October | 2010 | The Price of Oil

Posts in October 2010

Despite The Bad Cement Job, Still Blame BP
Andy Rowell
Oct29
This is a fight that is going to get ugly. Just as earlier in the year, we learnt a new language about top kills, and blow out preventers, anyone who is following the fall-out from the Deepwater Horizon disaster now has to become an expert in the consistency of cement. In the wake of new…
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Chevron Must Think We Are Stupid
Andy Rowell
Oct28
Sometimes the best laid plans go awry. Oil giant Chevron’s multi-million ad campaign, entitled “We agree” has back-fired badly. What’s worse it has given its critics a real opportunity to spoof the company’s highly misleading adverts.. And boy are they having fun and games. The the spoof campaign is beginning to go viral.
Change Chevron
Elizabeth Bast
Oct27
The Yes Men, Rainforest Action Network, and Amazon Watch caught Chevron by surprise last week by one-upping the planned release of Chevron’s “We Agree” ad campaign. The groups sent a fake press release to media outlets hours ahead of the Chevron release and put up a spoof website on the company’s behalf. The release spoke…
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Web Tools: California Propositions 23 and 26
Elizabeth Bast
Oct27
California’s Proposition 26 would increase the legislative vote requirement from a majority to two-thirds for new and increased state and local fees and charges. Many of California’s environmental protection programs are funded with such fees. Opponents of Prop 26 say that it would make it even more difficult to hold polluters accountable, and to raise…
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BP: Stilling Passing Blame
Andy Rowell
Oct27
Out with the old. In with the new. When BP ceremoniously dumped bumbling gaffe-prone Tony Hayward after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and ushered in smooth-talking Bob Dudley, it was meant to herald a new era in the troubled giant’s history. But the disaster still wrangles BP badly. And it is no surprise therefore that…
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“The risk of it being a mess is high”
Andy Rowell
Oct26
Question: Can you build a $15 billion natural gas plant in a remote, rural, deeply impoverished and corrupt country and not expect any social or environmental problems. The answer is don’t be silly. So the news last December that Exxon Mobil and several other energy companies were planning the largest ever foreign-investment project in Papua…
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BP and Others Accused of “Climate Sabotage”
Andy Rowell
Oct25
We know that the Koch brothers fund climate change deniers. But now a great new report by Climate Action Network Europe (CAN-E) has analysed new data to track where dirty money is going in American politics. They have found nearly 80% of campaign donations – some $240,000 – from some of Europe’s biggest polluters is…
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Gulf Coast Faces $350 Billion Threat
Andy Rowell
Oct22
It’s a region that has seen its fair share of disasters in recent years. Hurricane Katrina. The BP oil spill to name the big two. But the Gulf Coast cumulative losses of $350 billion by 2030 if it fails to address climate change, according to a new $4 million study. And the warning comes not…
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If We Reach $100 a Barrel: Blame the Bankers
Andy Rowell
Oct21
Only a couple of weeks ago Iran’s OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi was saying the crude oil market is oversupplied and prices of $70 and $80 are more nominal than real. “If we compare the current prices with the real prices of a few years ago, [today's real] prices will stand at USD 50 per…
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What a FAArce
Andy Rowell
Oct20
One of the more unsavoury trends in politics over the last couple of decades has been the sprouting of corporate front groups that pervert the political process. Often the give-away is in the title: so if something says it is an Alliance or made up of Citizens, you actually know it is nothing of the…
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