Interesting article published by “THE HILL” reporting that high level Shell representatives, Marvin Odum, the President of Shell’s U.S. operations, and Sara B. Glenn, a top Shell lobbyist, have visited the Obama White House almost 20 times pushing the oil giants controversial plans to drill in Arctic waters. Odum At least 7 times, plus 13 visits by Sara Glen.
May 24th, 2012:
Shell influence in the White House
Why Shell is betting billions to drill for oil in Alaska
May 24, 2012: 9:19 AM ET
This summer, the energy giant will begin exploring off the icy coast of Alaska — after years of resistance by environmentalists. The payoff could be the largest U.S. offshore oil discovery in a generation.
By Jon Birger, contributor
In Barrow, Alaska, the northernmost city in the U.S., it’s hard to tell where the land ends and the frozen Arctic Ocean begins. The average temperature stays below freezing for eight months of the year. Photo: CORY ARNOLD
FORTUNE — Pete Slaiby is eating breakfast with an Eskimo businessman at a Mexican restaurant across the street from the Arctic Ocean when two Coast Guard admirals happen to walk in. It’s 8 a.m. on a Tuesday in late March. Outside the temperature is an extremity-tingling, -35° F. Look 100 yards north, and it’s not at all clear where the snow-covered land ends and the ice-covered ocean begins. Slaiby, Royal Dutch Shell’s vice president for Alaska, rises to give the Coast Guard brass a warm welcome before they grab a nearby table. “Welcome to Barrow,” he says wryly as he sits back down to his plate of huevos and reindeer sausage.
Spectre of Shell Reapers hangs over AGM
22 May 2012
At today’s Shell AGM link at the Barbican the suits on the Shell board were given a 3 hour grilling, with questioners focussing attention on its environmental and human rights crimes around the world. Spread throughout the auditorium, hooded London Rising Tide & friends’ grim Shell reapers stood silently awaiting direction from the board toward their next appointment with Shell induced death and environmental destruction.
The grim figures stood motionless for almost an hour while Messrs Ollila and Voser, Chairman & CEO, attempted to defend Shell’s ravenous pursuit of profit above all else at the expense of:
– the pristine Arctic, where drilling and probably spilling will begin in the summer;
– the Canadian boreal forest, where Tar Sands “extraction” has increased by 100k barrels per day
– the once beautiful fish spawning grounds of the Niger Delta, now clogged with a “Deepwater Horizon’s” worth of oil every year
Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum
By a Guest Contributor
I have been following this sorry saga of the British and Dutch governments filing a brief with the US courts claiming that a ‘corporation’ could not be held liable for human rights violations and was therefore not subject to human rights laws.
Excuse me, but I think it may be time to revisit the legal proceedings that we commonly refer to as the ‘Nuremberg Trials’ that were held shortly after the Second World War. As I recall a number of German industrialists were in fact placed on the list of wanted ‘war criminals’ for their complicity with the Nazi government in the commission of what we (the civilized Western World) considered to be ‘war crimes’ and ‘crimes against humanity’. As I recall German industrialists were also prosecuted for those acts. However, it has been many years since I have gone through those proceedings (I studied them in my college history classes), so my memory is a bit fuzzy.
Kashagan’s Foreign Partners to Finance State’s Share of Costs
Eni SpA (ENI), Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) agreed to shoulder the investment costs owed by Kazakhstan’s state energy producer for one of the world’s biggest oil fields this year and next.
The international partners, which also include Total SA (FP) and ConocoPhillips (COP), will bear KazMunaiGaz National Co. costs in the offshore Kashagan field for 2012 and 2013, the Kazakh oil and gas ministry said in a statement late yesterday.
“The parties agreed that the consortium will finance the share of KazMunaiGaz’s investments in the project in the period in 2012-2013,” it said.
What Does Shell Have in Common With General Ratko Mladic?
That does Royal Dutch Shell have in common with General Ratko Mladic, former commander of the Bosnian Serb army? More than you’d think…
First off, they’ve both appeared in the Hague in the past week. Shell was there Tuesday for its Annual General Meeting with shareholders, and Mladic just days earlier for the opening of his trial before the International Criminal Court.
More importantly, Shell and Mladic are both facing court proceedings for allegations of “aiding and abetting” egregious human rights abuses. Shell is accused of complicity in torture and killings of Nigerian environmentalists in the Kiobel vs. Shell case, which the U.S. Supreme Court will re-hear in the fall, and Mladic is accused of 11 counts of crimes against humanity, including the massacre of more than 7,000 Muslims in Srebrenica.
Every employee is an innovator: Royal Dutch Shell CEO
New and Frozen Frontier Awaits Offshore Oil Drilling
The Kulluk, seen in Seattle, is one of two Shell drilling ships in the city undergoing final preparations before going to the Arctic.
By JOHN M. BRODER and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
A version of this article appeared in print on May 24, 2012, on page A1 of the New York edition
WASHINGTON — Shortly before Thanksgiving in 2010, the leaders of the commission President Obama had appointed to investigate the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico sat down in the Oval Office to brief him.
After listening to their findings about the BP accident and the safety of deepwater drilling, the president abruptly changed the subject.