Christine Dobby Oct 24, 2011 – 5:41 PM ET

TORONTO — The U.S. government is likely to approve the Keystone XL pipeline in part because of the economic benefits that would come along with the controversial US$7-billion project, the head of Royal Dutch Shell’s North American operations, predicted Monday.

In fact, the economic benefits attendant on the energy industries in North America in general are even more important than energy independence, Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Co. and upstream director of Royal Dutch Shell’s subsidiary company in the Americas, said at a Toronto conference.

“As you get a real balance of environmental concerns with pipeline safety concerns, with energy security, with the creation of jobs and with the improvement in the economy as a whole, I think a decision will be made to proceed with that pipeline,” Mr. Odum said. “It actually feels pretty obvious to me that will be the decision so that’s my expectation of the government.”

The United States is expected to make a decision on the fate of the TransCanada pipeline, which will transport heavy oil from the Alberta oil sands to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast and already has regulatory approval in Canada, by the end of the year.
“From the oil sands perspective, the Keystone XL pipeline is an extremely important part of developing that resource and will be a critical supply artery to the U.S.,” said the executive, who was the keynote speaker at the lunch session of the fifth annual Toronto Forum for Global Cities conference hosted by the International Economic Forum of the Americas.

Anglo-Dutch Shell is one of Canada’s biggest oil sands developers as a 60% partner in the giant Athabasca Oil Sands Project in Alberta.

On the subject of energy security or independence, Mr. Odum said it’s an “interesting goal” but not one he sees as a “primary driver.”

“As I look across North America… the supply potential is enormous and it’s changed dramatically over the last four or five years,” he said, pointing to the development of natural gas plays and the oil sands as well as other resources in Mexico and Alaska.

“So with all of that within reach of North Americans, it could clearly drive us toward the direction of energy independence, but I think the bigger driver in the near term is the economic benefit that comes from that, the number of jobs that come from that,” Mr. Odum said.

He said the United States should consider connections with friendly trade partners like Canada and Mexico as well as a number of South American countries as part of the idea of energy independence more broadly.

Mr. Odum also addressed the controversy over hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” used to extract natural gas from shale reservoirs and said companies can address this through transparency in what they’re doing.

“This is a case where the arguments have gotten away from businesses and industry,” he said. “It actually never should have been a big issue. These are relatively small components in the fracture treating fluids that we put in the ground.”

He noted that all of the components of the fracturing fluid Shell uses are listed on its website, although for proprietary reasons, the specific percentages are not disclosed.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Oct 24, 2011

By Tennille Tracy, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Environmental groups have filed a formal challenge to air-quality permits that Royal Dutch Shell needs to drill for oil in the Arctic.

The challenges, filed Monday, represent the latest effort to block Shell ( RDSA, RDSB, RDSA.LN, RDSB.LN) from drilling off the coast of Alaska and could derail the company’s plans to begin exploring the region in 2012.

The permits under question were approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in September. The permits allow Shell to use the drillship “Discoverer” and a fleet of icebreakers and other vessels in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas.

The environmental groups, led by Earthjustice, say the permits granted by EPA don’t protect air quality.

“The EPA essentially is green-lighting dangerous Arctic Ocean oil drilling,” Earthjustice attorney Colin O’Brien said in a statement.

Shell wasn’t available for immediate comment.

Environmental groups have launched several challenges to Shell’s plan to drill in the Arctic. In September, the groups sued the Interior Department for approving the company’s exploration proposal for the Beaufort.

Monday’s challenge marks the second time Shell’s air-quality permits have been appealed. In 2010, environmental groups and Alaska Native groups successfully blocked an earlier set of permits, forcing the EPA to amend the permits and re- issue them. The amended permits are being challenged today.

On Friday, the EPA approved a separate permit for Shell, allowing the company to operate a drill rig known as “Kulluk.”

Unlike drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico, where the Interior Department is responsible for clean-air permits, projects in the Arctic require approval from the EPA.

Republicans on Capitol Hill have started to take notice of Shell’s struggles. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives approved a bill in June that imposes deadlines on U.S. regulators to approve or deny permit applications. The Senate has not yet taken up the bill.

Shell has said it wants to begin exploring for oil in the Arctic in the summer of 2012. It will have to reconsider those plans, however, if environmental groups are successful in blocking the air-quality permits or delaying a review of them.

–By Tennille Tracy, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-6619; tennille.tracy@ dowjones.com

  (END) Dow Jones Newswires
  10-24-111736ET
  Copyright (c) 2011 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Due to the Defendants’ oil exploration in the Plaintiffs land and failure by Shell and others to meet minimum Nigerian or own standards, the Plaintiffs community is now characterized by heavy contamination of land and underground water courses, sometimes more than 40 years after oil was spilled.

By John Donovan

We have purchased from the United States District Court Eastern District of Michigan and now publish on the Internet, court documents issued in the court on 18 October 2011 against Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Shell Petroleum Development Company (NIG) Ltd.

The case is as stated in the related Washington Post article:

Nigeria village cited by UN for chronic oil-spill damage sues Royal Dutch Shell for $1B in US

Case No. 11-14572

HRH EMERE GODWIN BEBE OKPABI;
EMERE FORTUNE OLAKA OBE;
EMERE AKE OLUKA;
HONOURABLE PRINCEWILL AKE IGWE; HONOURABLE DANDYSON NGAWALA;
CHIEF LAWRENCE OSARO OYOR, for themselves and on behalf of the People of Ogale in Eleme Local Government, Rivers state,

Plaintiffs, v.

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL, PLC;
SHELL PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY (NIG) LTD,

Defendants.

SUMMONS ISSUED AGAINST ROYAL DUTCH SHELL  PLC

CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE

COMPLAINT AND JURY DEMAND – 32 pages

EXTRACT FROM COMPLAINT AND JURY DEMAND

20. The Niger delta is one of the most polluted regions in the world, with more oil spilled across the region each year than the oil spilt in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. According to Nigerian government figures, there were more than 7,000 spills between 1970 and 2000, and there are 2,000 official major spillage sites, many going back decades, with thousands of smaller spills still waiting to be cleared up.

24. Due to the Defendants’ oil exploration in the Plaintiffs land and failure by Shell and others to meet minimum Nigerian or own standards, the Plaintiffs community is now characterized by heavy contamination of land and underground water courses, sometimes more than 40 years after oil was spilled. With community drinking water at dangerous concentrations of benzene and other pollutants and soil contamination more than five metres deep in many areas with most of the spill sites, which the Defendants claimed to have cleaned, is still highly contaminated with dumping of contaminated soil in unlined pits and water coated with hydrocarbons more than 1,000 times the level allowed by Nigerian drinking water standards.

29. The UNEP Report further states that the people of Nsisioken Ogale Community have for several years being drinking water contaminated with benzene, a known carcinogen at levels over 900 times above the World Health Organization guideline.

62. A 2007 CDC review of benzene toxicity concluded that there is substantial human evidence that benzene causes leukemia. It also reports aplastic anemia (a precursor of leukemia), chromosomal abnormalities in lymphocytes and bone marrow cells, damage to the immune system and abnormal development of blood cells. When blood cells are deficient, this can cause other serious medical conditions, including infection due to a lack of leukocytes and increased cardiac stress due to a lack of erythrocytes. Long term low level oral and inhalation exposures have also caused peripheral nervous system abnormalities, distal neuropathy, difficulty sleeping and memory loss.

84. On many occasions, the defendants have spent decades fighting lengthy appeals that bled the victims dry in legal costs. The culture of impunity include but not limited to the following: refusal to comply with a 2006 Judgment in which the defendants were ordered to pay $1.5bn in damages to the Ijaw communities of Bayelsa State. Since 2005, refusal to comply with another court order to end gas flaring in the Iwherekan community. The Ejama Ebubu community has waited more than 40 years for Shell to clean an oil spill from 1970.

124. The acts described herein constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment in violation of the Alien Tort Claims Act, customary international law, the common law of the United States, the statutes and common law of Michigan, the laws of Nigeria, and the international treaties, agreements, conventions and resolutions described herein.

129. Defendants engaged in conduct so reckless, wilful, wanton and in such utter and flagrant disregard for the safety and health of the public and the environment in their activities leading up to the Spill, as alleged herein, that an award of punitive damages against them at the highest possible level is warranted and necessary to impose effective and optimal punishment and deterrence. Plaintiffs, society and the environment cannot afford and should never be exposed to the risks of continuing spill that has not been abated and all of which were caused by the by Defendants’ misconduct herein.

130. The Defendant’s corporate culture caused and allowed it to disregard the lessons it should have learned and applied from previous incidents; instead, it continued to place others at risk in the interests of cost-cutting and financial gain.

133. Defendants’ conduct, as described more fully hereinabove, is at the highest level of reprehensibility, warranting and necessitating the imposition of punitive damages at the highest level, because Defendants’ conduct was motivated by financial gain; because it endangered human and environmental health and safety; because it caused devastating damage and loss to the livelihoods, businesses, and properties of Plaintiffs; because it is not isolated or accidental, but part of a culture and ongoing pattern of conduct that consistently and repeatedly ignored risks to others in favor of financial advantage to Defendants; and because it has accordingly caused societal harm, moral outrage and condemnation, and the need to punish Defendants and deter further repetition by Defendants or others.

Oct 23, 2011, 03.46PM IST

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban have threatened to attack installations of Shell Pakistan and the state-run Pakistan State Oil if the two firms do not pay a total of Rs 400 million within 20 days as extortion money, a media report said on Sunday.

“It isn’t true. We never asked them to stop fuel supply to the US or NATO forces in Afghanistan. We had nothing to do with whatever they are doing. I just asked them to pay us Rs 200 million within 20 days, otherwise we would target their installations,” the commander was quoted as saying.

SOURCE ARTICLE

By Katarzyna Klimasinska – Oct 21, 2011 10:46 PM GMT+0100

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) won a final U.S. air-pollution permit to operate an oil-exploration rig in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea beginning in 2012.

Shell is authorized to use its Kulluk rig and supporting icebreakers and oil-spill response vessels for 120 days each year in the Arctic waters, the Environmental Protection Agency said today in an e-mailed statement.

“This air permit is one of several federal authorizations Shell needs to explore for oil and gas” off Alaska “starting in July 2012,” the agency said. “EPA’s final permit significantly reduces the potential air pollution from Shell’s drilling operations.”

Shell, which has invested about $4 billion in the Arctic leases since 2005, hasn’t drilled any wells in the region while opponents won delays with appeals and lawsuits. Environmental organizations and Alaskan native groups said it would take too long for equipment to reach the remote and icy region during an oil spill.

The company, based in The Hague, received approval from the EPA in September for the Discoverer ship to drill and station icebreakers and spill-response vessels in the Beaufort waters and the neighboring Chukchi Sea. Discoverer is owned by Noble Corp. (NE), based in Baar, Switzerland.

Two Rigs

Pete Slaiby, vice president of Shell Alaska, said in a May 2 interview that having two rigs in the Arctic would enable faster drilling of relief wells.

“We will continue to advance our drilling plans and evaluate investment decisions that would allow us to commence with a 2012 drilling season,” Curtis Smith, a Shell spokesman, said today in an e-mailed statement.

Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, still needs Interior Department approval of its Chukchi Sea exploration plan and a permit from U.S. offshore-oil regulators for each of 10 planned wells. The company won the Interior Department’s approval for an exploration plan for the Beaufort Sea, near the North Slope towns of Deadhorse and Kaktovik, in August.

The Beaufort and Chukchi seas hold about 25 billion barrels of oil, Shell says, citing government estimates. A study commissioned by the company said developing these resources would lead to 54,700 new jobs across the U.S.

– Editors: Judy Pasternak, Bob Brennan

To contact the reporter on this story: Katarzyna Klimasinska in Washington at kklimasinska@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Larry Liebert at lliebert@bloomberg.net

SOURCE ARTICLE

A village in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta where observers found a drinking-water well polluted with benzene 900 times the international limit has sued Royal Dutch Shell PLC for $1 billion in a U.S. federal court.

Published October 21, 2011 | FoxNews.com

LAGOS, Nigeria– A village in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern delta where observers found a drinking-water well polluted with benzene 900 times the international limit has sued Royal Dutch Shell PLC for $1 billion in a U.S. federal court.

The lawsuit alleges that Shell, long the dominant oil company over Nigeria’s more than 50 years of production, acted willfully negligent in pursuing profits over protecting the nation’s Niger Delta.

The lawsuit filed by lawyers in Detroit uses a recent United Nations report over widespread pollution in the delta’s Ogoniland area for much of its evidence. However, that report implied Nigeria’s state-run oil company, rather than Shell, was responsible for recent damage in village of Ogale in Nigeria’s Rivers state.

“It is not isolated or accidental, but part of a culture and ongoing pattern of conduct that consistently and repeatedly ignored risks to others in favor of financial advantage,” the lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Michigan reads.

Some environmentalists say as much as 550 million gallons of oil have poured into the Niger Delta during 50 years of production — at a rate roughly comparable to one Exxon Valdez disaster per year. Even today, oil laps up in brackish delta creeks in Ogoniland, creating a black ring around the coastlines.

Ogale was one of the first operational oil fields discovered in Nigeria, where the nation’s first shipment of 22,000 barrels of crude oil exported to Europe came from, the lawsuit said. In the time since, the village suffered from the pollution of oil exploration, putting villagers at risk, the suit said.

A U.N. report released in August highlighted the plight of the village, describing how investigators found about 3 inches of refined oil floating on the surface of groundwater that serves the community’s wells. It also described finding high levels of benzene, a known carcinogen, in the water.

Though Shell abandoned production in Ogoniland in 1993 following civil unrest, miles of aging pipelines and flow stations sit in the area. However, the U.N. report said that a pipeline abandoned in 2008 by the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. lies near Ogale and showed signs that a large amount of oil spilled from it.

Benjamin Whitfield Jr., a Detroit lawyer representing the village elders, did not return a call for comment Friday.

A spokeswoman for Shell in Nigeria declined to comment, saying the company does not discuss ongoing lawsuits.

Lawyers filed the U.S. lawsuit on behalf of the villagers in Nigeria using the 222-year-old Alien Tort Statute, a law increasingly used in recent years to sue corporations for alleged abuses abroad. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court said it will use a separate lawsuit between Nigerian villagers and Shell to decide whether corporations may be held liable in U.S. courts for alleged human rights abuses overseas under the law.

Shell has been sued in the past in the U.S. over its Nigerian operations. In June 2009, it agreed to a $15.5 million settlement to end a lawsuit alleging that the oil giant was complicit in the executions of activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and other civilians by Nigeria’s former military regime.

SOURCE ARTICLE

PLATFORMLondon.org

Monday 3 October 2011

Shell fuelled human rights abuses in Nigeria by paying huge contracts to armed militants, according to a new report published today by Platform and a coalition of NGOs and featured in The Guardian. [1]

Counting the Cost implicates Shell in cases of serious violence in Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta region from 2000 to 2010.[2] The report uncovers how Shell’s routine payments to armed militants exacerbated conflicts, in one case leading to the destruction of Rumuekpe town where it is estimated that at least 60 people were killed.[3]

According to Platform’s report, Shell continues to rely on Nigerian government forces who have perpetrated systematic human rights abuses against local residents, including unlawful killings, torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. The report is available to download here.

Key findings include:

Platform has heard testimony and seen contracts that implicate Shell in regularly assisting armed militants with lucrative payments. In one case in 2010, Shell is alleged to have transferred over $159,000 to a group credibly linked to militia violence. [4]

Shell admits that from 2006 onwards, the company paid thousands of dollars every month to armed militants in the town of Rumuekpe, in the full knowledge that the money was used to sustain three years of conflict. [5]

A company manager exposes structural problems with Shell’s ‘community development’ programme, claiming that “the money is not going into the rightful hands,” and that poor community engagement caused Shell to shut down a third of its oil production in August 2011 after 12 oil spills in the Adibawa area. [6]

NGOs from the UK, Netherlands and Nigeria are demanding that Shell put an end to over five decades of social and environmental devastation and break its close ties with government forces and other armed groups responsible for abuses. Platform’s report also condemns the Nigerian government for failing to protect the rights of its citizens and urges President Goodluck Jonathan to find political solutions to the Delta crisis instead of military responses.

Ben Amunwa from Platform said: “This research sheds new light on Shell’s active role in human rights abuses during a decade of terrible violence in the Niger Delta. Shell claims it has nothing to do with the crisis, but the company is involved in widespread abuses and militarisation. While Shell cites ‘security issues’ as a convenient excuse for its appalling environmental record, it has also failed to take the necessary steps to resolve conflicts. In many cases, Shell’s activities have created insecurity.”

Nnimmo Bassey of Friends of the Earth International said: “Shell’s obligations are clear: it must clean up after decades of devastating oil spills, end the illegal practice of gas flaring and compensate the victims of human rights abuses in Nigeria. It is unacceptable that Shell continues to deny responsibility, while pushing communities deeper into poverty and fuelling destructive conflicts.”

“Shell’s divisive practices have led to daily human rights violations in the Niger Delta,” said Geert Ritsema from Friends of the Earth Netherlands. “Many of the victims have no access to justice and cannot afford to take the oil giant to court. Lawsuits in Nigeria can take decades to resolve and the remedies are often inadequate. Yet Shell must be held accountable for its environmental destruction and complicity in human rights abuses in Nigeria, and home governments like the UK and the Netherlands must ensure that remedies are available and accessible to the victims.”

Platform’s report follows months of controversy for Shell, in which:

• The UN issued a damning report on the ecological impact of oil spills in Ogoni, many of which are from Shell’s facilities. The UN Environment Programme found that Shell had operated in Nigeria below international standards and the company had certified heavily contaminated sites as “clean”.[7]

• Shell admitted liability for two massive oil spills in the Ogoni community of Bodo in 2008 to 2009 after a lawsuit filed in London. The company now faces a compensation payout estimated at $410 million and could be forced to clean up the damage.

• Court hearings in The Hague where a lawsuit by Friends of Earth and four Nigerian victims of Shell oil spills is ongoing.

CONTACT:

UK – Ben Amunwa, (Platform): ben@platformlondon.org, +44 (0)7891 454 714, +44(0)207 403 3738.

Nigeria – Nnimmo Bassey (Chair Friends of the Earth International): nnimmo@eraction.org, +2348037274395.

NL – Geert Ritsema, Milieudefensie / Friends of the Earth Netherlands, geert.ritsema@milieudefensie.nl, +31 (0)20 5507 391.

Notes:

[1] Platform is a UK charity that campaigns for social and ecological justice. The coalition backing the report includes: Centre for Environment, Human Rights and Development (CEHRD), Friends of the Earth Netherlands/Milieudefensie, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria, Social Action, Spinwatch, Stakeholder Democracy Network and Platform.

[2] Counting the Cost focuses on eight cases of human rights abuse in the ‘eastern division’ of Shell’s operations in Nigeria. Platform believes these cases are part of a wider pattern of violence that is being fuelled by routine oil company activities.

[3] Rumuekpe in Rivers State was destroyed by inter-communal conflict between 2005 to 2008. For details on Shell’s active role in the conflict, see pages 28 to 36 and Appendix 1 in the report.

[4] See the case of Joinkrama 4, at pages 36 to 43 in the report.

[5] See pages 28 to 36 in the report.

[6] See pages 42 to 43 in the report.

[7] See UNEP, Environmental Assessment of Ogoniland, (2011): p12.

By John Donovan

For getting on to a hundred years, Shell has claimed that its petrol is better quality and delivers more miles per gallon than rival brands, as per the example of one such advert from October 1925.

Fortunately for Shell, there was no UK Advertising Standards Authority in existence to rule on whether such claims were justified.

Now Shell’s false advertising claims are regularly exposed by Advertising Standards Authorities in the UK and overseas.

Printed below is a transcript of a feature on the BBC TV flagship consumer programme “Watchdog” broadcast last night – at 8pm on 20 October 2011.

The feature was preceded by a trailer by the main presenter Anne Robinson during the opening segment, with a picture of a Shell FuelSave advert.

“Still to come. Shell has claimed its fuel offered drivers big savings.

O no it doesn’t!“

Later segment by Chris Hollings

Now looking forward to making big savings with Shell’s FuelSave unleaded?

It’s not going to happen!

(Picture of Shell logo at petrol station)

The oil giant has been ticked-off for bigging up the effects of its petrol in a print and radio ad earlier this year.

One featured a man dressed in a lab coat holding a measuring glass with a promise that drivers could save up to one litre per tank at no extra cost.

(Screenshot shown from shell.com Shell FuelSave webpage featuring FuelSave advert)

Shell argued that its tests showed that its fuels achieved a 2% saving more than 10% of the time but the Advertising Standards Authority said it had exaggerated the effects and banned the ads for being misleading.

On a brighter note for the company its second quarter profits are up 77% this year. It made 4.9 billion pounds in just 4 months, which works out at nearly 54 million pounds every day.

Ponder that while your filling up.

RELATED ARTICLE:

Shell FuelSave reminiscent of Formula Shell debacle

CHICAGO — A Nigerian tribal king filed a lawsuit in a US court seeking $1 billion from Royal Dutch Shell to compensate for decades of pollution that sickened his people and damaged their lands, his lawyer said Thursday.

The suit was filed a day after the US Supreme Court said it will consider a lawsuit accusing Shell of human rights abuses in Nigeria in a landmark case that could make companies liable for torture or genocide committed overseas.

That case will assess the potential liability of corporations — including multinationals with a US presence — under the Alien Tort Statute, a US law dating back to 1789 that scholars say was meant to assure foreign governments that the United States would help prevent breaches of international law.

The latest case alleges that Shell’s Nigerian operations are “well below internationally recognized standards to prevent and control pipeline oil spills” because the Anglo-Dutch company “has not employed the best available technology and practices that they use elsewhere in the world.”

It cited a recent United Nations report that found that contamination was widespread in the Nigerian Delta after 50 years of oil extraction left groundwater contaminated and hydrocarbons penetrated the soil to depths of five meters.

The suit was brought on behalf of the people of Ogale in the Eleme local government area, where the UN team found the most serious groundwater contamination and people drinking water laced with cancer-causing benzene at 900 times World Health Organization guidelines.

Scientists found an eight centimeter layer of refined oil floating on the groundwater that served the wells. The oil was linked to a spill that had occurred six years earlier and was not properly cleaned up.

A spokesperson from Shell did not immediately return a request for comment.

The 32-page civil complaint was filed Tuesday at the federal court in Detroit, Michigan.

Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved.

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