Environmentalists suspect Sibur of misrepresentation of information about the leakage of hydrocarbons into the Ob River

The head of the Russian branch of WWF, Alexey Knizhnikov, posted on Facebook a small investigation based on multispectral satellite imagery data: modern technologies allow continuous monitoring of the earth's surface.

It turned out that uncharacteristic light spots on the river began to appear on February 18 - it was then that a wide fraction of light NGL hydrocarbons could begin to leak, which accumulated and spread under the ice, poisoning the ecosystem.

The distance to the nearest country houses is nothing - only 3-4 kilometers, to the village of Solnechny - 8 km, to Nizhnevartovsk itself - 11 km. The official statement of SiburTyumenGaz JSC, which came out on the day of the fire on March 6, 2021, was subsequently updated. The company claimed that the NGL was passed on March 6, and the nearest settlement was 44 km away. And this information is still on the site. Naturally, this discrepancy in the data attracted the attention of journalists. But SIBUR then replied that they received this information from the Ministry of Emergencies. It is hard to believe that the employees of SiburTyumenGaz who work there have no idea how many kilometers they need to travel from home to work.

It turns out that deliberately false information is indicated on the company's official website in its official statement? Then where are the guarantees that the leak occurred on March 6, and not on February 18? And where are the guarantees that they did not notice the loss of the product for a couple of weeks, and why should people believe that a wide fraction of light hydrocarbons means a mixture of pure and relatively harmless propane and butane, and not other more toxic hydrocarbons?

The most important question: if nothing terrible happened, the water was not poisoned by anything and everything that was successfully burned out in the atmosphere, then why such a large company like Sibur, which should value its reputation (20% of the company belongs to the Chinese from Sinopec and Silk Road Fund), publishes false information? In contrast to the statements of the company representatives, the facts of the environmentalists' investigation can be verified without any problems - the images from the Sentinel-2 satellite of the Copernicus project were provided by the RISKSAT company. This is no secret.

And the statements of the management about their readiness to compensate for the caused environmental damage, if such is revealed, can have a double bottom. There are precedents. In 2019, JSC "Polief", which is part of "Sibur", committed two accidents, which led to pollution of the soil, water bodies (the Izyak river of the Blagoveshchensk region), the death of 500 kg of fish and the loss of forest resources. At the same time, according to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the company knew about the defects in the reservoir in which the wastewater was stored, but continued to operate it. Rosprirodnadzor and the Ministry of Forestry of Bashkiria in total calculated damage to 164 million rubles. The company did pay, but six months later, it was possible to recover damages from Polief only for 4.8 million rubles. Representatives of the company are challenging the issued fines in court, and insist on holding court proceedings in a closed format.

All these facts give rise to doubt about the insignificance of the accident and its harmlessness to the environment. It seems that the Norilsk Nickel story does not teach Russian industrialists anything yet.