By Jennifer A. Dlouhy: Published 09:56 p.m., Monday, July 30, 2012 WASHINGTON – Environmental activists are keeping the pressure on Shell Oil Co. as it inches closer to launching exploratory drilling in Arctic waters north of Alaska. Greenpeace activists and marine biologists conducting research in the area documented thick accumulations of soft coral in the Chukchi [...]
YOUTUBE VIDEO AINE RYAN: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 A large tunnel boring machine brought in by Shell to dig a 4.9km tunnel under Sruwaddacon Bay inland to the Bellanaboy gas processing terminal is stuck at a crossroads in Co Mayo as it is too large to navigate the narrow roads. Thee specialist tunnelling equipment was [...]
By Zarina de Ruiter: Published on Tuesday, 31 July 2012 09:34 Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A), Marine Well Containment Company (MWCC) and the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) have announced the successful demonstration of the industry’s ability to respond to a deepwater well control incident in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. John Hollowell, [...]
CLICK ON BBC NEWS PHOTO TO ENLARGE By Sarah Stack Tuesday July 31 2012 THERE was a tense stand-off between protesters and gardai today as a machine to tunnel under a picturesque bay was brought in by contractors for Shell. Scuffles broke out as a huge Garda convoy escorted specialist tunnelling equipment as it travelled [...]
By John Ryan Shell Oil is scaling back its plans for drilling in the Arctic Ocean this year. Icy conditions in the far North and construction problems in Bellingham have delayed the company’s efforts. KUOW’s John Ryan reports from Seattle. Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter Voser announced on Thursday that Shell only expects to drill [...]
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE 29 July 2012 In 2011, the first visit by a U.S. secretary of state to a meeting of the eight-nation Arctic Council elevated the Arctic in American diplomacy. It also underscored the region’s geostrategic significance and the role that the U.S. wants to play amongst the other Arctic nations, each [...]
A version of this editorial appeared in print on July 30, 2012, on page A18 of the New York edition Last month, the State Department formally invited public comment on the issues it should consider in a new environmental assessment of the Keystone XL, a 1,200-mile pipeline that would connect the Alberta oil sands to [...]
If you believe the press reports, you’d think that the oil industry was hurting of late, what with the headlines coming out of the most recent quarterly earnings reports saying things like, “Exxon and Shell Earnings Disappoint,” and “Occidental quarterly profit lower”, and “Chevron 2nd-Quarter Profit Off 6.8%; Upstream Earnings Fall”. These headlines paint a...Continue reading 'Oil companies continue to profit at the expense of our future'.
Just as the oil and gas industry buys influence on Capitol Hill and in state capitals across the country, so too can it buy friends at major universities who support its agenda. A recent Bloomberg article highlights just how close, and influential, these ties can actually be. The article details how the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a consortium...Continue reading 'Dirty Energy Money Seeps into Academia'.
Today marks the two-year anniversary of a massive oil spill into the Kalamazoo River in Marshall, Michigan…a spill whose effects are still being felt in many ways today. By the time the spill was stopped in the late summer of 2010, some 1.2 million gallons of corrosive tar sands oil had been released into the...Continue reading 'A solemn anniversary, scary new report, and hope around the corner in the fight against big oil'.
Finally after fifty years of the Nigerian government playing softly, softly with Shell, is the country about to start playing hard-ball with the oil giant? The country’s oil regulator has asked Shell to pay a whopping $5 billion fine for a spill off the country’s southern coast last December. Late last year there was a...Continue reading 'Nigeria: Shell to Pay $5 Billion Fine?'.
Ten of the America’s top climate scientists are sending a letter to Secretary Hillary Clinton today with a simple message: The State Department has to conduct a serious review of the climate change impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline. The State Department is currently accepting comments on the new scoping report that will determine what...Continue reading 'Scientists Warn About KXL Climate Impacts'.
Breaking News: In the UK right now, Greenpeace activists are shutting down Shell gas stations, in order to tell the company to stop drilling in the Arctic. As we stand 40 stations are currently shut down across the two main target cities: London and Edinburgh. In both capitals, Greenpeace plans to shut down every Shell...Continue reading 'Greenpeace Shuts Shell Gas Stations'.
There is no doubt that we are experiencing extreme weather: In the US, recent record temperatures have been blamed for over 60 deaths. In Russia, over 150 people, many of them elderly, have died in flash floods. The UK has just experienced the wettest-ever June, with organisers of the Olympics worrying that the freakish weather...Continue reading <a href="http://priceofoil.org/2012/07/11/climate-change-causing-extreme-weather/"'Climate Change Causing Extreme Weather'.
Slowly but surely the evidence is growing against fracking, as the authorities struggle to protect public health and drinking water. A report published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Duke University professors found that there could be natural paths in the rock that connects the frack zone with drinking water....Continue reading 'Fracking Can Pollute, Confirms Study'.
Sometimes the best things in life are so simple. What better way to protest against the sponsorship of the arts by Big Oil than to undertake your own protest art installation? And what is more fitting than a real wind turbine – a symbol of renewable energy – for the huge modern turbine hall of...Continue reading 'A Wind Turbine for the Turbine Hall'.
My host for the SEG talk was Gary Mercado (seconded from BP to the ADMA JV), and the event was arranged by the Emirates Society for Geoscience, and graciously supported by both ADMA and ION Geophysical. The SEG talk took place in the evening in ADMA’s offices, and was attended by some 30 persons, including [...]