The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) was ready to lend the project $300 million, the Wall Street Journal Europe reports, but its business code of conduct will mean it is likely to shy away from dealings with a state-run operation.
While the EBRD has officially stated that it has not made a decision regarding the issue, a source familiar with the bank’s conduct said that it did not involve itself with ‘nationalized’ projects.
In December, Moscow convinced Shell and its collaborators to sell a controlling share of the Sakhalin project to Russian state-owned gas company Gazprom. The agreement came as the resolution to potential legal issues surrounding the environmental impact of Shell’s Sakhalin program.
