Aramco would have you believe

Amin H Nasser, president and chief executive of Aramco, said the company was helping to meet world demand for reliable and affordable energy against a backdrop of “increased volatility”.

[...]

OPEC+, the producers group which includes Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Russia, agreed this month to a modest increase in its monthly oil output target, but has said it is not possible for other producers to replace Russian exports of more than 7m barrels a day.

[...]

Profits have risen despite many groups taking a hit from exiting investments in Russia as Brent crude prices have soared by almost 70% to $107.91 (£87.99) a barrel in March compared with a year before. BP said this month its profits more than doubled to $6.2bn (£5bn) in the first three months of the year. Shell has reported a record quarterly profit of $9.1bn (£7.3bn) for the first three months of the year.

[...]

Energy companies such as BP and Shell have posted their highest profits in at least a decade as a result of rising commodities prices fuelled by the unwinding of Covid-19 restrictions around the world and sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

[...]

Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, has disclosed an 82% rise in quarterly profits to a new record of $39.5bn (£32.2bn).

  Guardian

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Another milestone for the US

Another milestone for Shell Oil Co., too.

I'm guessing they won't be supporting a Trump reelection.  Well, in typical corporation mode, they'll contribute to BOTH campaigns, but Biden's will no doubt get the lion's share.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Don't speak ill of the Orange One - Part 2

The choice for thousands of union workers at Royal Dutch Shell’s petrochemical plant in Beaver County was clear Tuesday: Either stand in a giant hall waiting for President Donald Trump to speak or take the day off with no pay.

“Your attendance is not mandatory,” said the rules that one contractor relayed to employees, summarizing points from a memo that Shell sent to union leaders a day ahead of the visit to the $6 billion construction site. But only those who showed up at 7 a.m., scanned their ID cards, and prepared to stand for hours — through lunch but without lunch — would be paid.

[...]

Those who decided not to come to the site for the event would have an excused but non-paid absence, the company said, and would not qualify for overtime pay on Friday.

[...]

[T]hose workers who attended Mr. Trump’s speech and showed up for work Friday, meeting the overtime threshold, were being paid at a rate of time and a half, while those who didn’t go to hear the president were being paid the regular rate, despite the fact that both groups did not do work on the site Tuesday.

  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Surely there's a lawsuit here?

The contractor's talking points, preparing his workers for the event read:

“No yelling, shouting, protesting or anything viewed as resistance will be tolerated at the event. An underlying theme of the event is to promote good will from the unions. Your building trades leaders and jobs stewards have agreed to this.”

[...]

Several union leaders said they were not consulted about the arrangement before it was sent out.

The president also called out union leadership, which Shell had requested to be in attendance.

“I’m going to speak to some of your union leaders to say, ‘I hope you’re going to support Trump.’ OK?” he said. “And if they don’t, vote them the hell out of office because they’re not doing their job.”

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

They don't care as long as they get richer

In the 1980s, oil companies like Exxon and Shell carried out internal assessments of the carbon dioxide released by fossil fuels, and forecast the planetary consequences of these emissions. In 1982, for example, Exxon predicted that by about 2060, CO2 levels would reach around 560 parts per million – double the preindustrial level – and that this would push the planet’s average temperatures up by about 2°C over then-current levels (and even more compared to pre-industrial levels).

[...]

Shell’s report, marked “confidential,” was first disclosed by a Dutch news organization earlier this year. Exxon’s study was not intended for external distribution, either; it was leaked in 2015.

[...]

Later that decade, in 1988, an internal report by Shell projected similar effects but also found that CO2 could double even earlier, by 2030. Privately, these companies did not dispute the links between their products, global warming, and ecological calamity. On the contrary, their research confirmed the connections.

Shell’s assessment foresaw a one-meter sea-level rise, and noted that warming could also fuel disintegration of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, resulting in a worldwide rise in sea level of “five to six meters.” That would be enough to inundate entire low-lying countries.

Shell’s analysts also warned of the “disappearance of specific ecosystems or habitat destruction,” predicted an increase in “runoff, destructive floods, and inundation of low-lying farmland,” and said that “new sources of freshwater would be required” to compensate for changes in precipitation. Global changes in air temperature would also “drastically change the way people live and work.” All told, Shell concluded, “the changes may be the greatest in recorded history.”

[...]

Like Shell’s experts, Exxon’s scientists predicted devastating sea-level rise, and warned that the American Midwest and other parts of the world could become desert-like. Looking on the bright side, the company expressed its confidence that “this problem is not as significant to mankind as a nuclear holocaust or world famine.”

  Guardian

Well, that's okay then.

Oh, wait a minute. Having the Midwest and other parts of the world become desert-like wouldn't amount to world famine?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Some Things Will Never Change

Big Oil doesn't care if YOU drown.  But...

“Let’s face it: The science of climate change is too uncertain to mandate a plan of action that could plunge economies into turmoil,” [...]. “Scientists cannot predict with certainty if temperatures will increase, by how much and where changes will occur.”

  LA Times

That's from a Mobil Oil ad in major US papers in 1997.

One year earlier, though, engineers at Mobil Oil were concerned enough about climate change to design and build a collection of exploration and production facilities along the Nova Scotia coast that made structural allowances for rising temperatures and sea levels.

Of course they did. They're evil, not stupid.

“An estimated rise in water level, due to global warming, of 0.5 meters may be assumed” for the 25-year life of the Sable gas field project, Mobil engineers wrote in their design specifications. The project, owned jointly by Mobil, Shell and Imperial Oil (a Canadian subsidiary of Exxon), went online in 1999; it is expected to close in 2017.

[...]

As many of the world’s major oil companies — including Exxon, Mobil and Shell — joined a multimillion-dollar industry effort to stave off new regulations to address climate change, they were quietly safeguarding billion-dollar infrastructure projects from rising sea levels, warming temperatures and increasing storm severity.

[...]

In 1989, before Shell Oil joined the Global Climate Coalition, the company announced it was redesigning a $3-billion North Sea natural gas platform that it had been developing for years.

The reason it gave: Sea levels were going to rise as a result of global warming.

[...]

Shell left the Global Climate Coalition in 1998 after the Kyoto agreement had been effectively derailed.

[...]

[It] was followed by Ford Motor Co., Daimler Chrysler, Texaco, Southern Co. and General Motors. The organization disbanded in 2002.

[...]

From the North Sea to the Canadian Arctic, [oil] companies were raising the decks of offshore platforms, protecting pipelines from increasing coastal erosion, and designing helipads, pipelines and roads in a warming and buckling Arctic.

The industry contends that the difference between its public relations effort and its internal decision-making was not a contradiction, but a strategy to protect its business from misguided federal regulations while taking into account the possibility that the climate change predictions were valid.

[...]

“There is nothing inconsistent about Exxon Mobil managing potential environmental risks while speaking publicly about the limits of scientific knowledge and advocating for effective public policy approaches,” said Exxon Mobil’s spokesman, Jeffers, referring to all of the company’s projects at the time, including those in Canada. “Any suggestion to the contrary would be inaccurate and a distortion of the company’s position.”

Nothing inconsistent. Everything despicable.


...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

No Money to Be Made

Shell has abandoned its controversial drilling operations in the Alaskan Arctic in the face of mounting opposition.

Its decision, which has been welcomed by environmental campaigners, follows disappointing results from an exploratory well drilled 80 miles off Alaska’s north-west coast. Shell said it had found oil and gas but not in sufficient quantities.

[...]

Shell has also privately made clear it is taken aback by the public protests against the drilling which are threatening to seriously damage its reputation.

  Guardian

They're claiming Shell's reputation is good at this point?

The withdrawal came six weeks after the final U.S. clearance and three months after Shell was still defending the project, a rapid change of heart for such a large company that shows it is preparing for a prolonged period of low oil prices while trying to close its $70 billion takeover of rival BG.

[...]

"The entire episode has been a very costly error for the company both financially and reputationally," said analysts at Deutsche Bank, who estimate the Shell's Arctic exploration project could cost the company about $9 billion.

  REuters

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It Worked

Lego will not renew its contract (since the 60's) to sell Shell branded legos at Shell stations. Pressure from Greenpeace, including this video, brought about the decision.

 

But the danger to the Arctic is not over.

In January, Shell shelved its plans to drill for oil in the Arctic this summer, citing poor market conditions and internal failures. But in August, the company submitted a new offshore drilling plan to US authorities that could pave the way for the company to explore for oil in the Arctic in 2015, off the coast of north-west Alaska.

  Guardian

Oil Is Bustin' Out All Over

Or - the pelicans' revenge.

On March 27 - in Minnesota. On March 31 - in Arkansas.

I don't know the immediate cause of "the incident." Maybe a mole burrowed through the pipeline. Maybe a seam burst. But I can tell you the general causes of "the incident." One general cause of "the incident" is that energy companies, and their partners in the various extraction industries, lie. They lie about jobs, and they lie about the environmental impact of what they do, and they lie at full volume when something goes radically wrong with the stuff about which they've previously lied. They lie for a living. They lie as a perfect demonstration of what they are, and they lie as an essential part of their overall business model. And they lie without consequence, knowing they can buy their way out of any situation in which their lies do actual harm. And they lie in service to their fundamental public-relations strategy which is, basically, Trust Us.

[...]

TransCanada is no different from Exxon, which is no different from Shell — which, as kindly Doc Maddow has been pointing out, is having the devil's own time keeping track of its wandering oil rigs in the Chukchi Sea. It lied. It lies. It will lie again. (Also, as we always point out on this issue, there's already one Keystone pipeline, and it's already leaked all over the landscape.) That is what the president is being asked to invite into the country. Just so we're all still clear — which, apparently, cannot be said any more of several rivers in Arkansas.

  Charlie Pierce

[Since June 2010, TransCanada] has seen twelve oil spills from its brand new, state-of-the art pipeline — with one “six-story geyser” dumping 21,000 gallons of oil in North Dakota.

  Esquire

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Are You Still Filming?

I guess the photo-op was meant to be a symbolic tapping of the Arctic. There was a ridiculous three-foot-high scale model of their Arctic drilling rig, the Kulluk, and the mini-rig had a tap to pump liquor for the guests.

  Gothamist

But, as so many things go with Big Oil, somebody got hosed.