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extractive industries: blessing or curse?
Shell’s Big Dirty Secret
Insight into the world’s most carbon intensive oil company and the legacy of CEO Jeroen van der Veer
 
Shell’s Big Dirty Secret
Insight into the world’s most carbon intensive oilcompany and the legacy of CEO Jeroen van der Veer
Executive summary31 Shells greenwashing campaign52 Shell: The worlds most carbon intensive oil company7
The carbon intensity of major oil companies7Greater vulnerability to carbon pricing8Total resources analysis8Our Analysis9
3 Leadershipin unconventional oil10
Unconventional oil: What is it and why you should be worried10Relying on oil sands to restore Shells tarnished reputation12Eye-poppingacquisitions make Shell the oil sands leader12Oil shale: Shell at the cutting edge of the worlds dirtiest oil12A flawed emission reduction strategy13Carbon capture and storage: another flawed response13
4 50 years of gas flaring in Nigeria15
Economic and health costs from gas flaring15The struggle of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni against gas flaring15Efforts to stop gas flaring16Ongoing Flaring & Shells Numbers Games16Profit first: Damning internal flaring files17Flare out deadlines continue to slip18
5 Limited renewable energy initiatives20
Renewables: A vital new market20Growing a green portfolio?20Coming clean on clean energy21Biofuels: Not a clean energy alternative22
6 Lobbying EU institutions against action on climate23
Lobbying against fuel quality23Scaremongering at the EU over the Emissions Trading Scheme24
7 Weakening U.S. climate legislation25
Millions spent each year on lobbying25Shell weakens climate legislation25
Appendix one: methodology for calculating the carbon intensity of oil companies26Appendix two: Flaring calculations 28Endnotes 30
image © d. thompson. Published in June 2009.
This Report has been also produced with the financial assistance of the European Union as a part of “Extractive Industries – Blessing or Curse?”project. The content of this Report is the sole responsibility of Shell Guilty Campaign and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting theposition of the European Union. The authors gratefully acknowledge financial support from the European Union.
researched and written by
Lorne Stockman, Andy Rowell and Steve Kretzmann.
contributions from
Paul de Clerck, DarekUrbaniak, Ben Schreiber, and Kate McMahon.
edited by
Elizabeth Bast and Steve Kretzmann.
published by:
Shell GuiltyCampaign: Oil Change International, Friends of the Earth (International, Europe, U.S. and The Netherlands), PLATFORM, and Greenpeace UK. The authors would like to
thank
Wallace Global Fund, Grassroots International and the Dutch Ministryfor Development for supporting the production of this report.
 
Shell’s Big Dirty Secret
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executive summary
Royal Dutch Shell plc, commonly known simply as Shell, is a multinational petroleumcompany. It is the second largest private sector energy corporation in the world. Thecompany’s headquarters are in The Hague, Netherlands, and London, UK. Its largestsubsidiary is in the United States.
It is the largest oil operator in Nigeria, and holds more acreage in Canada’s oil sands than anyother corporation. Because of these facts, and several others, Shell is also the most carbonintensive oil company in the world. In short, for every barrel of oil it produces in the future,Shell will contribute more to global warming than any other oil company.This report documents Shell’s record investment in dirty forms of energy, and it illuminatesthe corporate strategy and lobbying for regulations that indicate it intends to profit fromthat position for a long time to come.Our key conclusions are:Shell holds more carbon in its resources, per barrel of future oil equivalent, than any other majorinternational oil company. Shell is therefore the world’s most carbon intensive oil company;The average carbon intensity of each barrel of oil and gas Shell produces is set to risedramatically, increasing 85 per cent on today’s figure;This sharp increase is caused by Shell’s move into oil sands, its reliance on liquefied naturalgas (LNG) and its continued gas flaring in Nigeria;Shell continues to expand investments in oil sands and oil shale, relying on the dirtiesttechnologies to establish itself as a leader in the industry;Shell has stopped its investments in renewables, except for biofuels, which pose a wholenew set of environmental problems;Internal documents obtained in the discovery process of Wiwa v. Shell reveal that althoughShell could have ended gas flaring in the early ‘90’s, it decided it was more profitable not to;Shell continues to flare gas in Nigeria at levels which, according to its own figures, are only12% less than those of 1999 after accounting for the reductions due to community unrest;Because of all of the above, Shell is more vulnerable to carbon pricing and subject togreater carbon risk than its peers.Therefore, Shell is leading industry lobby efforts in Washington, Brussels, and the UnitedNations Framework Convention on Climate Change to weaken and neuter legislation andregulation to tackle climate change;
Shell barrels in Nigeria.
© elaine gilligan, foe ewni

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