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Tectonic shifts – the energy crisis and the leap beyond – The Economic War, part 4
Blog post -
Apr 4, 2022
Shell declares it may go back into Cambo and the oilfield’s exploration license is extended by two years. The British government pushes for renewed drilling in the UK North Sea. There is public outcry at the Chancellor’s failure to defend households from the attack on living standards driven by price inflation. The Russian government announces...
The Guns of Economic War – unpicking the decisions by BP to sell out of Russia
Blog post -
Mar 4, 2022
Far from the terrifying realities of the shelling of civilians in Kyiv, Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities, far from the desperation of women and children trying to board trains for Poland, far from the sickening din of armour in the streets, the guns the economic war are firing. The bravery of Ukrainian citizens in resisting...
From Oil Road to Fire Road – of oil pipelines, gas pipelines and climate chaos
Blog post -
Nov 26, 2021
Authored by James Marriott of Platform drawing on the collective experience of so many others in Platform and the multiple organisations we’ve collaborated with. Prompted by an invitation from the Climate Cultures Festival in Berlin to speak about Crude Britannia and The Oil Road, co-authored with Mika Minio-Paluello, I returned to the Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhan Oil Pipeline...
The Open Wound – keeping eyes on the constant injustice of oil production in Nigeria
Blog post -
Nov 9, 2021
26th Anniversary of the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and 8 Ogoni comrades Authored by James Marriott of Platform drawing from the collective experience of so many others in Platform and the multiple organisations we’ve collaborated with. On the morning of 10th November 1995 in a Port Harcourt goal, Nigeria were murdered: Ken...
PRESS RELEASE: Bank of England could buy BP bonds worth almost 900Mn as campaigners commemorate 10 years since the BP Gulf of Mexico disaster that devastated lives and environment
Press release -
Apr 20, 2020
People from across the world commemorate the 10 years anniversary of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill that took eleven lives and ruined thousands more with creative online action. 10 years on, communities are still fighting the deadly impact of big oil companies in the Gulf. Last week, the Bank of England published a list...
$450 million in US ‘development’ finance for fracking in Patagonia
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Sep 12, 2019
The US development finance corporation OPIC has just loaned $450 million to a large fracking project in Argentinian Patagonia – despite objections from eight US senators, Indigenous rights concerns, and the climate crisis. The two loans will fund Vista Oil & Gas and Aleph Midstream (respectively sister company and subsidiary to London-listed Riverstone Energy) to...
Government issues nearly £2 bn for fossil fuels abroad… and 0.0005 as much for renewables
Blog post -
Jul 3, 2019
New data shows: last year the UK government supported oil, gas and coal projects in other countries to a tune of £1.8 billion – through UK Export Finance (UKEF), a government department that purports to support UK businesses operating elsewhere. We’ve analysed UKEF’s annual list of loans and financial guarantees, and here’s some of the...
Iraq, BP and the British Museum – look upon these works and hang our heads in shame
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Mar 14, 2019
I had read in advance the briefing that Culture Unstained had put out to accompany the planned action. The protest at the British Museum was to be against BP’s sponsorship of the exhibition ‘I am Ashurbanipal: king of the world, king of Assyria’, a display of treasures from the land of Iraq. I read lines...
The Invisible Machine – a gas pipeline in the Caucasus and a handshake in No10
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May 1, 2018
On the evening of Thursday 26th April 2018, it was warm and sunny in London. President Ilham Aliyev strode down Downing Street and was met by Prime Minister Theresa May with smile and a handshake. They posed for the cameras on the red carpet outside No 10 and then retired inside. A short formal chat...
Aliyev re-elected as President for another 7 years – the chain of oil autocracy that binds Azerbaijan
Blog post -
Apr 18, 2018
On 18th April Ilham Aliyev will be inaugurated for the fourth time as President of Azerbaijan. His re-election comes as no surprise. It is so predictable that it barely counted as ‘news’ and consequently got next to no coverage in the international media. Originally the election was scheduled for 17th October, but at nine weeks...
Communal Memory – the power of community to resist Shell in Nigeria
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Feb 22, 2018
I’m holding in my hands a report published by Amnesty International in November last year – ‘A Criminal Enterprise? Shell’s involvement in human rights violations in Nigeria in the 1990s’. It analyses in forensic detail exactly how much Shell staff knew about, and were involved in supporting, the actions by the Nigerian military taken against...
Bribes, bulldozers and BP: what makes a gas mega pipeline?
Blog post -
Sep 7, 2017
Earlier this week, the Guardian’s Azerbaijani Laundromat investigation uncovered thousands of covert payments totaling £2.2bn from Azerbaijan’s ruling elite to prominent Europeans through a network of opaque British companies. Today, Platform and other organisations had a letter published in the Guardian, filling in the blanks in the story. Azerbaijan is particularly keen to present a...
