Shell is pushing for a more active role in Ghana’s vast new oil fields, which may hold over 500 million barrels of oil. With a legacy of turmoil in Nigeria crippling its supply, Shell was desperate to impress at an industry summit this week before Ghana’s Vice President Mahama and the Director of Ghana National…

Gas currently being flared in Nigeria’s oil fields is polluting the Niger Delta with a ‘huge quantity’ of toxins which are a major cause of acid rain, claims an international professor. The finding could overturn years of skepticism from oil companies and government officials, who regularly downplay the impact of  flaring on communities. As the…

After Shell’s highly-publicised “threat” to leave Nigeria given a current Petroleum Bill being discussed in Parliament that would re-assess excessive corporate revenues, Environmental Rights Action based in Benin City and Port Harcourtresponds: “The foremost environmental rights advocacy organization in Nigeria, Environmental Rights Action (ERA), has accused the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas major, Shell, of not being a…

Shell has just signed what could be the world’s largest biofuel deal ever – a $12 billion MoU with controversial Brazilian sugar came company Cosan. According to rainforest campaigners Rettet den Regenwald, the deal threatens to lead to deforestation in the Amazon, increased climate chaos and support Cosan in its continued use of slave labour. Here is…

The Western consortium developing the enormous Karachaganak natural gas field in Kazakhstan was fined $21 million yesterday for excessive dumping waste. British BG, Italian Eni and American Chevron, the companies developing the field on the the border with Russia, were convicted of environmental violations in 2008 by a regional court. Analysts and reporters believe that the penalty…

Tar sands extraction in Canada is devastating Indigenous communities, wildlife and vast areas of boreal forests, as well as being many times more carbon-intensive to produce than ‘conventional’ oil. “We are seeing a terrifyingly high rate of cancer in Fort Chipewyan where I live. We are convinced that these cancers are linked to the Tar…

On 15 February the notorious ESMAD ‘anti-strike’ police attacked a community and workers’ picket line by the Tauramena BP plant in Casanare, Colombia.   Three workers were hospitalised and several children affected heavily by tear gas. Workers at the BP plant at Tauramena, part of the Cusiana oil field in Casanare, Colombia have been protesting…

Nearly three months have passed since C Words closed and I’ve been re-reading the blog entries, my and others’ copious notes and records, the heaps of rich and mostly positive feedback we’ve collected on paper, in emails, interviews on video, audio, and anecdotally. This compensates for the tiny art-critical response: one interesting and thoughtful review…

Oil contracts signed secretly in Uganda and exposed by PLATFORM will allow major oil companies to flare gas with impunity in the country’s Lake Alberta region on the border with Congo. As the New York Times reports: “Production is going to start in 2010 with no environmental assessment having yet been carried out,” said Platform’s…