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protestors hold up a sign that says exxon knew

Environmental activists rally for accountability for fossil fuel companies outside of New York Supreme Court on October 22, 2019, in New York City. New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, is taking on ExxonMobil in a landmark case that accuses the oil corporation of misleading investors about the company’s financial risks from climate change.DREW ANGERER/GETTY IMAGES

This month in a Manhattan courthouse, New York State’s attorney general Letitia James argued that ExxonMobil should be held accountable for layers of lies about climate change. It’s a landmark moment—one of the first times that Big Oil is having to answer for its actions—and James deserves great credit for bringing it to trial. But it comes with a deep irony: Under the relevant New York statutes, the only people that New York can legally identify as victims are investors in the company’s stock.

It is true that Exxon should not have misled its investors—lying is wrong, and that former CEO Rex Tillerson had to invent a fake email persona as part of the scheme (we see you, “Wayne Tracker”) helps drive home the messiness. But let’s be clear: On the spectrum of human beings who are and will be hit by the climate crisis, Exxon investors are not near the top of the list.

In fact, if the “justice system” delivered justice, the payouts for Exxon’s perfidy would go to entirely different people, because the iron law of climate is, the less you did to cause it, the more you’ll suffer.

The high-end estimate for economic damage from the global warming we’re on track to cause is $551 trillion, which is more money than exists on planet Earth.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Toronto Will Explore Suing Big Oil for Climate Costs

April 30, 2019

Toronto Will Explore Suing Big Oil for Climate Costs

Toronto will consider suing oil companies for climate damages

Toronto could be the next major city to file a climate liability suit to recoup climate costs from the fossil fuel industry. Photo credit: City of Toronto

Toronto became the latest city to explore possible litigation to make fossil fuel companies pay for the costs of climate change, joining an accountability movement spurred by cities in North America.

The city council’s Infrastructure and Environment committee passed a motion on Thursday that had been filed by City Councillor Mike Layton in March. It directs the city to consider suing greenhouse gas emitters for billions of dollars in adaptation and repairs cost to confront the challenges of increasing extreme weather events, like the floods that swept the city in 2013, and other climate impacts.

“It had gotten to a point where it was kind of a white noise in the background, ‘Yes, we have to do something about climate change.’ It became so abstract. And then it all changed when I had kids and started realizing that we’re actually running out of time,” Layton said during a debate preceding the vote.

Layton said climate change will present the city with budget challenges in the years to come.

”We have to make sure that those that are profiting pay their fair share,” he said.

The motion asks the city staff to report back to the city council about the cost of making the city resilient to extreme weather events, which have grown more frequent and more damaging with rising global temperatures. The city can then seek compensation for those costs in litigation.

“For decades and decades, there has been an industry that has been made out of blurring the line between greenhouse gasses, fossil fuels and climate change—much like they tried to blur the line between cancer and smoking,” Layton said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Trade Group Targets Shareholders Pressuring Big Oil on Climate Change

March 9, 2019

Trade Group Targets Shareholders Pressuring Big Oil on Climate Change

The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), a 123-year-old trade group that has worked diligently to defend Big Oil in the burgeoning climate liability battles, has also taken on another opponent to the status quo: investors.

In addition to filing briefs in defense of the fossil fuel industry, launching campaigns to discredit the communities filing suits and intervening on the side of the federal government in a landmark constitutional climate lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, NAM has rallied behind efforts to keep corporate shareholders from influencing how oil companies conduct business.

In recent years, shareholders concerned about climate-related risks to the companies’ bottom lines, which includes liability suits, have introduced proposals urging oil and gas companies to reduce their carbon footprint and be more forthcoming about the climate risks to their bottom line.

Once largely unmoved by a hard-to-imagine future threat, investors now need only look out their windows or turn to news reports to see firsthand the catastrophic effects of climate change: The charred remains of entire communities in the aftermath of California wildfires; parts of Texas submerged by more than 4 feet of water in the wake of Hurricane Harvey; countless unnamed weather events from the record-shattering rain that swept through Louisiana in 2016 to the now-routine flooding in Florida and areas along the Atlantic seaboard.

While most shareholder proposals have failed, there have been some victories: In 2017, investors forced Exxon to produce its first climate-risks report and other proposals prompted Occidental Petroleum, BP and Shell to increase reporting on climate risks. BP announced in February that it will support a resolution calling for even more disclosure that will be proposed at its May 2019 shareholder meeting.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Race Is On: Big Oil Rushes To Supply The 1 Billion Disconnected

December 17, 2018

The Race Is On: Big Oil Rushes To Supply The 1 Billion Disconnected

Supermajors are taking on more renewable energy commitments lately as they prepare for a less carbon-intensive future. Some of them are going a step further, coupling these green commitments with humanist causes such as providing access to energy to part of the one billion people all over the world who have no electricity.

Power for All director William Brent reviewed in a recent story this push that will see Shell, Total, French Engie, Schneider Electric and others of their caliber, build electricity supply from clean sources for 200 million of this one billion within the next ten years. Shell is the most ambitious, aiming to provide access to electricity for 100 million, and Total plans to provide 25 million people in Africa with solar energy derived power within the next two years.

Others are also catching up with the green agenda. Exxon recently announced it had inked a 12-year deal with Danish renewable energy company Orsted to buy 500 MW of electricity produced by solar and wind farms to power its oil production in the Permian. The deal reflects falling renewable energy prices, which is making renewable energy a lot more competitive with fossil fuels, not to mention the reputational effect its deployment would have on Big Oil– and Big Oil is in serious need of news that is good for its reputation. Even with a redoubling of efforts to move more quickly into renewable energy territory, challenges remain, however.

Shell and BP, for instance, are being pressured by activist shareholders into doing more to lower their carbon footprint. One such activist shareholder, Dutch group Follow This, has been actively pressuring the companies it holds shares in to be more active in carbon footprint reduction work.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Oil Doubles Down On Shale Despite Price Drop

December 13, 2018

Big Oil Doubles Down On Shale Despite Price Drop

It’s the time of the year when oil companies start announcing their budgets for next year and besides a steady albeit guarded optimism, one thing stands out: oil majors are doubling down on their shale endeavors.

Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and Hess Corp all announced their capex plans for next year in the last few days and all three have big plans for U.S. shale. In fact, Conoco said it would allocate half of its budget on onshore operations in the United States, while Hess Corp said the bulk of its US$1.89 billion production growth budget, or US$1.425 billion, would be poured into the Bakken play.

Chevron has earmarked US$3.6 billion for expanding its production in the Permian and another US$1.6 billion will be invested in other shale plays in the United States. That makes a total of US$5.2 billion for U.S. shale, which is substantially higher than this year’s budget of US$4.3 billion.

Anadarko, which made its 2019 spending plans public last month, said it planned to allocate more than two-thirds of its 2019 budget to shale operations, with a particular focus on the Delaware Basin in the Permian and the DJ basin in Colorado.

According to Bloomberg, shale has become “a safe haven” for Big Oil amid the recent increased volatility in prices. The argument is that shale production costs are much lower than a few years ago and combine with the opportunity for a steady production increase and quicker returns than conventional projects.

The recent assessment of the U.S. Geological Survey of the recoverable reserves in the Wolfcamp basin must have added fuel to Big Oil’s shale enthusiasm.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Countries that Blocked ‘Welcoming’ of Major Climate Science Report at UN Talks have Dozens of Delegates with Ties to Oil, Gas, and Mining

December 13, 2018

Countries that Blocked ‘Welcoming’ of Major Climate Science Report at UN Talks have Dozens of Delegates with Ties to Oil, Gas, and Mining

At least 35 delegates from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Russia and the US are either currently employed or used to work for companies and organisations involved in the petrochemical and mining industries or lobbying on behalf of those industries.

On Saturday, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) “noted” the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) landmark 1.5 degrees report at the annual talks in Katowice, Poland. Poor and undeveloped countries, small island states, Europeans and many others called to change the wording to “welcome” the study, Climate Home reported.

The IPCC’s report, released in October 2018, warned that the world has 12 years to radically cut emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change. The report was commissioned by countries at the annual climate talks in Paris in 2015.

Of the 35 delegates DeSmog UK has identified with ties to the fossil fuel and mining industries, 12 are representing Saudi Arabia, and nine are representing Russia. NGO Climate Tracker previously identified 13 delegates representing Kuwait that worked for the fossil fuel industry.

Most of the Saudi Arabian delegates currently work for state oil and gas producer Saudi Aramco – reportedly the most profitable company in the world – including Khalid Al-Falih, Saudi Arabia’s Minister Energy, Industry and Natural Resources and chairman of Saudi Aramco. The company is estimated to be worth around $2 trillion.

Two of the Russian delegates at this year’s annual talks work for natural gas producer Gazprom, in which the Russian government holds the majority stake. Six delegates work for aluminium producer, Rusal.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Is Shale The Future For Big Oil?

November 7, 2018

Is Shale The Future For Big Oil?

If anyone had compared shale oil to Google five years ago, it would have sounded strange. Yet when last week in a report Wood Mackenzie’s chairman and chief analyst Simon Flower did just that, comparing shale oil to the FAANG stocks, he had a good reason to do so. Shale oil is the star of the decade as far as the global energy industry is concerned, and now even Big Oil has woken up to this fact.

In a report detailing the relationship of Big Oil and shale, Wood Mac’s analysts forecast a bright future for both, with the share of shale oil in the supermajors’ total production rising from the current 700,000 bpd to 2.2 million bpd in 2026 before it starts declining. This will represent a tenth of the supermajors’ total production, Wood Mac’s research analyst Roy Martin said in the report.

Meanwhile, it’s not just the supermajors that are expanding their shale oil footprint at a fast pace. Large independents are getting larger, too. As Houston Chronicle commentator Chris Tomlinson noted in a recent story on the same topic, “Seasoned oil executives know that when both prices and production rise, it’s time to cash out and sell to the big boys.”

There’s a consolidation underway in the U.S. shale patch, and it will likely continue for some time until, Tomlinson argues, only the strongest players remain, all in a position to benefit from the marriage of lower costs, higher drilling and production efficiency, and consequently, consistent output growth.

Among the most notable acquisitions in this area so far this year were BHP Billiton’s sale of its shale operations to BP for US$10.5 billion, after it was pressured by Elliott Management to exit shale, as well as Encana’s purchase of Newfield Exploration for US$5.5 billion, and Chesapeake’s acquisition of WildHorse Resource Development for US$4 billion.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Oil Won’t Spend Despite Fat Profits

October 30, 2018

Big Oil Won’t Spend Despite Fat Profits

Higher oil prices are expected to leave the oil industry flush with cash, but the “capital discipline” mantra remains. Market watchers have wondered whether top oil executives would eschew with tight-fisted spending plans once their pockets fattened up again.

“We’re laser focused on disciplined free cash flow generation and strong execution. Discipline means, we’re not chasing higher prices by ramping up activity,” ConocoPhillips’ CEO Ryan Lance told investors on an earnings call. “By staying disciplined, we generate strong free cash flow, which we then allocate in a shareholder-friendly way.” He went on to stress how committed the company was to boosting the quarterly dividend and share buyback program.

Conoco beat analysts’ estimates, earning $1.36 per share in the third quarter, eight times the earnings from the $0.16 per share a year earlier. Conoco also saw soaring production in the big three shale areas – the Permian, Eagle Ford and Bakken – with output up 48 percent to 313,000 bpd. Lance said that the company still wants to “optimize” its portfolio, which includes $600 million in asset sales.

Conoco’s experience highlights an important industry trend, which is prioritizing profits over growth and size. Lance pointed out that the last time earnings were this good was back in 2014. “Brent was over $100 per barrel and our production was almost 1.5 million barrels of equivalent oil per day. So we’re as profitable today as we were then, despite prices being 25% lower and volumes being 20% lower,” Lance told investors. “So bigger isn’t always better. That’s why we’re focused on per share growth and value, not absolute volume growth.”

Norwegian oil company Equinor (formerly Statoil) echoed that sentiment.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Oil Walking A Tightrope As Prices Rise

October 23, 2018

Big Oil Walking A Tightrope As Prices Rise

Supermajors have had a great year so far, and their third-quarter results, to be released over the next couple of weeks, are likely to strengthen this impression. But this does not necessarily mean that investors will reward them. Investors have become a lot more careful in the past few years, and chances are they will want to see more proof of post-crisis flexibility and strict cost discipline before stock prices reflect an increase in trust.

On the face of it, Exxon, Shell, Chevron, and their likes have everything going for them: oil prices are higher, free cash flow is coming in at higher rates, and there have even been a few discoveries, most notable among them Exxon’s 4-billion-barrel elephant off the coast of Guyana. But Big Oil still needs to be cautious.

In a recent article for 24/7 Wall Street, its senior editor Paul Ausick noted the heightened prospects of even higher oil prices after a Reuters repor t revealed that OPEC has been having trouble lifting production by the promised 1 million bpd. From May to September, the cartel’s combined production plus Russia’s had fallen well short of that figure because of production declines in Venezuela, Iran, and Angola, among others. These, the internal OPEC document that Reuters saw, offset some substantial output hikes from Saudi Arabia, Russia, the UAE, Iraq, and Kuwait.

What this means is that there seems to be less spare capacity than optimists believed. This, in turn, means prices are likely to climb further, despite a fresh assurance from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin that traders have already factored in the U.S. sanctions against Iran. Mnuchin’s warning that Washington will insist on importers cutting Iranian crude imports by more than 20 percent most certainly has not helped rein in prices, though its effect has yet to be fully acknowledged.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Oil Cheers Trump’s ‘New NAFTA’ But Mexico Could Complicate Things

October 18, 2018

Big Oil Cheers Trump’s ‘New NAFTA’ But Mexico Could Complicate Things

While the oil and gas industry has lauded the new trade deal that may soon replace the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), a provision added by Mexico, along with its new president’s plan to ban fracking, could complicate the industry’s rising ambitions there.

The new agreement, known as the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), has faced criticism as being tantamount to NAFTA 2.0 — more of a minor reboot that primarily benefits Wall Street investors and large corporations, including oil and gas companies.

Mercilessly critiqued by then-candidate Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, NAFTA is now the second major trade deal kicked to the curb by now-President Trump. The other, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), was canceled days intoTrump’s presidency.

After the most recent deal’s announcement, the oil and gas industry offered praise for USMCA. The White House even pointed this out in a press release, highlighting a quote given by the U.S. industry’s major trade group, the American Petroleum Institute (API).

“We urge Congress to approve the USMCA. Having Canada as a trading partner and a party to this agreement is critical for North American energy security and U.S. consumers,” said Mike Sommers, President and CEO of API. “Retaining a trade agreement for North America will help ensure the U.S. energy revolution continues into the future.”

In its own press release declaring its support for USMCA, API further spelled out the parts of the deal it supports.

Those include “continued market access for U.S. natural gas and oil products, and investments in Canada and Mexico; continued zero tariffs on natural gas and oil products; investment protections to which all countries commit and the eligibility for Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) for U.S. natural gas and oil companies investing in Mexico…

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Oil Companies and Lobbyists Say They’re Ready To Solve Climate Change. Check The Fine Print.

June 24, 2018

Oil Companies and Lobbyists Say They’re Ready To Solve Climate Change. Check The Fine Print.

On Wednesday, former senators Trent Lott (R-MS) and John Breaux (D-LA) announced, with a big public relations blitz, a new campaign, Americans for Carbon Dividends, to address the threat of climate change. The effort is being heralded as a breakthrough by some because it is endorsed by big oil and gas companies Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, and Total, and it calls for a $40-a-ton carbon tax, incurred at the source of emissions, with revenues to be returned to citizens as dividends, perhaps $2000 a year for each American family of four.

A Lott-Breaux op-ed in the New York Times presents the deal as a compelling bipartisan solution and touts the support not only of oil companies but also the non-profit Nature Conservancy. The campaign website lists a bunch of newspaper and environmental group endorsements for the underlying $40 carbon tax concept, which was proposed last year under the banner of a group called the Climate Leadership Council, launched by Republican former secretaries of state James Baker and George Shultz and other conservatives, and now including oil companies and various establishment Democrats and Republicans.

The website of the new, affiliated Americans for Carbon Dividends shows its own campaign leadership roster that includes not only Republican Lott and Democrat Breaux, but also former George W. Bush adviser Karen Hughes and Mark McKinnon, plus Bill Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart.

So it sounds like Democrats and Republicans alike, and even some environmental groups, are supportive, the oil companies are at last willing to pay for their dangerous carbon emissions, citizens will get a dividend, and everyone will be happy.

But when one examines the fine print of the deal — and the financial benefits flowing to some of the people touting it — the effort looks much less utopian.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Big Oil’s Man in Foreign Policy

June 23, 2018

Big Oil’s Man in Foreign Policy

The Koch brothers’ extremist political agenda of empowering multinational corporations to reign as sovereigns has always been inextricably entwined with the profiteering agenda of their wholly-owned, $100-billion-a-year industrial conglomerate.

The brothers’ plutocratic view of business-as-government even has a name: Pompeo. As in Mike Pompeo, the Trump regime’s latest secretary of state.

Years ago, while living in the billionaire brothers’ hometown of Wichita, Kansas, Mike got lucky when they pumped a load of Koch capital into a business he’d started, turning him into a millionaire. Then, they partnered with him in another business that essentially made him a Koch Industries subsidiary: politics.

In 2010, they turned this business asset they’d created into a political asset, providing the money from KOCHPAC and the backing of their right-wing front group to elect Pompeo to serve as “the Congressman from Koch.” The brothers even installed a Koch Industries lobbyist to run his congressional office.

So, Mike’s been a loyal Koch-head, conferring with them and backing bills to advance their corporate and political fortunes. Their investment in Mike became a bonanza last year when he became Trump’s yes-man as the head of the CIA. And now, they’ve hit the political jackpot, with Pompeo becoming head of the State Department.

On everything from international oil deals that profit multinational giants like Koch Industries to relentless opposition to all global efforts that would restrict fossil fuel profiteers from causing more climate change, the Koch’s personal political insider is now their global corporate asset.

To keep up with how Pompeo converts Koch-headed corporatism into U.S. foreign policy, go to PR Watch.

California Lacks Real Marine Protection as Offshore Drilling Expands in State Waters

June 20, 2018

California Lacks Real Marine Protection as Offshore Drilling Expands in State Waters

One of the big news stories neglected by both the mainstream and “alternative” media is the capture of California politics and the regulatory apparatus by Big Oil and other corporate interests in recent years – and the massive expansion of offshore drilling that has occurred in state waters under the helm of Governor Jerry Brown as a consequence of this regulatory capture.

The enormous power that Big Oil exerts over California regulators was inadvertently revealed in a March 10, 2012 article in the Santa Barbara Independent that discussed a so-called “marine protected area” created under the privately funded Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative that went into effect on January 2 of that year.

The official language for the marine protected area in the Isla Vista area of Santa Barbara County, the Campus Point State Marine Conservation Area, reads, “Take of all living marine resources is prohibited, except for take pursuant to operation and maintenance of artificial structures inside the conservation area … ”

“The caveat, allowing marine resources to be taken near artificial structures, exists to allow oil production representatives the ability to maintain equipment, including pipelines, located in this area,” the article by Cat Heushul stated.

Unfortunately, the reporter failed to mention the even bigger story — that Catherine Reheis-Boyd, President of the Western States Petroleum Association, actually served as the Chair of the Marine Life Protection Act Initiative to create this “marine protected area” and others like it in Southern California.

She also served on the task forces to create “marine protected areas” on the Central Coast, North Central Coast and North Coast. If that is not a huge, glaring conflict of interest, I do not know what is.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Life, the Sea and Big Oil

May 24, 2018

Life, the Sea and Big Oil

Photo by Glenn Beltz | CC BY 2.0

“It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist: the threat is rather to life itself.”

– Rachel Carson

When I learned about the oil giant BP’s plan to drill off the coast of my home, my heart felt like it dropped out of my chest. As I write this the West Aquariusrig is well on its way to the Nova Scotian Shelf. By the time this is published, it might have already arrived. My thoughts went immediately to those oil sullied shorelines in the Gulf of Mexico, and to the fishermen there whose families and livelihoods were shattered to pieces, and the countless species of fish, mammals and marine birds suffocated in the earth’s primordial blood. BP forever damaged that region and not only in an environmental way. The scars, the untraceable diseases, the suicides and domestic conflicts induced by despair, the financial ruin, displacement and alienation persist to this day.

Many of my ancestors were fishermen here in Nova Scotia for generations. They negotiated the treacherous storms endemic to the North Atlantic and many of them perished in the icy waters which surround this rocky, unforgiving peninsula. I’ve several relatives whose livelihoods are still dependent upon the ocean. But it is more than just a job. The sea is entwined with one’s heart here. It informs the culture, the food, the language. The life of this province cannot be separated from it.

Until settlers stole their ancestral lands, Mi’kmaq, the region’s First People, lived in balance and harmony with this sea for thousands of years, carefully studying its character and respecting its surly and churlish mood swings.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Catastrophic Cyberattacks Threaten Big Oil

May 2, 2018

Catastrophic Cyberattacks Threaten Big Oil

There are over a million oil and gas wells in the United States. There are also several hundred thousand miles of pipelines. Digitization is on the rise in the notoriously conservative oil and gas industry as companies wake up to the cost and operational efficiency boost that sensors and algorithms can offer them. Meanwhile, cybercriminals are keeping ahead of the learning curve, but oil and gas is largely pretending not to notice them.

Energy companies—including E&Ps, pipeline operators, and utilities—spend less than 0.2 percent of their revenues on cybersecurity, two security consulting firms have calculated. This compares with three times this portion of revenues spent on cybersecurity by financial services providers and banks.

True, banks and their likes deal directly with people’s money, so it would make sense to be extra careful. Also, the financial services industry has been under growing pressure from alternative service providers, so it has had to become flexible and open to new tech to stay ahead of the competition.

Oil and gas producers, on the other hand, don’t seem to see themselves a likely target of a cyberattack even though such attacks against the industry have been growing in frequency. Symantec, according to Bloomberg, is tracking as many as 140 cybercriminal groups that target the energy industry. That’s up from 87 in 2015.

Last year, Deloitte reported that the energy industry was the second most popular target for cyberattacks in 2016. Almost three-quarters of U.S. oil and gas companies, the consultancy said, had a cyber incident in that year, yet only a tiny majority cited cyber risk as a major concern in their annual reports. This is what makes the cybersecurity situation in oil and gas very worrying.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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