Posts Tagged ‘ExxonMobil’

The companies have been accused of causing an adverse impact on the climate, resulting in global warming. The plaintiffs hold these fossil fuel companies accountable for rising sea levels, changing landscapes, higher global temperatures and increased risk of storms and droughts. The cities are located on the opposite sides of San Francisco Bay, and the lawsuit claims that the region’s water level is already on the rise. If the companies lose the case, they will be liable to pay billions of dollars in fines. Though the lawsuits do not specify the compensation amount, updating San Francisco’s seawall alone could cost up to $5 billion. FULL ARTICLE read more

Gary McWilliams: SEPTEMBER 21, 2017 / 2:34 AM

(Reuters) – California cities San Francisco and Oakland filed separate lawsuits against five oil companies on Wednesday seeking billions of dollars to protect against rising sea levels they blamed on climate change, according to public documents. The lawsuits, filed in state courts in San Francisco and Alameda Counties, alleged Chevron Corp, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp, BP Plc, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, created a public nuisance and asked for funds to finance infrastructure to deal with rising sea levels. According to a news release from San Francisco city officials, the lawsuits mirror 1980s-era lawsuits against tobacco companies. They allege the oil giants “knowingly and recklessly created an ongoing public nuisance that is causing harm now and in the future risks catastrophic harm to human life and property.” FULL ARTICLE read more

The US cities of San Francisco and Oakland are suing five of the world’s largest oil companies for the coasts of walls and other defences against rising sea levels, saying the industry made vast profits from fossil fuels while knowing they were causing “an existential threat to humankind”.

Drawing a direct comparison to the tobacco industry’s sale of cigarettes despite knowledge of the health risks, the city attorneys announced they had filed separate lawsuits against BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips. read more

September 20, 2017, 01:35:00 PM EDT By Zacks Equity Research, Zacks.com

Per Reuters, integrated oil and gas company, Royal Dutch Shell plc RDS.Aintends to increase its marketing operations in Asia region. The company’s effort to de-carbonize the energy system was reconfirmed as it targets to attain 20% of its global fuel station sales from electric vehicles recharging and fuels with a lower level of carbon by 2025.

Expanding Asia Operations

The oil major has 43,000 fuel stations in 80 countries and is now trying to reach the fuel markets of China and India, the two most populous countries in the world with high demand for energy. Shell is also eyeing the Indonesian fuel market. The company believes there will be continued growth in the Asian market over the next decade. read more

The five biggest oil companies — Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp., BP Plc and Total SA — collectively curbed their pollution by an average of 13 percent between 2010 and 2015, the report said. BP cut the most at 25.5 percent. Exxon, the largest emitter among listed companies, pushed it down by 14 percent. FULL ARTICLE

Ron Bousso: SEPTEMBER 13, 2017

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell is set to end a century of oil production in Iraq by withdrawing from two of the Arab state’s flagship fields to focus on more profitable gas development.

Shell’s retreat highlights the challenges foreign operators face with low-margin oil contracts in Iraq, an OPEC member that sits on some of the world’s biggest oil reserves and wants to boost production after years of conflict hindered development.

The Anglo-Dutch firm said on Wednesday it had agreed with Iraq’s oil ministry to relinquish operations at Majnoon field to the government after unfavorable changes to fiscal terms. The announcement confirmed an earlier Reuters report. read more

By Mariya Gordeyeva: SEPTEMBER 7, 2017 / 2:28 PM

ASTANA, Sept 7 (Reuters) – Kazakhstan is aiming for a standalone deal with leading global oil producers on restraining its crude production due to a need to crank up output at its Kashagan field, a Kazakh official said on Thursday. The Central Asian nation increased oil and gas condensate output by 9.9 percent in January-July to 49.907 million tonnes, or 1.724 million barrels per day (bpd), exceeding its quota of 1.7 million bpd under a global supply pact. Kazakhstan has said it needs to adjust the terms of the deal as it expects to boost output later this year thanks to the giant Kashagan field. FULL ARTICLE read more

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By Nick Cunningham – Aug 20, 2017, 6:00 PM CDT

Canada’s oil industry has faced a lot of strain lately. The list of oil majors selling off assets and withdrawing from high-cost oil sands is long. ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Marathon Oil, Murphy Oil and Statoil have sold upwards of $25 billion worth of oil sands assets this year. ExxonMobil also wrote down more than 3.5 billion barrels of oil reserves in Canada at the beginning of 2017. The companies viewed Alberta’s bitumen and heavy oil as no longer competitive in a $50 market, and many of them are focusing on other types of production, such as shale. FULL ARTICLE read more

According to reports, an advertising standards board in the Netherlands will formally censure Exxon and Shell, as part-owners of a Dutch petroleum company, for advertising the claim that natural gas is “the cleanest of all fossil fuels.” The ad campaign featuring this claim ran earlier this year. Just two months ago, the agency also admonished Statoil for making the claim that natural gas was a “low emissions fuel” and for calling it “clean energy.” As The Guardian reported: “The Dutch watchdog waived punitive action against the NAM company, which is part-owned by Shell and Exxon, in that light. FULL ARTICLE read more

The Dutch advertising watchdog will on Tuesday censure Shell and Exxon for claiming that natural gas was “the cleanest of all fossil fuels” in an advert earlier this year. It will be the second time this summer that the Netherlands advertising standards board has ruled against the fossil fuels industry… FULL ARTICLE 

Major oil companies are joining Silicon Valley in backing energy-technology start-ups, a signal that that those with the deepest pockets in the industry are casting around for a new strategy. From Royal Dutch Shell Plc to Total SA and Exxon Mobil Corp., the biggest investor-owned oil companies are dribbling money into ventures probing the edge of energy technologies. The investments go beyond wind and solar power into projects that improve electricity grids and brew new fuels from renewable resources. read more

By Steve Coll: 11 August 2017

The rule, which was mandated by a law co-sponsored by former Republican Senator Richard Lugar, of Indiana, and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, of Maryland, was designed to combat bribery and corruption, especially in poor countries governed by kleptocrats. Thirty other countries, including Canada and the members of the European Union, had already adopted similar requirements. Yet the American Petroleum Institute and companies such as ExxonMobil, at the time when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was still its C.E.O., had lobbied against the rule. They said that it was costly to implement and gave unfair advantage to overseas competitors to which it did not apply. When Trump took power, the lobbyists got their way. read more

In 2015, the Union of Concerned Scientists published its landmark exposé  “The Climate Deception Dossiers,” which show that not only Exxon, but also Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and coal giant Peabody Energy were aware of the climate change reality since the 70s. Even so, through special interest groups, they invested tens of millions “to sow doubt and promote contrarian arguments they knew to be wrong.”

The fuel that powers this planetary sabotage is called greed. The fossil fuel industry worldwide has accumulated stratospheric levels of wealth over the decades. Moreover, according to a report just published by World Development, in 2015, fossil fuels received a staggering $5.3 trillion in subsidies around the world. This includes not only taxpayer money but also the costs of deaths caused by pollution and these fuels’ contribution to the climate crisis. READ MORE read more

By John Donovan

Provided below are links to a selection of US court documents I have published online about a dispute being litigated in the US courts involving Shell, Exxon and the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp (NNPC). A gigantic sum (including interest) of $2.47bn USD is at stake.

In an echo of the Esther Kiobel v Shell case, also currently being heard in the US courts, the current arguments are about the discovery process. (Esther is actually suing Shell’s US lawyers, Cravath Swaine & Moore.) read more

By Gregory Brew – Aug 02, 2017, 6:00 PM CDT

After several years of austerity and belt-tightening, the major international oil companies posted substantial profits in Q2 of 2017. The five largest private oil companies together generated more than $30 billion in profit, an indication that most have successfully adapted to the current bout of low prices, while a few have publicly indicated their belief that prices will hover around $50 for the foreseeable future.

What this means is that the “mega projects” that dominated many companies’ balance sheets for the last decade will become increasingly rare, as the majors pivot towards short-term, low-risk ventures with a faster turnaround. read more