Oil Change Resources

Online Resources

  • www.PriceOfOil.org: Check out our latest news, opinions, and analysis on the oil industry at Oil Change International’s blog!
  • www.DirtyEnergyMoney.com: Find out how much dirty energy money your elected representative is taking through our online tool and database.
  • www.ShiftTheSubsidies.org: See how much money international development banks are sending to the fossil fuel industry in developing countries.

Reports, Briefings, Fact Sheets, and Opinion

2012

  • Report: Low Hanging Fruit: Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Climate Finance, and Sustainable Development. Oil Change International for the Heinrich Boll Foundation in association with Vasudha Foundation (India), Greenovation Hub (China) and the Natural Resources Defense Council, June 2012. This report provides updated estimates of global fossil fuel subsidies and overviews many of the issues surrounding subsidy removal. The figure for production and consumption subsidies is at least $775 billion annually and could be $1 trillion or even more.  There is an urgent need for transparency in subsidy reporting.
  • Report: Keystone XL: A Tar Sands Pipeline to Increase Oil Prices. Oil Change International, Natural Resources Defense Council and Forest Ethics Advocacy, May 2012. One of the most misunderstood issues surrounding the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline is the project’s impact on U.S. gasoline prices. Pipeline supporters cite high gasoline prices as a reason to build the project. The truth is that Keystone XL is likely to both decrease the amount of gasoline produced in U.S. refineries for domestic markets, and increase the cost of producing it, leading to even higher prices at the pump.
  • Report: Irrational Exemption: Tar sands pipeline subsidies and why they must end. Oil Change International, Earth Track and Natural Resources Defense Council, May 2012.  Tar sands crude oil is exempt from paying into America’s Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. This is worth over $375 million to the tar sands industry between 2010 and 2017. The exemption exists despite tar sands pipelines spilling more often than pipelines carrying conventional oil and these spills being more difficult and expensive to clean up. The tar sands exemption is irrational and poses a risk to public health.
  • Report: Keystone XL: Undermining Energy Security and Sending Tar Sands Overseas. Oil Change International and Natural Resources Defense Council, January 2012. The Keystone XL pipeline has been presented as a boon to U.S. energy security by its proponents. It is no such thing.  This report details how Keystone XL would not enhance U.S. energy security as it would simply feed a growing export market on the Gulf Coast. It explains that genuine energy security can be achieved by maximizing efficiency not maximizing Big Oil’s profits.

2011

  • Report: Getting to Market: Emerging Investor Risks in the Tar Sands. Oil Change International, Greenpeace UK, PLATFORM, December 2011. This report is part of our ongoing dialogue with the investment community exploring a wide range of investor risk issues surrounding the tar sands. The report examines the difficulties the tar sands industry is facing in building pipeline infrastructure to access the markets it needs to grow and warns investors to look more critically at industry’s ambitious claims.
  • Report: Payback Time? The Supercommittee and Fossil Fuel Subsidies, Oil Change International and Public Campaign, November 2011. The report analyzes the millions of dollars in oil, gas, and coal dollars committee members have taken over the past 11 years, former aides working as energy industry lobbyists, and the members’ personal investments in these companies.
  • Fact Sheet: Keystone XL Does Not Enhance U.S. Energy Security, September 2011. Keystone XL is a proposed 1,700 mile crude oil pipeline that is designed to bring tar sands derived crude oil from Alberta, Canada to Texas. Its proponents claim that Keystone XL and the Canadian crude oil it will deliver will enhance U.S. energy security. This fact sheet explains why this claim is false.
  • Report: Exporting Energy Security: Keystone XL Exposed. Oil Change International, September, 2011. An examination of the new realities of the global oil market, and the companies who will profit from the pipeline, reveals that the Keystone XL pipeline will not lessen U.S. dependence on foreign oil, but rather transport Canadian oil to American refineries for export to overseas markets.
  • Opinion: Oil Money and the “Super Congress.” by Steve Kretzmann, August 17, 2011. Eight of the twelve members of the newly-named Joint Committee on Deficit Reduction have voted in the last two years to allow oil companies to keep more than $4 billion annually in taxpayer subsidies in place. All six Republicans have consistently voted to preserve oil industry handouts.
  • Report: Energy Access for the Poor: The Clean Energy Option. Oil Change International, ActionAid International, and Vasudha Foundation (India), June, 2011. This report finds that only 9 percent of World Bank Group energy sector lending in 2009 and 2010 actually went to support basic energy needs in communities that lacked access to energy. The report also demonstrates that, in India, decentralized renewable energy systems are less expensive than extending the grid from a coal fired power plant for the rural poor.  The report further cites examples of how decentralized renewable energy can provide power more reliably than through grid extension.
  • Opinion: What oil subsidies is Obama targeting?, by Steve Kretzmann, Grist, January 26, 2011. On Tuesday, the president once again proposed ending subsidies to the oil industry. As we’ve said before, this is a great idea, and should be supported in full…
  • Report: Reserves Replacement Ratio in a Marginal Oil World: Adequate Indicator or Subprime Statistic. Oil Change International, Greenpeace UK, and Platform, January 2011. Every oil and gas company aims to maintain its Reserves Replacement Ratio (RRR) – the amount of proved reserves found each year relative to the amount of oil and gas produced – at 100% or more. This report finds that four of the top six oil companies would not be achieving RRR levels above 100% if not for Canadian tar sands oil – an expensive, highly polluting form of oil.

2010

  • Opinion: Big Oil’s Golden Backup Plan, by Steve Kretzmann, Grist, November 4, 2010. One of the few bright spots for environmentalists and progressives over the last year was this week’s successful defeat of Proposition 23 in California.  As the organizer Saul Alinsky famously observed, power flows from both people and money.  Unlike every other energy battle this year, for Prop 23, activists had both…
  • Opinion: The polluters’ newfound concern for the poor. By Steve Kretzmann, Grist, October 6, 2010. Two days ago in St. Louis, the head of the largest coal producer in the U.S., Peabody Energy’s Gregory H. Boyce, delivered the keynote address on “The Future of Fossil Fuels” at the Global Energy Future Symposium at Washington University in St. Louis. His message was to “put people first” by supporting policies that prioritize eliminating global energy poverty by 2050….
  • Opinion: Dirty Energy Money Fuels Congress, by Steve Kretzmann, Grist, Aug 10 2010. As Congress begins August recess, those of us who care about America’s addiction to oil, climate change, and a clean energy future have been scratching our heads (or kicking the walls), wondering why, after historic levels of pressure we can’t even pass an oil spill response bill, not to mention a real clean energy or climate bill…
  • Fact Sheet: Key Dirty Energy Money Findings (.pdf), August 2010. Who is taking the most oil, gas, and coal money in the 111th congress? How have campaign contributions affected votes? Find out in our summary of dirty energy money in the 111th Congress.
  • Fact Sheet: Shifting Fossil Fuel Subsidies to Increase Energy Access and Support Climate-Affected Communities (.pdf), June 2010. Last year’s announcements that G20 and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) nations will phase out support for fossil fuels presents an important opportunity to redirect substantial portions of those subsidies into clean technologies that will alleviate energy poverty and support climate-affected communities. The concept is simple: stop funding the problem, start funding the solution.
  • Fact Sheet: Existing Federal Subsidies to Oil and Gas (.pdf), May 2010. The Obama Administration proposes to eliminate $36.5 billion in subsidies to oil and gas over the next decade. These cuts are necessary to begin to end giveaways to the oil and gas industry.
  • Opinion: Leadership Lessons in the Gulf, by Stephen Kretzmann, Huffington Post, May 4, 2010. BP’s Drilling Disaster is quickly unfolding to become one of the world’s worst ever environmental catastrophes. Credible sources already are saying that the volume of oil gushing into the Gulf exceeds the Exxon Valdez, and shockingly, there is no end in sight…

2009

  • Opinion: Long term climate finance: FOUND!, by Stephen Kretzmann, Grist, December 13, 2009. We are pleased to report from Copenhagen that after years of searching, long term funding for climate finance has been found…but the question is whether we can pry it out of Big Oil and Coal’s hands. The pledge by G20 nations championed by the US is potentially a huge new source of funds for developed country finance obligations that can and should be shifted to helping, rather than harming the climate. Leaders have already agreed that we must phase these subsidies out – the questions are: by when and where does the money go?…
  • Opinion: Money for Nothing, and Your Climate for Free, by Stephen Kretzmann, Huffington Post, September 16, 2009. According to a leaked letter, the Obama Administration is set to propose ending fossil fuel subsidies next week at the Pittsburgh G20. The letter — authored by Michael Froman, an Obama advisor on international economic affairs — calls on the G20 to eliminate all fossil fuel and electricity subsidies…
  • Report: Shell’s Big Dirty Secret, June 2009. This new research paper rates the carbon intensity of the top international oil companies, revealing that Shell is now the most carbon intensive oil company in the world based on its total resources.
  • Opinion: Shell’s Settlement Doesn’t Hide Unsettling Reality in Nigeria, by Stephen Kretzmann, Huffington Post, June 10, 2009. After thirteen years and countless hours by lawyers, community members, and activists around the world, Royal Dutch Shell finally settled the Wiwa v Shell case in a New York court for $15.5 million…
  • Opinion: War for Oil in Nigeria , by Stephen Kretzmann, Huffington Post, June 2, 2009. Three weeks ago in the oil rich but impoverished Niger Delta, the Nigerian military reportedly attacked several villages, leaving hundreds, possibly thousands dead. It is the latest incident in the ongoing struggle between armed insurgent groups and the Nigerian military for control of the creeks, lowland rainforest, and mangroves from…
  • Opinion: Loan sharks: The World Bank offers to loan developing countries the funds to pay for climate change adaptation, by Stephen Kretzmann, Grist, February 3, 2009. What would you say if someone drove a truck into your house, then jumped out and offered you a loan to help rebuild? After you stopped screaming at them, which might take a while, you’d demand that they pay for damages that they caused, of course. Over time though, if no one forced the truck driver to pay for the damages, you might be tempted to take the loan. Sure, it’s a rip-off, but at least you get the money you need to rebuild…
  • Opinion: Bailing out Bidder 70: Tim DeChristopher and Utah stand up to Big Oil by Stephen Kretzmann, Grist, January 7, 2009. I’ve never been big on rules. Neither, apparently, is Tim DeChristopher. He’s the young activist who just completely derailed the Bush administration’s plans to sell more of our public lands to the oil companies. He sat in the lease sale in Salt Lake City on Dec. 19 and “bought” 22,500 acres of public lands right out from under the suits from Chevron and Exxon…

2008

  • Opinion: Amid climate talks, World Bank considers $5 billion loan for most carbon-intensive project ever, by Stephen Kretzmann, Grist, December 9, 2008. The race for Most Hypocritical Actor at the climate talks in Poznan, Poland is a crowded one, to be sure, but the World Bank, in one swift move, has taken a commanding lead. Late last week, as World Bankers in Poland were lobbying delegates over pierogies and pate, word leaked out of South Africa that the Bank’s International Finance Corporation has agreed “in principle” to provide up to $5 billion of our tax dollars to support as many as six additional coal plants…
  • Fact Sheet: World Bank lending for coal up 256% (.pdf), December 2008. This analysis shows World Bank Group lending to coal, oil and gas is up 94% from 2007, reaching over $3 billion.Coal lending alone increased an astonishing 256% in the last year.
  • Report: Dirty is the New Clean, October 2008. The World Bank’s new three-year Strategic Framework on Development and Climate Change makes a strong case for urgent action on global warming, but the Bank’s increased lending for fossil fuels in the past year suggests limiting climate change is far from a priority.
  • Briefing: Iraqi Oil in the Balance (.pdf), June 2008. The Bush/Cheney administration is prioritizing the passage of an Iraqi oil law before it leaves office. The oil law would transfer the main role in oil development from the public sector to companies like BP, Shell and Exxon under fixed 30-year contracts.
  • Report: A Climate of War, March 2008. This groundbreaking report from Oil Change International quantifies both the greenhouse gas emissions of the Iraq War and the opportunity costs involved in fighting war rather than climate change.
  • Fact Sheet: Follow the Oil Money Key Findings, February 2008. In our analysis of eleven key votes in the House and nine key votes in the Senate on climate, energy and the war in Iraq, we found a strong correlation between the tendency to vote for Big Oil and increased amounts of money received from the oil industry.

2007

  • Report: Aiding Oil, Harming the Climate, December 2007. This report, based on the End Oil Aid database, quantifies the magnitude of subsidies from governments going to the oil and gas industry internationally via international financial institutions, often in the name of poverty alleviation.
  • Article: The Best Congress Oil Could Buy, by Steve Kretzmann, Multinational Monitor, Sept/Oct 2007. Widely denounced as a “do-nothing” Congress, the 2005-2006 U.S. Congress did manage at least one notable accomplishment: It lavished more than $6 billion in royalty relief, tax breaks and other incentives on the oil and gas industry in the Energy Policy Act that was passed in 2005. The 2007-2008 Congress is quite different in composition, but the vast array of oil industry subsidies remains untouched…

2006

  • Opinion: Separation Of Oil And State, by Steve Kretzman, TomPaine.com, October 20, 2006. As gas prices continue to decline, it’s only natural to wonder about the apparent coincidence between this trend and Republican interests in the election. Indeed, a recent poll  found that 42 percent of Americans believe that gas prices have been “deliberately manipulated” in advance of the election. Countless articles have been written on blogs and in the mainstream press speculating on the possibility of a gas price conspiracy, either supporting the supposition or shooting it down…

2005

  • Report: Crude Designs, November 2005. Control of Iraq’s future oil wealth is being handed to multinational oil companies through long-term contracts that will cost Iraq hundreds of billions of dollars. ‘Crude Designs: The Rip-Off of Iraq’s Oil Wealth’ reveals that current Iraqi oil policy will allocate the development of at least 64% of Iraq’s reserves to foreign oil companies. Iraq has the world’s third largest oil reserves.
  • Report: Drilling Into Debt, July 2005. Countries that produce oil tend to be poorer, more violent, more corrupt, and less productive economically than they should be, given their supposed blessings. This “resource curse” has been well documented over the last decade. It was often thought, however, that whatever other curses oil brought, its vast revenues offered a path out of debt for oil exporting countries, and thus perhaps, eventually out of poverty. But the notion that oil production alleviates debt proves false – in fact quite the reverse is true.