Shell and Exxon Cash Out €3 Billion While Groningen Crumbles

SHELL AND EXXON CASH OUT €3 BILLION WHILE GRONINGEN CRUMBLES

Oh, how deliciously heartwarming it is to see Shell—the world’s cuddliest climate arsonist—and its old fossil fuel flame ExxonMobil raking in a long-overdue €3 billion payout from their Dutch gas venture, NAM. Because obviously, after a mere few decades of literal earthquakes, community destruction, and environmental degradation in Groningen, what really matters is that the poor, beleaguered shareholders finally got paid.

Yes, finally. According to NAM’s 2024 annual report, this is the first payout since 2017, and each titan of oil-soaked virtue gets a nice €1.5 billion cuddle. Shell can now finally afford more PR consultants to greenwash its image.

NAM, the Dutch state gas company that somehow still exists in 2024 despite its track record of geological chaos, made a tidy €1.3 billion in net profit last year. Why? Because GasTerra—the company set up to milk Groningen’s gas field—had a good year, and hey, nothing says “strong local economy” like wringing profits from a nearly-closed disaster zone.

Meanwhile, over in reality, the Dutch government—you know, the ones responsible for patching up Groningen’s cracked homes and traumatized residents—got a paltry €12.9 million from NAM during the same 6-year period. That’s not a typo. While Shell and Exxon grabbed billions, the Dutch state got a few coins and a pat on the back. Earthquake victims? They can always meditate their trauma away, right?

Let’s not forget that Shell (a company so green it once tried to rebrand gas as “natural progress”) and Exxon (famously subtle denier of climate change while funding it in real time) own a cozy 25% stake each in NAM. The Dutch state owns the other 50%, which is probably why it’s stuck footing the damage bills while the real decision-makers pop champagne and plan the next offshore exploit.

Speaking of offshore: NAM plans to offload its Dutch North Sea activities to a Canadian firm called Ten. Because if you’re going to abandon your environmental responsibilities, best to do it with an international flair. This ends more than 65 years of offshore pillaging, or as Shell would probably put it, “a proud legacy of energy innovation.”

And just when you thought it couldn’t get any more grotesque: NAM, now sitting on €9.6 billion in cash, says it’s in a “strong cash position” to pay shareholders and maybe, just maybe, clean up its mess. But don’t get your hopes up—there’s already a dispute about who pays what, and Shell and Exxon have politely asked for independent arbitrators to help stall the process indefinitely.

It’s like watching a slow-motion train wreck—funded by BlackRock, one of Shell’s largest investors, who totally swear they care about ESG goals while sipping crude oil martinis on the deck of a burning planet.

So here’s to Shell and ExxonMobil: the eternal poster children for shareholder value over social collapse. May their payouts be large, their PR green, and their moral compasses permanently broken.

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