Back in the 70s, the UK and Norway took two very different approaches to the roughly equal share of North Sea oil and gas that they had within their territorial waters. With state-owned oil company Statoil at the helm, Norway cautiously put aside profits and levies from other oil companies operating within its fields into…
Azerbaijan’s President, Ilham Aliyev, gave a speech last week accusing oil company BP of “false promises” and “gross mistakes”. In a country where regime and corporation are closely intertwined – and almost symbiotic – what is going on behind the political theatre? Why the public outburst? Aliyev revealed that Azerbaijan had lost $8 billion in…
Royal Dutch Shell’s plans for Arctic exploration are exposing investors to a ‘spectrum of risks’, this new report by Platform, Fairpensions, and Greenpeace warns. Download the report (pdf) and investor briefing or read online below. The report highlights Shell’s failure to address key concerns for investors and environmentalists: • Spill response plans are inadequate –…
The Ugandan government is insisting that British oil company Tullow Oil, France’s Total and Chinese group CNOOC drop the stabilisation clause from their oil contract of Lake Albert before approving the $10 billion oil project. The original contracts were leaked by PLATFORM in 2010. Meanwhile Ugandan opposition MPs are unhappy that Museveni’s government allowed disputes…
This briefing by Platform and Greenpeace examines George Osborne’s changes to North Sea tax, and how the oil industry might not have it as bad as they are making it out to be. It then considers ways in which the Chancellor may respond to the industry’s campaign against the changes.
Platform’s report reveals that revenue distribution for Sakhalin II between the Russian government and Shell’s consortium (SEIC) is set at a grossly unfair level. The contract terms, defined in a 1994 Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), place the Russian state at a significant disadvantage.
This project is part of Platform’s long-term commitment to support environmental justice struggles at the front lines of oil and gas drilling internationally. BP does not carry out fracking in the UK where it is headquartered, because “it would attract the wrong kind of attention”. But BP, Shell and a host of other companies are…