Lukoil to spend $1 billion over four years to clean up production operations

Petroleum News

Russia’s largest oil company said in mid-December that it planned to spend more than $1 billion over the next four years to make its production operations more environmentally friendly.

The program will focus on “clean air, clean water, waste, reclamation, accident suppression and avoidance, research and experimental activities, ecological management, and ecological monitoring,” Lukoil said in a Dec. 17 press release.

“A priority target of the … program is improvement of waste management, including disposal of waste accumulated at company facilities over decades, and significant reduction of the build-up of new waste,” the company said.

Lukoil and other Russian oil companies have been heavily criticized for their poor environmental practices. Most recently, environmentalists have threatened to sue Lukoil over its development plans for an offshore oil field in the Baltic Sea near a United Nations World Heritage site.