The Big 3: oil co’s and legal cases this month
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Feb 16, 2012
Three of the world’s biggest private oil companies face landmark legal actions this February. Here is a brief run down of the main cases, what they are about and why they matter. 1. US v BP At the centre of the legal fallout from BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in April 2010 is a complex civil...
Legal Oil, Ethical Oil and Profiteering in the Niger Delta and the Canadian North
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Jan 30, 2012
In this guest blog post, Professor Anna Zalik of York University Canada explores how governments and multinationals criminalise protest and gloss over the environmental injustices of oil extraction. Q: What does the Canadian Government’s fury at opponents of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline have to do with the Nigerian ‘legaloil’ campaign? A: Both positions are...
Mass environmental justice uprising engulfs Damietta on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast
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Nov 15, 2011
The popular movement against a Canadian petrochemical plant has forced the Egyptian government to shut down the Agrium-Mopco gas-fertiliser factory, after residents shut down highways, bridges and a deepwater port, and battled the Egyptian military in the street. Grainy photos and video-clips tweeted out – especially by Al-Jazeera’s @Mansourtalk – show locals standing up to...
Gulfsands ends payments to Assad’s cousin – but continues supporting Syrian regime with $8 million every week
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Aug 24, 2011
Documents revealed by the FT amid concerns raised by Avaaz show that Gulfsands Petroleum, the London-listed oil and gas company, agreed to give a share of profits from its production activities in Syria to a company controlled by Rami Makhlouf, the first cousin of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. The company has also paid more than...
Is Syrian propaganda tool and oil company Gulfsands dodging EU sanctions?
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Aug 9, 2011
Propaganda tool? London-based Gulfsands Petroleum is operating as a propaganda tool for the Assad regime. In an interview from last Wednesday, the company’s communications director Ken Judge made statements that claimed Islamic extremists had infiltrated protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s 11-year rule. Yet the Syrian uprising is evidently supported by a broad swathe of the...
Shell supports Syrian regime with $55 million during crackdown; one out of six Syrian tanks runs on Shell oil
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May 29, 2011
Today, a Shell-chartered tanker is scheduled to dock in the Syrian port of Tartous. The Heidmar TBN will collect almost 600,000 barrels of crude oil purchased by Shell. The shipment, worth over $55 million, has been marketed to Shell by state company Sytrol, an integral part of Assad’s regime of power. Repression of the democratic uprising in Syria...
Royal Dutch Shell profiting from Sultan’s absolute rule in Oman
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Mar 5, 2011
Unrest has reached Oman, the usually “sedate” and “tranquil” Sultanate on the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. Inspired by uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Bahrain, Omani youth took to the streets to challenge government corruption, cronyism, unemployment and a lack of democracy. Protests spread across the desert country, with police firing bullets and teargas from...
Oil, British foreign energy policy and Middle East repression
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Feb 24, 2011
British oil interests are tightly interlinked with our governments’ recent political and military support for Gaddafi’s regime. Libya’s oil reserves – the largest in Africa – long had Western companies drooling. Shell beat its competitors to the chase, signing a $1 billion gas contract in 2004 during Tony Blair’s first visit to Libya. After three...
