An update on climate change litigation – no signs of cooling

Katharina Theil considers progress on legal moves around the world to bring companies to account for their contribution to climate change.

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly changed many aspects of our daily lives. However, one issue that remains firmly on the agenda is the urgent need for action to mitigate the worst consequences of climate change.

As the UK emerges from lockdown, the UK Committee on Climate Change has urged the Government to tackle the climate emergency in its attempt to revive the economy and has called for ‘a green, resilient COVID-19 recovery’. read more

BP to sell London HQ amid office shake-up

Oil giant to leave historic home as work patterns shift

BP is planning to quit its historic international headquarters in central London as the energy giant cuts 10,000 jobs and scales back its office space.

The FTSE 100 group, which employs 6,500 office staff in the UK — in the capital and in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey — plans to rent back the building from the new owner for up to two years before leaving for good.

BP is the latest big employer to signal a permanent change in the way its staff work. Chief executive Bernard Looney has said it will move to a more “hybrid work style”, including a mixture of home and office working. read more

It may seem odd to remove one of only two oil companies in the index at a time when the shale boom has transformed America’s role in the global market. After all, the U.S. now produces more oil and more natural gas than any other country. Last year’s domestic oil production was up by 125% from levels in 2010, while gas output has increased by 60%.

But those figures only tell part of the story, and not the most important part.

It’s not the first time that there’s only been one oil and gas company in the Dow. The last time was between 2000 and 2008, when Exxon was the sole industry representative. Before that you have to go back to the 1920s. For a brief period of two weeks in 1924, there were none at all. read more

Ian Cowie: Oops, many of my share clangers have now turned into catastrophes

EXTRACTS

Because this column aims to report the rough as well as the smooth of stock market investment, it’s important to ‘fess up to my failures frequently. Also, let’s be honest, some of you enjoy my losers more than my winners.

Sad to say, the coronavirus crisis has blighted many businesses, and investors in them. Please don’t laugh, but several shares I dubbed “Cowie’s Clangers” in earlier reports — because their price fell by more than 10 per cent after I invested — could now be called “Cowie’s Catastrophes”. read more

Two Climate Protesters Arrested in London as Demonstrations Resume

By Reuters: Aug. 28, 2020, 7:54 a.m. ET

LONDON — Police arrested two climate activists on Friday as the resumption of Extinction Rebellion’s protests following a coronavirus-forced hiatus saw the pair target oil firm Shell’s main London office.

They had painted the word “lies” in large green letters on the glass front doors of the building as other protesters held up a banner.

“Officers attended and two women aged 33 and 47 were arrested on suspicion of criminal damage. Both remain in custody,” a police spokesman said. read more

Extinction Rebellion protest outside London HQ of oil giant Shell

last updated: 28/08/2020

At least one protester was arrested after demonstrators representing climate advocacy group, Extinction Rebellion, gathered outside Shell Centre, the London headquarters of the major oil firm, and spray-painted the word “LIES” on the building entrance.

The activist group had planned the demonstration for early Friday but minutes into the protest the graffiti painter, a young woman wearing a white painter’s uniform with the XR logo on the back, was arrested by police. read more

When BP’s chief executive, Bernard Looney, said he would cut the oil giant’s dividend in half earlier this month, he might have expected a backlash from the pension funds that rely on the £1.6bn quarterly payout. In the event, it caused little more than a ripple of interest. Nor was much attention paid to BP’s record $17.7bn (£13.5bn) loss, incurred over just three months and which compared with a profit of $1.8bn in the same period a year earlier.

Instead, the headlines were dominated by one of the most dramatic strategy shifts ever announced by a FTSE 100 company. BP, Looney said, would become a “very different energy company” as it increased tenfold its investment in low-carbon energy, while reducing oil and gas output by a billion barrels a day. much of the legacy oil business will be sold in the next five years and replaced by renewable energy generation. read more

POSTED BY CONTRIBUTING EDITOR ON AUGUST 26, 2020 

Dow Chemical and Shell Oil were hit with a lawsuit Wednesday by South Pasadena accusing the companies of contaminating the city’s water supply with a toxic chemical found in pesticides the companies once made.

The suit filed in Los Angeles federal court alleges the companies knew or should have known that the chemical, known as 1,2,3-trichloropropane, or TCP, is toxic and renders drinking water unsafe. The companies manufactured and marketed agricultural pesticides containing the chemical for years — and it was used on land in the vicinity of South Pasadena’s wells. read more

Featured below are extracts from negative customer reviews about Shell Energy posted during the last several days on Trustpilot.  Visit the Shell Energy page on Trustpilot to view all reviews in their entirety, positive and negative (and Shell Energy responses). Watch out for any fake reviews. Note the reoccurring themes in the negative reviews, including difficulty in communicating with the company. This article posted on 27 August 2020.

Do not use Shell Broadband as your WiFi provider

Some advice for your advisors: if they take a phone call, ensure they do what they say they will do. Been pestered to pay a bill I do not even owe due to your employees’ stupidity for months now. Impossible to call you unless you want to spend over an hour on hold. Don’t bother emailing, the ‘1 day sla’ is now 2 weeks and still no response

THE worse Internet provider ever!!

THE worse Internet provider ever!!! Keep constantly cutting out, the signal is weak. Im working from home hence to shell I lost earning!!!! THE WORSE EXPERIENCE!!! read more

North Sea – WEBWIRE – Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Today Greenpeace activists from Germany have launched a protest in the North Sea to call out Shell’s plans to abandon an estimated 11,000 tonnes of oil in the sea.[1] The Greenpeace ship Esperanza approached the 500m exclusion zone of Shell’s platforms in the Brent oil field, off the Shetland Islands, with protestors on board waving banners calling on Shell to clean up its mess. Today’s protest also highlights how Shell is failing to take responsibility for its harmful impact on the environment. read more

Egdon puts foot on the gas with Shell North Sea deal

An energy industry minnow has completed a deal with one of the biggest players in the North Sea to appraise gas prospects off the coast of North Yorkshire.

Shares in Egdon Resources rose by 7.1 per cent to 2¼p yesterday after it confirmed the transaction with Royal Dutch Shell, which was first agreed in January before the global collapse in oil and gas prices. Over the past two years the shares have fallen by 73.5 per cent.

Egdon has the rights to appraise two licence areas in the southern North Sea just off the coast of Scarborough, where gas was discovered decades ago but was left undeveloped because it was not thought to be commercially viable. read more

Why Royal Dutch Shell Outperformed Expectations in Q2 2020

Europe’s top oil company had a few tricks up its sleeve.

It’s been a horrible earnings season for most top oil and gas companies. Oil supermajors ExxonMobil, Chevron, and  all did worse than expected in Q2 2020 as low oil prices forced drastic spending cuts and the coronavirus pandemic destroyed demand.

Bucking the trend was Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A)(NYSE:RDS.B), which managed to squeak out an adjusted profit of $0.16 per share, versus analysts’ expectations of a $0.31-per-share loss. As surprising as it was to see a profit — even on an adjusted basis — out of the oil industry, even Shell couldn’t pump oil profitably in Q2. Instead, it made money another way. read more

Big Oil Asset Write-Downs Are Not The End Of The Oil Age

Tilak Doshi: Contributor Energy: Aug 23, 2020

Climate change activists have long lobbied for divestment from fossil fuel-producing companies. They have largely failed in this quest. This year, the steep falls in the value of the large oil and gas companies, however, occurred with a rapidity that astonished market watchers. Within weeks, the coronavirus pandemic and the oil market-share battle between Saudi Arabia and Russia launched after the collapse of the OPEC+ talks in early March led to unprecedented falls in Big Oil equity. read more

In a surprising turn of events, Shell’s board of executives has officially endorsed a SumOfUs-backed resolution committing the company to take action against climate change.

Still, Shell is lobbying UN representatives to block any kind of real climate solutions in the run-up to the UN climate talks in Paris this year.

We can’t let Shell’s stated commitment to fight climate change be mere greenwashing. If Shell’s executives are really serious about tackling climate change, then they have to stop meddling with the climate talks. And with Shell responding to our pressure for the first time, we’re in a real position to force them to act. read more

Featured below are extracts from negative customer reviews about Shell Energy posted during the last several days on Trustpilot.  Visit the Shell Energy page on Trustpilot to view all reviews in their entirety, positive and negative (and Shell Energy responses). Watch out for any fake reviews. Note the reoccurring themes in the negative reviews, including difficulty in communicating with the company. This article posted on 22 August 2020.

Utterly diabolical customer service

Utterly diabolical customer service. Please avoid at all costs – they are cheap for a reason.

I’ve repeatedly spent hours on the phone to customer service trying to resolve poor internet speed and non-existent customer support. I’ve been charged for engineer call outs when the issue was not fixed and remained open on their systems for a further 3 weeks. I’ve been promised call backs which don’t occur. No accountability on their behalf, no authorisation in customer service to make any decisions or provide any help. read more

Coronavirus Further Complicates Shell’s Giant Floating Gas Project

The $15 billion Prelude vessel highlights how Covid-19 is hindering operations and challenging the economics of energy megaprojects

Royal Dutch Shell PLC spent billions of dollars developing one of the world’s most challenging energy projects, a floating gas terminal five football fields long. The coronavirus pandemic is posing a new problem: How to get workers to safely start it back up.

After years of delays, cost overruns, technical problems and safety concerns, Shell began exporting natural gas from the enormous vessel, known as Prelude, last year off the coast of Australia. But production was halted in February because of an electrical fault. Efforts to restart are now being slowed by social-distancing requirements, the company said. read more