Compounding matters, the reports state the total cost of building Russia’s largest energy project is now 20% over the projected US$10 billion budget which had been published in February.

The numbers were uncovered following an internal review of the project’s budget, which listed additional costs attributed incurred from the building of offshore platforms, pipelines, etc.

This leak comes at a bad time for the company already reeling from having to admit to misreporting its oil and gas reserves and from the resignation of chairman Sir Philip Watts, who signed off on the original Sakhalin-2 budget during his tenure.