Shell’s chief executive has staged a defiant performance at the company’s annual shareholders meeting, claiming calls to curb new oil developments were “unrealistic” and saying there would always be opponents to plans to drill in the Arctic. Ben van Beurden insisted Shell is sensitive towards global warming and the environment – telling shareholders “your company […]
Mixed reactions to salty wetlands in northern Alberta
It was four years ago when Corey Wells stumbled upon what he calls an “incredibly salty” wetlands region by Fort MacMurray. A hydrologist, Wells says while the region looked like many other wetlands in Alberta this one has a higher saline content than sea water. Saline spring wetlands are not unusual, it’s just they are usually […]
Comment: How $40/barrel oil could impact the country
What does Canada’s economy look like with oil prices at $40 a barrel? Certainly it won’t be the energy superpower envisioned by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. If $40 a barrel still seems a ways off, consider that the benchmark price for oil sands crude is already trading in that price range. What’s more, if production […]
Comment: Greenpeace and the environmentalists war on capitalism
I wonder whether Shell has sacked whichever pillock (defn: one who has done a stupid act) who advised them to sponsor the Guardian‘s ferociously anti-fossil fuel, anti-capitalist, anti-Shell Environment pages? Knowing the craven, slippery, self-hating ways of Big Oil as I do, I’m guessing probably not. In fact it’s quite possible, he (or she?) helped […]
Shell looks to 2015 for Arctic drilling
Shell has applied for a permit to drill for oil in the Alaskan Arctic next summer. The company hasn’t made a final decision to persevere with summer drilling in the difficult location,but proposals submitted to Washington kept options open. The plan proposes two drilling rigs in the Chukchi Sea, producing more than 400,000 barrels a […]
Quest to sequester, a Shell Canada first
To paraphrase a famous observation, “Everybody talks about climate change, but nobody does much about it.” Indeed, media reports and scientific publications may be thick with discussion of this extraordinary environmental phenomenon but practical proposals for directly dealing with it are thin on the ground while full-scale initiatives are even more scarce. It is worth […]
Amnesty International takes aim at the Nigerian government and Shell
Amnesty International and other groups are accusing Shell Oil and the Nigerian government of doing little to clean up pollution caused by oil production in the Niger Delta . Oil production has contaminated the drinking water of at least 10 communities, but neither the Nigerian government nor Royal Dutch Shell‘s Nigeria subsidiary have taken effective […]
Oil company prepared to Shell out multi-million dollar compensation package
Royal Dutch Shell is offering more than $50-million in compensation to a Nigerian community. were fishermen, but their livelihoods were wiped out as a result of two oil spills six years ago In 2008, about 300-thousand barrels of oil leaked destroying a thousand hectares of Mangrove swamp channels. About 15-thousand people were affected. They asked […]
Theft and sabotage major concerns for Shell
The numbers are staggering. Shell estimates more than 200-thousands barrels of oil a day are lost to theft and shutdowns related sabotage in Nigeria. The company also reports the number of spills related to the two crimes also increased in 2013. They hit 157, that’s 20 more than the previous year. When it comes to […]