After fifty years of intrigue, greed, and environmental obliviousness, can oil, gas and mining companies in developing world situations ever get it right? A new book by Luc Zandvliet and Mary B. Anderson of Boston-based CDA Collaborative Learning Projects suggests it is possible, if the corporate will is there. Getting It Right: Making Corporate-Community Relations […]
Last month, I talked to a man who works indirectly with one of the Native Corporations of Alaska. “The North Slope is going to be running out of oil in the not too distant future,” I said. “What will you do then?” He paused both considering the question and yet not understanding why I asked. […]
Pipelines used to be just a way to get oil or gas from Point A to Point B — mostly political locally, especially for environmental reasons. Sometimes, they are locally strategic, the way they are in Nigeria — want to get the government’s or the company’s attention? Blow up a pipeline. Increasingly, they are geo-strategic, […]
Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, has changed his mind. He loves big oil companies after all. The history of Big Oil and Hugo Chavez reads like one of those dysfunctional relationships most of us have at least briefly been involved in: he or she only loves you when they […]
Thursday, New York Times columnist Gail Collins spent significant time mocking New York City councilman Larry Seabrook, who is charged with doctoring a receipt for a bagel sandwich from $7 to $177. Most people around the country aren’t too surprised (but remain disgusted) by such behavior in politicians. Gail Collins should see what I see. […]
It’s striking is how quiet things are in oil for the moment. The focus in the energy field is more different now both in substance and location than any other time I can remember. Everything used to center on the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia. But now, with the occasional exception of Iraq (and for […]
According to the BBC, it was announced yesterday that Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua would soon write a letter handing over power to his vice president. Yar’Adua has been hospitalized in Saudi Arabia since November with heart and kidney ailments — there was even speculation he was dead. It was news many had been dreading even […]
According to Mineweb, Greenland Minerals and Metals (a company) has finished an initial report on the Kvanefjeld site on Greenland’s southwest tip. Kvanefjeld could potentially become a major rare earth mine and would also produce uranium. Greenland noted that Kvanefjeld’s Joint Ore Reserve Committee (Jorc)-compliant resource estimate, containing 4,79-million tons of rare earth oxides (REO) and […]
In my experience, most people, if you ask them about oil (or gas) drilling, make references to Daniel Day-Lewis with a pickax, snarling something about milkshakes, or perhaps Jed Clampett shootin’ at some food. For those interested in energy issues, it never hurts to be a little more well-versed in the how-to’s. So if you […]
How do you cope when your main source of political good will depends on money and that money dries up? Demand for oil just ain’t what it used to be. The shrinking of state revenues (regardless of the price of oil) is putting a cramp in the political and social largess of two countries — […]
1) Although Nigeria reached a tentative peace agreement with the militants in the Niger delta region in October, the fledgling peace was threatened by attacks of a Chevron Nigeria pipeline last week. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), according to the Associated Press, claims they sanctioned the attack but did not […]
A Dutch district court in the Hague has decided that it does in fact have jurisdiction to hear a case brought against Shell Nigeria (a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell) by four Nigerian farmers from the oil region and Friends of the Earth Netherlands, an environmental group. According to the Nigerian newspaper, The Daily Independent, […]
Last month, the Iraqi government held its second round of auctions for its oil fields. Mid-month, seven fields were awarded to international oil companies. American companies did not win any new leases in this round, but Petronas, a state-owned Malaysian company; Sonangol, of Angola; and Lukoil of Russia and Statoil of Norway did. Petronas and […]
Just under the wire, the EPA has given its official “comments” in response to New York State’s draft plan for drilling for shale gas in the upstate Marcellus field. The EPA found the mammoth 800+ page draft does not adequately address issues of wastewater, air quality, land impact and several other problems. It urges the […]
Last week, in a December 22th Wall Street Journal op-ed, Ibrahim Bahr Al-Uluom, a former Iraqi oil minister and current member of the Iraqi National Alliance (a political party), lamented the recent Iraqi oil lease auctions and suggested transferring as much of Iraq’s oil wealth directly to its citizens in the form of shares in […]