molecule in a diesel cargo.

Instead, it addresses the provenance of the crude oil used by the refinery.

Under the regulation, importers generally must provide evidence of the country of origin of the crude used in the third-country refining process.

The rule also contains qualifications.

Specified partner countries are treated differently.

There are provisions concerning products imported from countries that were net exporters of crude in the preceding calendar year.

Those provisions include presumptions that can be challenged where authorities have reasonable grounds to believe Russian crude was used.

The result is not an absolute requirement for identical documentation in every case.

Nor does the legislation guarantee that every declaration will be correct.

It establishes a legal framework in which the underlying crude-oil source can become decisive even when the finished product was manufactured elsewhere.

This represents a different approach to the problem identified in 2022.

Van Beurden was discussing the absence of a universal system for tracing individual molecules.

The legislation addresses documented supply-chain origin.

These approaches are not contradictory.

One concerns physical traceability.

The other concerns legal and commercial evidence.

The distinction should be understood before claiming either that the problem is impossible to solve or that the new regulation has eliminated every possible loophole. EUR-Lex

11. June 2026: The European Commission issues further guidance

The regulatory development did not end with the legislation.

On 15 June 2026, the European Commission published updated guidance concerning the import ban on refined petroleum products obtained from Russian crude.

The guidance addresses Article 3ma and its implementation.

Its publication demonstrates that applying the prohibition required further explanation.

The central difficulty is not merely identifying a country’s name on an import declaration.

It involves determining whether the crude oil used in a refinery originated in Russia.

That may require examination of commercial and production records.

The applicable evidence requirements depend upon the product, the importing jurisdiction and the exceptions contained in the regulation.

The existence of detailed implementation guidance is therefore significant.

It illustrates that the practical questions raised in 2022 remained important after the introduction of the new legal restrictions.

The policy had changed.

The underlying complexity of the petroleum supply chain had not disappeared.

Official source: European Commission — Import Ban on Refined Products Obtained From Russian Crude Oil, Updated 15 June 2026.

12. July 2026: Further action against third-country refining

A further development followed on 23 July 2026.

The Council of the European Union adopted its twenty-first sanctions package against Russia.

The measures included additional restrictions concerning energy, banking, financial services and companies alleged to be assisting Russia’s ability to sustain its war.

Of particular relevance to the present investigation was a measure concerning oil refining.

The Council established a mechanism allowing transactions to be prohibited with designated refineries in Russia and third countries involved in processing Russian crude or petroleum products.

The package included a transaction ban, subject to a delayed commencement, concerning a refinery in Kulevi, Georgia.

This was a different legal mechanism from the general import prohibition established under Article 3ma.

But it addressed another aspect of the same underlying problem.

The EU was seeking to restrict not only direct Russian petroleum imports but also commercial structures through which Russian oil could continue reaching markets.

The measures show how the sanctions framework developed after Van Beurden’s May 2022 remarks.

The European response increasingly addressed third-country refining, trading and associated services.

However, this development should not be presented as evidence that Shell was involved in any transaction with the Georgian refinery.

No such connection is established by the sources examined.

Nor does the existence of the sanctions establish that Shell had previously violated the law.

The relevance lies in the evolution of the regulatory framework.

Official source: Council of the European Union — Twenty-First Sanctions Package, 23 July 2026.

13. The historical significance: Shell identified a weakness that governments later addressed

The sequence is unusually clear.

In March 2022, Shell publicly committed to withdrawing from Russian hydrocarbons.

In April, its trading conditions attracted criticism because certain blended products remained eligible for purchase.

The company tightened those conditions.

In May, its chief executive explained a more fundamental difficulty involving crude refined outside Russia.

In June, the EU adopted major restrictions on Russian oil imports.

In July 2025, the Council adopted additional legislation covering refined products manufactured in third countries from Russian crude.

The new prohibition took effect in January 2026.

Further implementation guidance followed in June.

Additional sanctions concerning refining operations were adopted in July.

These developments demonstrate that the original problem had continuing significance.

But the historical conclusion must remain precise.

The 2025 legislation does not prove that Shell had knowingly exploited the problem in 2022.

Nor does it establish that Van Beurden was advocating circumvention of sanctions.

His public remarks identified a limitation in the international petroleum supply system and the origin rules then operating.

The subsequent legislation addressed that limitation through new legal requirements.

The authenticated record therefore supports a clear conclusion: an important weakness in the original restrictions was publicly identified by Shell’s chief executive in May 2022, and the EU later adopted measures specifically directed towards that category of third-country refining.

That is a substantial documentary finding without requiring an allegation of unlawful conduct.

DOCUMENTARY FINDINGS Established facts

Shell apologised on 8 March 2022 for purchasing a Russian crude cargo and announced a phased withdrawal from Russian hydrocarbons.

On 27 April, Reuters reported that Shell had tightened its purchasing conditions to exclude refined products containing Russian-origin material, including blended fuels.

Shell’s first-quarter 2022 results, published on 5 May, recorded adjusted earnings of $9.130 billion and approximately $3.9 billion in post-tax charges associated with withdrawing from Russia.

On the same day, Reuters and S&P Global reported Ben van Beurden’s remarks concerning the difficulty of tracing Russian crude after it had been refined abroad.

His explanation included the example of Russian crude processed into diesel at an Indian refinery.

The EU adopted its sixth sanctions package on 3 June 2022, introducing phased restrictions on Russian oil imports.

Shell’s subsequent 2022 financial disclosures recorded the cessation of several categories of Russian crude and refined-product purchases.

On 18 July 2025, the EU adopted its eighteenth sanctions package, including restrictions directed towards petroleum products refined in third countries from Russian crude.

Article 3ma of Regulation (EU) No 833/2014, introduced through Regulation (EU) 2025/1494, took effect on 21 January 2026.

The European Commission published further guidance on 15 June 2026.

The EU’s twenty-first sanctions package, adopted on 23 July 2026, introduced additional measures concerning refineries and other entities associated with Russian petroleum.

Matters requiring qualification

Van Beurden’s statement concerned the lack of a comprehensive global system for tracing individual fuel molecules.

It did not establish that commercial records could never identify the origin of refinery feedstocks.

The Indian diesel example illustrated how refining could affect the classification of petroleum products.

It did not identify a particular Shell transaction involving Russian crude refined in India.

The EU’s 2026 prohibition contains qualifications and exceptions.

It should not be characterised as an unconditional worldwide prohibition on every petroleum product derived from Russian crude.

The EU measure concerns imports into the Union and related activities within its legal scope.

It does not automatically determine the legal position of transactions occurring entirely outside EU jurisdiction.

Legal findings

The authenticated EU legislation establishes a prohibition directed towards specified petroleum products obtained in third countries from Russian-origin crude.

The prohibition took effect after the events discussed in May 2022.

It must not be applied retrospectively to establish that Shell’s earlier activities were unlawful.

No court judgment specifically finding Shell liable for unlawful imports of Russian-derived third-country refined products has been identified in the materials examined for this instalment.

The EU’s subsequent sanctions against particular refining operations are not evidence of misconduct by Shell.

Not established

The available evidence does not establish that Shell deliberately purchased Indian-refined diesel containing Russian crude after its May 2022 statements.

It does not establish that Shell falsified origin documents.

It does not establish that Shell knowingly breached applicable sanctions through the acquisition of third-country refined products.

It does not establish the proportion of Russian-origin crude, if any, contained in every cargo acquired through Shell’s international refined-product supply chain.

Nor does it establish that the EU’s later documentary verification requirements can guarantee the absence of Russian-origin material from every relevant import.

EDITORIAL COMMENTARY The difference between a corporate promise and a provable result

The most revealing feature of this episode is not the chemistry.

It is the difference between what a company can promise and what it can demonstrate.

Shell announced that it intended to withdraw from Russian hydrocarbons.

That was a corporate policy decision.

Implementing the decision required the company to change contracts, purchasing procedures, supply arrangements and trading relationships.

Shell’s subsequent statements demonstrate that those changes took time.

But another question remained.

How could the company establish that petroleum products purchased from third countries did not contain material originating in Russia?

The problem was not unique to Shell.

International commodity markets were built around physical supply, commercial specifications, price and delivery obligations.

Their systems were not necessarily designed to trace every component of a refined fuel back to the country where the original crude oil had been extracted.

Van Beurden’s May 2022 comments acknowledged that limitation.

The issue raises a broader question about corporate accountability.

A company can adopt a purchasing prohibition.

It can require suppliers to make contractual declarations.

It can examine available documentation.

It can stop purchasing from suppliers that cannot provide sufficient assurances.

But these actions do not automatically create perfect physical traceability.

Nor do they establish that a company has deliberately acted improperly whenever documentation proves incomplete.

The distinction matters.

The role of government

Shell’s March 2022 announcement also acknowledged that withdrawal from Russian energy would require coordination with governments.

That was a realistic assessment.

Energy supplies were international.

Refineries depended upon feedstocks from several countries.

Petroleum products passed through complicated trading networks.

The necessary changes involved both private commercial decisions and public regulation.

The subsequent EU legislation illustrates the difference between those responsibilities.

In 2022, Shell could tighten its own purchasing conditions.

It could not unilaterally rewrite customs law for every country or impose a universal traceability system upon the entire petroleum industry.

Governments possessed powers that Shell did not.

The EU eventually used those powers to prohibit specified imports of third-country refined products derived from Russian crude.

That intervention changed the legal framework.

It did not eliminate every practical difficulty associated with verifying origin.

But it made the underlying source of the crude a more explicit compliance requirement.

A warning against rewriting history

There is a temptation to interpret every subsequent sanctions development as confirmation that earlier corporate transactions were unlawful or deliberately deceptive.

That would be a mistake.

The legal position in May 2022 was different from the legal position in January 2026.

Governments introduced additional restrictions because the earlier framework had limitations.

The fact that a later rule addresses a particular commercial practice does not automatically establish that the practice was illegal before the new rule took effect.

Similarly, the existence of a loophole does not prove that every company trading in the relevant market intentionally exploited it.

Documentary accuracy requires these distinctions.

The purpose of this investigation is to identify what Shell said and what subsequent governments did.

It is not to manufacture an allegation unsupported by the records.

The importance of Shell’s own words

The most compelling evidence in this instalment comes from Shell itself.

Its March announcement established the withdrawal commitment.

Its April trading changes demonstrated the process of implementation.

Its May financial results established the wider commercial circumstances.

And its chief executive publicly identified a fundamental problem concerning the origin of petroleum refined abroad.

The later EU legislation provides an important historical comparison.

It shows that the issue was sufficiently significant to become the subject of binding restrictions.

But the company should be assessed against the law applicable at the time of its actions.

This is not a matter of excusing conduct.

It is a matter of maintaining the integrity of the documentary record.

The central finding is that Shell’s chief executive publicly identified a limitation in the international petroleum supply system in May 2022, and subsequent European legislation sought to address that limitation through restrictions and origin-documentation requirements.

The historical significance is considerable.

It also points towards a wider question.

If European companies were withdrawing from Russia, how did Russia’s commercial relationships with countries outside Europe develop?

India provides a particularly interesting example.

And in the same month that Van Beurden was explaining the problem of Indian-refined diesel, Reuters reported that Shell was discussing something else with Indian energy companies.

The possible sale of its interest in Sakhalin II.

PRINCIPAL SOURCES

1. Shell plc — Shell Announces Intent to Withdraw From Russian Oil and Gas, 8 March 2022

The authenticated corporate announcement establishing Shell’s policy of phased withdrawal from Russian hydrocarbons.

Read Shell’s original announcement

2. RoyalDutchShellPlc.com — Shell Tightens Restrictions on Russian Oil Buying, 27 April 2022

The contemporary Donovan–Shell archive preserves Reuters’ reporting on the change to Shell’s purchasing conditions concerning blended products.

Read the original archive publication

3. Shell plc — First Quarter 2022 Unaudited Results, 5 May 2022

The original financial announcement provides authenticated figures for adjusted earnings, cash flow and Russia-related charges.

Read Shell’s original financial results

4. Reuters — Shell CEO: No Way to Trace Russian Crude Refined Overseas, 5 May 2022

Contemporaneous reporting of Van Beurden’s comments concerning crude refined in third countries, including the Indian diesel example.

Read the Reuters report reproduced by EnergyNow

5. S&P Global Commodity Insights — Shell Flags Industry Hurdles to Blocking All Russian Imports Into EU, 5 May 2022

Robert Perkins’ contemporary report provides additional context concerning international refining, blending, origin classifications and the proposed EU restrictions.

Read the S&P Global investigation

6. Shell plc — Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2022 Results, Note 8

Shell’s authenticated disclosure distinguishes the cessation of spot crude purchases, long-term crude contracts, refined-product purchases and other Russian hydrocarbon arrangements.

Read Shell’s year-end disclosure

7. European Commission — Sixth Sanctions Package Against Russia, 3 June 2022

The official announcement establishing the original phased restrictions on Russian seaborne crude and refined petroleum products.

Read the European Commission announcement

8. Council of the European Union — Eighteenth Sanctions Package, 18 July 2025

The official announcement confirming the introduction of restrictions on refined petroleum products manufactured in third countries from Russian crude.

Read the Council announcement

9. Council Regulation (EU) 2025/1494 — Article 3ma

The primary legislative instrument establishing the prohibition effective from 21 January 2026, including its origin-documentation requirements and qualifications.

Read the official EU regulation

10. European Commission — Guidance on Refined Products Obtained From Russian Crude, 15 June 2026

Official guidance concerning implementation of Article 3ma.

Read the European Commission guidance page

11. Council of the European Union — Twenty-First Sanctions Package, 23 July 2026

Official documentation of additional sanctions affecting petroleum refining and related commercial activities.

Read the Council announcement

12. RoyalDutchShellPlc.com — Shell Profits Jump 43% to £7.2 Billion Amid Calls for Windfall Tax, 5 May 2022

The Donovan–Shell archive’s contemporaneous account of Shell’s financial performance during the period covered by this investigation.

Read the original archive publication

DOCUMENTARY DISCLAIMER

This instalment is based upon authenticated Shell corporate announcements and financial disclosures, contemporaneous Reuters and S&P Global reporting, official European Union legislation and regulatory guidance, and contemporary material preserved by RoyalDutchShellPlc.com.

Ben van Beurden’s statements of 5 May 2022 are attributed to him through contemporaneous independent reporting. They are distinguished from formal corporate commitments made in Shell’s written announcements.

The absence of a universal system for tracing individual petroleum molecules is distinguished from the possibility of establishing refinery-feedstock provenance through commercial documentation.

The example of Indian-refined diesel is reported as an illustration used by Shell’s chief executive. It is not presented as evidence of a specific unlawful Shell transaction.

The EU legislation introduced in 2025 and taking effect in January 2026 is distinguished from the sanctions framework applicable in May 2022.

No retrospective allegation of illegality is made.

The exemptions, presumptions and evidential requirements contained in Article 3ma are acknowledged.

The article does not allege that Shell knowingly purchased third-country refined products derived from Russian crude in breach of sanctions.

It does not allege that Shell falsified customs documentation or deliberately concealed the origin of particular petroleum shipments.

No court judgment specifically establishing such misconduct by Shell has been identified in the records examined.

The discussion of international refinery operations concerns general supply-chain characteristics, not allegations against particular Indian or other third-country refiners.

Editorial commentary is identified separately from established documentary findings.

Relevant factual corrections, additional primary documents and responses from Shell or other interested parties are welcome.

The website’s general disclaimer also applies.

NEXT IN THE SHELL LEAKS FILES SLF-2007-106 — The Sakhalin Papers XCVI: The India Option — Shell’s Attempted Sakhalin II Sale and the Buyers Who Never Took Control

On 5 May 2022, Shell’s chief executive explained how Russian crude could be refined into products classified as originating in India.

Three weeks later, Reuters revealed another development involving Shell, Russia and India.

On 26 May 2022, journalists Ron Bousso and Nidhi Verma reported that Shell was in discussions with a consortium of Indian energy companies concerning its 27.5% interest in Sakhalin II.

The companies identified in the report included ONGC Videsh and GAIL.

The discussions reportedly extended beyond the equity investment.

They also concerned long-term LNG and crude-oil supply arrangements associated with Sakhalin II.

Shell declined to comment.

The Indian companies did not provide substantive confirmation of a completed transaction.

Reuters emphasised that any sale would require Russian approval.

At the time, the proposed negotiations appeared to offer Shell a possible commercial route out of its flagship Russian investment.

But events were moving rapidly.

On 30 June 2022, President Vladimir Putin signed Decree No. 416.

The decree transferred Sakhalin II’s operating rights and obligations into a newly created Russian company.

The original ownership arrangements were fundamentally altered.

Shell subsequently declined to participate in the replacement company.

The Indian consortium talks did not produce a completed sale of Shell’s original Sakhalin stake.

The questions are important.

What exactly was Shell attempting to sell to the Indian companies?

Was the proposed transaction limited to equity, or were long-term LNG and crude supply arrangements also under discussion?

How would a conventional commercial sale have affected Shell’s financial position?

Did the subsequent Russian restructuring make that possibility impossible?

And what can be established about the negotiations from contemporaneous sources, rather than later speculation?

The next instalment will reconstruct the Indian discussions, identify what was publicly known about the proposed transaction and examine how Russia’s intervention changed Shell’s options.

The investigation will distinguish reported negotiations from a binding sale agreement and a proposed purchase from a completed transfer.

Shell was attempting to leave Russia. Indian companies were reportedly considering acquiring its Sakhalin interest. But Moscow would ultimately determine the terms under which the project’s ownership could change.

The story continues.

The Sakhalin Papers continue.

Documentary starting point: Reuters — Exclusive: Shell in Talks With Indian Consortium to Sell Russian LNG Plant Stake, 26 May 2022, preserved by RoyalDutchShellPlc.com.

THE SHELL LEAKS FILES — 1 NOVEMBER 2026 was first posted on November 1, 2026 at 11:22 pm.
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