Shell & BP: The Sin Stocks That Even SPECTRE Would Blush At

By Editorial Team | Generated with AI assistance and reviewed by an editor: 22 JULY 2025

Move over Blofeld, step aside SMERSH – the real villains of our age wear corporate logos, not eye patches.

Shell and BP, those beloved darlings of Wall Street and favourite investments of titans like BlackRock and Vanguard, have once again proven that when it comes to greed, ruthlessness, and planetary destruction, fiction can’t compete with reality.

Let’s start with Shell – the oil behemoth that markets itself as a climate-conscious “energy transition leader” while simultaneously stomping on anything resembling ethics or sustainability. These paragons of corporate virtue just pulled out of a six-year attempt to define a net-zero emissions standard, according to the Financial Times (22 July, Reuters). Why? Because the draft standard dared suggest companies should stop developing new oil and gas fields. The horror!

Shell’s official statement? “Standards should reflect realistic societal and economic changes.” Translation: We’ll save the planet, but only after we’ve drilled the last profitable drop.

A Legacy of Death, Deception, and Dirty Tricks

Human guinea pigs? Check. Shell exposed its own workers to carcinogenic chemicals, because why bother with ethics when profits beckon?

North Sea Scandal? Check. Shell perfected a corporate health and safety policy summed up by insiders as: “Touch Fuck All.” Unseaworthy lifeboats, cut corners, and a couldn’t-care-less culture resulted in avoidable deaths of offshore workers.

Nigeria? A Murderous Playground. For decades, Shell left behind death, destruction, and pollution on a genocidal scale in the Niger Delta. Bribery, corruption, and environmental devastation are its calling cards. Amnesty International called it “complicity in murder.” Shell called it “business as usual.”

Shareholder Fraud? Of course. Remember the 2004 hydrocarbon reserves scandal? Shell lied about its reserves on a scale that made Enron look like a clerical error. Billions evaporated, executives walked away rich, and shareholders were treated like gullible schoolchildren.

Corporate Espionage? Naturally. Enter Hakluyt, Shell’s private spy agency, which targeted NGOs like Greenpeace. The evil imagined by Ian Fleming pales in comparison to this Bond villain reality.

Past sins with BP? Oh, the boys have history. Together, they’ve dipped their hands in Hakluyt’s espionage operations, apartheid-era profiteering, and the murky cesspit of the Al-Yamamah BAE “oil-for-arms” scandal. Human rights? Please, that’s for the marketing brochure.

Meanwhile, Back in 2025…

Shell is still posturing as an eco-saint while behaving like a carbon junkie. According to Reuters, Shell said it supports “science-based methodologies” while using the UN IPCC scenarios to justify continuing oil exploration. The Science-Based Targets initiative wanted companies to stop opening new fields by 2027 – Shell and friends bolted faster than you can say Paris Agreement.

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