On 26 May 2021, the District Court of The Hague (The Netherlands) passed an innovative judgment in Milieudefensie v. Royal Dutch Shell. The Court interpreted Shell's duty of care towards the inhabitants of the Netherlands as requiring it to mitigate climate change by reducing the carbon dioxide emissions resulting from its global operations by at least 45% by 2030, compared with 2019. This case comment salutes the identification of a corporate duty of care for climate change mitigation but expresses scepticism regarding the Court's interpretation of this duty. The Court's reading of global climate mitigation objectives and climate science, which form the basis of its determination of Shell's requisite level of mitigation action, is plagued with inconsistencies. It is argued here that, in order to determine the standard of care applicable to Shell, the Court should have relied not only on a ‘descending’ reasoning as to what ought to be done, but also on an ‘ascending’ reasoning accounting for industry practices.

Despite the global alarm caused by accelerating climate change, hydrocarbon companies are exploring and opening up new oil and gas fields all over the world, including the Arctic. With increasing attention on the Arctic, companies address the growing global environmental pressure in their public marketing in various ways. This article examines the webpages of Norwegian Equinor and Russian Gazprom & Gazprom Neft. Building on feminist discussions, I analyse the different justification strategies these fossil fuel companies working in the Arctic utilise in order to support their ongoing operations. This article concludes that in order to justify their operations in the Arctic, the Norwegian and Russian companies emphasise values based on discourses that have historically and culturally been associated with masculine practices, such as the control of nature enabled by technology. These justifications are thus reinforcing the narrative of the Arctic as a territory to be conquered and mastered. Even though the companies operate in different sociopolitical contexts, the grounds of justification are rather similar. Their biggest differences occur in their visual presentations of gender, which I argue is part of the justification. Approaching the fossil fuel industry from a feminist perspective allows questioning the dominant conceptualisations, which the justifications of Arctic hydrocarbon companies are based on.

The oil and gas industry relies heavily on helicopters for transporting personnel and cargo to and from offshore installations and support vessels. A growing number of offshore helicopter operations are to moving helidecks, which include large vessels such as FPSOs, drill ships, and semi-submersibles, as well as smaller service vessels. Landing a helicopter on a moving helideck presents additional challenges to those faced on fixed helidecks, not only at the point of touchdown but also for the entire period the helicopter remains on the helideck.

The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), on behalf of the joint CAA/industry Helicopter Safety Research Management Committee has led a comprehensive programme of research over a number of years, aimed at improving the operational safety of helicopters landing on moving helidecks. The work focused on the aspect of the stability of helicopters once landed on a moving helideck, this being the main source of in-service incidents and accidents as evidenced in the Mandatory Occurrence Reports. The project culminated in the development of a new standard for Helideck Monitoring Systems (HMS), which was published by the Helideck Certification Agency in April 2018 with an implementation compliance date of 31 March 2021. Operations to moving helidecks not equipped with HMS meeting the new standard will be restricted to stable deck conditions from this date. The research underpinning the new standard is presented in two papers.

This paper (Part A), presents the analytical approach that has been developed to model the Reserve of Stability (ROS) for all modes of failure of a helicopter on a moving offshore helideck.

The analytical model covers all modes of on-deck failure (roll-over and sliding), for any nose wheel tricycle undercarriage helicopter. The mathematical expressions that have been derived are remarkably simple, physically intuitive, and make the relative contribution of all the destabilising factors easy to understand and assess. These analytical expressions can be used to calculate the ROS of any helicopter in real time, as well as for calculating an envelope of safe operating limits.

This approach has many advantages compared to conventional ‘black box’ modelling methods. The main advantage is that it simplifies the modelling of the destabilising effect of helideck motion and allows the most salient parameters governing on-deck ROS to be defined, namely the Measure of Motion Severity, the instantaneous wind speed as the Measure of Wind Severity, and the wind direction relative to the helicopter (Relative Wind Direction).

The main rotor lift generated during the time the helicopter remains on-deck (at Minimum Pitch on Ground, MPOG) has been one of the most important unknowns that this research programme has sought to address. An empirical model for estimating the lift at MPOG has been developed, based on experimental and field data. Practical methods for quantifying fuselage wind drag and the vertical position of the centre of gravity were also developed, which allow different helicopter types to be assessed without recourse to helicopter Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) proprietary information or models. Finally, a comparison and evaluation of the model against dedicated field trial measurements is presented, together with a discussion of the modelling strengths and weaknesses, and recommendations for further work.

The background and rationale for the research reported in this paper is detailed in the companion paper subtitled Part A: Modelling the on-deck helicopter Reserve of Stability (ROS).

This paper (Part B) derives the fundamental principles underpinning the safe operational envelope and the definition of Motion Severity and Wind Severity Indices (MSI/WSI), and then presents the probabilistic modelling methodology developed for calculating safe limits for these parameters (MSI/WSI limits curves). The introduction of the Relative Wind Direction (RWD) as an additional limiting parameter is also discussed, together with an explanation of how RWD limits have been derived and how they are linked with the MSI/WSI limits calculation.

The MSI/WSI limits modelling methodology presented in this paper builds on the analytical helicopter stability modelling discussed in Part A. It uses a probabilistic approach to manage the variability in helicopter operations across the UK and to deal with the uncertainty of predicting helideck motion and wind conditions for the period the helicopter is landed on the helideck based on measurements taken prior to landing. This has been developed with the assistance of industry experts and has been subjected to consultation with stakeholders in the UK with the aim of identifying the right balance between enhancing safety and preserving operability.

A new Helideck Monitoring System (HMS) standard has been developed which incorporates the MSI/WSI/RWD functionality. The standard was published by the Helideck Certification Agency in April 2018 with a compliance date of 31 March 2021. Operations to moving decks not equipped with HMS meeting the new standard will be restricted to stable helideck conditions.

The Arctic is the last potential source of hydrocarbon left on Earth which makes it a quite attractive area for oil and gas company expansion and development. However, this development cannot proceed without the support from the Russian government. There are non-negligible risks which cannot be evaluated by pure economics as well as various challenges that must be overcome. This commentary will explore those risks and challenges and evaluate the recent acceleration of Arctic oil and gas development in Russia. It will also set the stage where the discussion on the sustainability of Russian Arctic resource development should be focused.

In conjunction with technologies such as horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing has transformed U.S. and world energy outlooks by adding reserves from unconventional resources. Fracturing was developed by experimentation and experience. This study empirically analyzes fracturing data for wells in the Williston Basin in North Dakota and Montana, focusing on firms' ability to improve well production over time through collaboration. Results suggest that producers gain from experience with fracturing and that proprietary additives are not generally correlated with greater production but have value for some firms. Experiential gains are stronger for operators than for contractors, but some operator-contractor pairings have productive value.