“I Wouldn’t Dare Do That Now”

August 22, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post 2 Comments

As Warren Buffett and Bill Gates’ trip to the oil sands continues to be be spun as positive news for the oil industry, here is Kenny Bruno’s second blog from Alberta that highlights the real story: “North of the tar sands empire, in a vast delta of lakes, seasonal ponds, winding rivers, marshes and small … Read More

Welcome to Mordor

August 21, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post

Warren Buffett and Bill Gates are not the only ones who have been touring Alberta’s Oil Sands recently. Oil Change’s Kenny Bruno has just visited the region as part of a delegation of environmental groups. Here is his first dispatch, which is the first of three posts from Kenny.. Kenny writes: “As we approached the … Read More

Buffett and Gates Tour Oil Sands

August 21, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post 2 Comments

Two of the world’s richest men visited Alberta’s oil sands earlier this week, leading to speculation that one or both of them was going to invest is this dirty, polluting fuel. Warren Buffett, widely regarded as the world’s richest man and Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who is hardly short of a bob or … Read More

ASA tells Shell “You can’t greenwash tar sands”

August 13, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post

There was always going to be a massive problem for the oil industry over the massive gap between its green rhetoric and its recent investment in the most polluting fuel on the planet, tar sands. Moreover, how do you reconcile trying to be green whilst exploiting tar sands? Even more bizarrely why would you try … Read More

India to Invest up to $10 Billion in Tar Sands

July 4, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post 3 Comments

As oil creeps towards an unprecedented $150 a barrel the Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Murli Deora has denied that India and China were responsible for the recent oil rise. Deori said that the growth in consumption in India was less than in many nations: “I take this opportunity to set the record straight. … Read More

All is not well in Alberta..

June 20, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post 1 Comment

When the oil industry answers it critics about whether we are running out of oil, the word Alberta normally comes into the conversation pretty soon. Alberta’s tar sands have reserves estimated at just behind Saudi Arabia, and are seen as the industry’s salvation (after Iraq). The only problem being for oil sands is that they … Read More

Less than Half Americans Have Heard of Oil Sands…

June 11, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post 2 Comments

A survey by a major PR company, Fleishman-Hillard into how Americans and Canadians reconciled the need for new oil supplies against environmental concerns, has come up with some interesting facts: Despite the furore over oil sands, it found that less than half of American respondents were aware of the existence of oil sands, which make … Read More

Oil Sands Project Gets Goahead

June 6, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post

The crude politics of oil sands is laid bare for all to see. Despite a court ruling stopping the oil sands project the Canadian government is giving Imperial Oil the green light to begin construction of its $8-billion Kearl oil sands mine. In a notice yesterday, the government said the federal cabinet endorsed an environmental … Read More

Going backwards, further and faster…

June 5, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post

Happy World Environment Day! Not so in America, though. It may be the most polluting and dirty oil on the planet, but American refiners are tripping over themselves to make investments to dramatically increase imports from Alberta’s oil sands. Figures released yesterday show that the oil industry is spending about $53 billion to expand or … Read More

EnCana to Split

May 12, 2008By Andy RowellBlog Post

EnCana Corp, Canada’s biggest energy company, is going to buck the trend in the oil industry of mergers, and split into two separate oil and natural gas firms in an effort to wring out more value with crude prices at record highs. The new oil firm, worth about a third of the enterprise value, will … Read More