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Chronology: It’s not over yet! - a picture of 20 months in the oil industry.
UK & EUROPE
MAY 1997
• (The day after Crude Operators!) 14 fishing boats blockade oil supertankers in Sullom Voe Harbour in the Shetlands, in protest at lack of compensation from Braer oil spill.
JULY
• Gulf (subsidiary of Chevron) closes its refinery at Milford Haven, and sells its UK downstream arm (which includes 450 petrol stations) to Shell. Over 600 jobs are lost.
AUGUST
• Chevron decides not to drill in the sensitive Cardigan Bay (off Wales), where it has faced major protest. It gives the reason as being unable to hire a suitable drilling rig.
• The UK government approves the export of defence equipment to Indonesia, on the understanding that it will be used to protect the giant Natuna gasfield, whose ownership is disputed by China. British companies, including contractor Amec are bidding for Natuna contracts.
SEPTEMBER
• UK Energy Minister John Battle announces fast-tracking of European Environmental Impacts Directive, which will require publicly available environmental impact assessments on all major new offshore developments. There is little complaint from the industry.
• National Power abandons its plans to convert a power station to burn orimulsion, one of the dirtiest fuels, at Pembroke, South Wales, in the face of local protest.
AUGUST-DECEMBER
• 100 Days to Kyoto campaign (see box on opposite page).
NOVEMBER
• French truck drivers go on strike over pay and conditions, blockading 12 of France’s 13 refineries. This triggers a rush on most petrol stations, as petrol consumers fear a drought.
DECEMBER
• First oil comes ashore from BP / Shell Foinaven field in the Atlantic Frontier, to Flotta terminal in the Orkneys.
JANUARY 1998
• The Health & Safety Executive publishes a new report on hydrocarbon releases from offshore installations. From October 1992 to March 1997 there were 1,097 releases reported, of which 14% were classified major, 53% significant and 33% minor.
• BP’s Wytch Farm onshore oilfield in Dorset sets the world record for extended reach drilling, at 10 km.
MARCH
• Robertson’s International New Ventures Survey indicates that the UK is the country most favoured in 1998 for new exploration and production projects by international oil companies, for the second year running. Other popular choices are Australia, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Algeria and Venezuela.
• The day before the Budget, activists blockade road access to BP’s Coryton refinery in Essex, by locking on to a Volvo car parked across the road. This is in protest at the generous tax treatment of North Sea companies (see Analysis). The tail-back of petrol tankers stretches over 3 miles.
• Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown announces in the Budget that the review of North Sea oil taxation is to be extended for another year (see Analysis).
APRIL
• A report by the MSF union for skilled and professional workers criticises offshore safety. A recent gas leak on BG’s (formerly British Gas) Rough field came close to causing a serious explosion similar to the Piper Alpha disaster.
• The EU’s Environmental Impact Assessment Directive comes into force (see September 1997).
MAY
• BP announces a donation of £19.5m to Cambridge University for a BP Institute and a BP Professor of Petroleum Sciences.
• The International Petroleum Exchange announces its proposal to set up a traded market in CO2 emission permits (see Analysis - climate change).
• An Office of Fair Trading investigation into petrol retailing is released. It concludes that there is no evidence of unfair competition by the supermarkets or the oil majors, although over 2,000 independent retailers closed down between 1990 and 1996.
JUNE
• The Department of Trade and Industry announces the 18th Seaward licensing round, for blocks in the North Sea and Irish Sea.
• Energy Minister John Battle announces a series of industry action plans to improve the competitiveness of the UK gas industry.
• Shell announces its plans to close its Shell Haven refinery in Essex in 1999.
• John Browne (Chief Executive of BP) is awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours.
JULY
• Greenpeace disrupts seismic surveying in the Atlantic Frontier for 11 hours, by swimming in front of a surveying vessel.
• A report in the Observer newspaper reveals that Shell is secretly planning to take 14 tonnes of radioactive waste from the Brent Spar oilfield storage buoy for treatment at the Dounreay nuclear plant in Scotland. The Government did not announce the plans when it was informed of them.
• The EC approves conditionally the merger of Shell’s and Exxon’s additives and lubricants divisions.
• A six-mile long oil slick is discovered off Sweden by an aeroplane flying over it. A Liberian tanker is being investigated.
• European environment ministers agree in Portugal to ban the dumping of offshore oil rigs.
• BP and Safeway anounce that they are to set up joint supermarkets and forecourts on 100 sites across the UK.
• BP / Shell’s Schiehallion field comes on stream, the second on the Atlantic Frontier.
AUGUST
• John Battle signs the Framework Agreement on Inter-connecting Pipelines, a deal with Norway which allows new cross-border pipelines to be built in future without having to negotiate a new treaty each time.
• The UK government approves the proposal by Wood-GMC for decommissioning the Brent Spar, in which it is to be sliced up and used in a harbour wall at Mekjarvik, near Stavanger in Norway. This was also Shell’s favoured option.
SEPTEMBER
• Britain’s dispute with Iran over author Salman Rushdie is finally resolved, amid suspicions that the better diplomatic relationship was really intended to lubricate oil development by British companies in the worldís 4th largest oil producer.
• Shell and Texaco announce the merger of their European downstream operations, involving 19 refineries, 16,000 petrol stations, 367 terminals and 16 lubricant plants. Petrol stations will carry both brands.
• Hundreds of jobs are cut on Shell’s North Sea oil rigs, in an attempt to save US$80 million this year and $240 million next year due to the low oil price.
• UK government abandons plans to introduce North Sea taxation (see Analysis).
OCTOBER
• The Interconnector, a gas pipeline from Zeebrugge to Bacton in North Norfolk, is opened, facilitating a Europe-wide free market which extends as far as Russia and Algeria.
NOVEMBER
• Shell announces that it is to shed 3,000 jobs, 20% of its European downstream workforce, aiming to save between $200m and $400m. 600 of the jobs will be in the UK.
• Activists blockade the giant Shell depot at Jarrow, South Tyneside for 2 hours, to commemorate the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa.
• BP announces a £500m investment in chemicals manufacturing at Grangemouth in Scotland and at Hull, creating 225 jobs.
DECEMBER
• Shell and Texaco call off their European merger.
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INTERNATIONAL
MAY 1997
• The State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) dissolves the Free Trade Unions of Oil and Gas Industry Workers (FTUOGIW), which was fighting SOCAR’s labour policies. The FTUOGIW will challenge the legality of SOCAR’s move.
• Hundreds of fishing vessels blockade oil tankers in the navigation channel of Lake Maracaibo (through which 80% of Venezuela’s oil exports pass), in protest at a massive oil spill in February.
JUNE
• A Human Rights Watch report reveals that Colombian paramilitary groups are being paid US$2m a year to protect Shell’s and Occidental’s oil pipelines.
JULY
• It is reported that South African mercenary company Executive Outcomes has been contracted by Canadian oil company Arakis in southern Sudan.
• The monopoly in Brazil of state company Petrobras is ended, with the opening up of joint ventures with national and foreign firms.
• Frente de Defensa de Pastaza - a coalition of indigenous, campesino and women’s organisations and city leaders - is set up in the Ecuadorian Amazon to oppose new exploration by Tripetrol.
• Occidental (Oxy) shuts down production indefinitely at its main oilfield in Colombia due to guerrilla activity. The field accounts for 8% of Oxy’s production, and 25% of Colombia’s exports.
• The Centre for Public Interest Litigation and the National Alliance of People’s Movements bring a lawsuit against the Indian Ministry of Petroleum in the Delhi High Court, for corruption in oil and gas deregulation and licensing.
AUGUST
• 9,400 barrels of crude oil are spilled into Tokyo Bay, Japan, as a Russian tanker runs aground.
• More than 100 Chontal Indians blockade the entrance to a Pemex (state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos) oilfield in Tabasco, southwestern Mexico, in protest at an oil spill which polluted local water supplies.
• At a multi-ethnic rally against oil pollution in Bayelsa State, Nigeria, the Chicoco movement is born. Chicoco plans to use non-violent direct action to challenge the oil companies and fight for minority rights.
• 30 contract workers occupy a Pemex oil exploration rig in the Gulf of Mexico, protesting over pay and conditions. They are removed by police and soldiers after 40 hours.
SEPTEMBER
• Texaco pulls out of Burma, following US investment sanctions brought about by human rights and democracy campaigners. Its share is split between Malaysian company Petronas and British Premier, which becomes operator of the Yetagun field.
• A fire at the state-owned Hindustan Petroleum Corp’s refinery at Vishakhapatnam (800 miles south of New Delhi) kills at least 60 people, and over 100,000 local people have fled the area. Kerosene tankers in the port also burst into flame. The Indian Petroleum Ministry is criticised for being more concerned over the accident’s effect on petroleum supplies than over the human and environmental costs.
• The Sudanese government signs a peace deal with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, a southern rebel group, which involves the SPLA protecting the region’s oilfields from attack. The government plans a big increase in Sudan’s oil production.
• Total, Gazprom and Petronas announce a £2bn investment in gas projects in Iran, breaking the US embargo, and as a result face the threat of US sanctions against them.
OCTOBER
• A major oil spill in Rivers State, Nigeria, leads to the closure of 24 Shell flow stations.
• Premier Oil is given exploration rights in Pakistan’s oldest and largest national park, the Kirthar National Park, which contains many rare and endangered species.
• 25,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil are spilled in the Singapore Strait by a tanker collision - the worst oil spill in Singapore’s history.
• 1,000 employees of the Nigerian Department of Petroleum Resources go on a four-day strike. The government agrees to their terms on pay and conditions.
NOVEMBER
• The strategic pipeline through Chechnya, from Caspian oilfields to Black Sea ports, reopens. It was for control of the oil flow that Russia resisted Chechnya’s bid for secession, leading to the 1994-96 war which killed 80,000 people.
• Archbishop Desmond Tutu calls on South Africa’s mainly white business people to take some responsibility for apartheid. He singles out Shell, BP and Mobil as some of the strongest supporters of the apartheid regime, yet who have blatantly failed to contribute to the work of his Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
• The Philippines Supreme Court orders an end to the 9-month-old oil deregulation law.
• OPEC announces 10% increase in oil production (see Analysis - Oil price).
DECEMBER
• More than 1,000 peasants blockade three small oilfields in south-eastern Mexico, protesting against pollution by Pemex.
• Pascal Lissouba, the ousted president of the Republic of Congo, starts legal proceedings in Paris against Elf Aquitaine. He claims Elf financed the military coup by former dictator Denis Sassou-Nguesso, and was complicit in acts of terrorism. Elf controls 80% of oil in the Congo, and was annoyed when Lissouba opened talks with Occidental.
• Hernandez, the head of Mexico’s powerful oilworkers’ union, is released from prison after nine years.
• 200 farmers in Guatemala shut down an oil pipline, protesting that the government supports oil companies and not communities.
• The Environmental Protection Protocol to the Antarctic Treaty is ratified, banning all oil and mineral exploitation in Antarctica for at least 50 years.
JANUARY 1998
• A Mobil underwater pipeline bursts in Nigeria, releasing 1.6 million gallons of crude - the biggest spill in Nigeria’s history. Angry fishermen blockade Mobil’s facilities.
• At least 38 Ogoni activists are arrested in the run-up to Ogoni Day in Nigeria, including Batom Mittee (brother of MOSOP Acting President Ledum Mittee). Shell remains quiet.
FEBRUARY
• Activists in Thailand blockade construction of a $1.2bn natural gas pipeline, by camping on the route.
• An explosion from two petroleum tanker trains kills 120 people in Yaounde, Cameroon.
• UN Secretary General Kofi Annan agrees peace deal with Iraq (see Analysis).
• The Falkland Islands government awards exploration and production licenses to Shell, Amerada Hess, Lasmo and International Petroleum Corporation Falkland Islands.
MARCH
• An explosion in Ecuador’s largest pipeline kills 11 people, injures 80, and makes 600 homeless, at Esmeraldas, 110 miles northwest of Quito.
• 100 unarmed civilians are massacred by Chad’s security forces in the oil producing region in the south. Exxon, Shell and Elf intend to develop the area, and pipe out the oil to Cameroon ports. The controversial pipeline, which is to be funded by the World Bank, passes through sensitive forests and politically dangerous areas.
APRIL
• US federal prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against Texaco for polluting the San Juan River on indigenous Navajo lands in Utah.
• A report by the Special Rapporteur on Nigeria to the United Nation Commission on Human Rights criticises the Nigerian government’s treatment of the Ogoni, and calls for an investigation into Shell’s activities.
MAY
• The Nigerian High Court releases on bail the Ogoni 20, who have been held in Port Harcourt Prison since May 1994 on the same charges as Ken Saro-Wiwa.
• The Russian government suspends the sell-off of Rosneft, the largest state oil company, after all bids have been withdrawn (including from consortia involving Shell and BP).
• 121 youths from Ondo State, Nigeria, peacefully occupy a Chevron oil platform, in protest against local environmental destruction. After three days, helicopters bring in soldiers, who shoot at the protestors, killing two of them.
• Shell, Texaco and Saudi Aramco have been given the go-ahead to merge their downstream interests in the eastern USA.
JUNE
• Thousands of demonstrators in small boats blockade the Bosphorus Straits in Turkey for several hours, in protest at the environmental and safety risks posed by the increase in oil tanker traffic from the Caspian Sea.
• An Argentine judge suspends work on a planned pipeline that was to carry Argentine natural gas across the Andean rainforest to Chile. The court case was brought by Greenpeace, which claims the pipeline would threaten both the Kolla Indians and the endangered jaguar population.
• Unocal agrees to pay US$200m for clean-up of petroleum spilled in the years up to 1989 from its pipelines near Avila Beach, 240km northwest of Los Angeles, USA.
• Hundreds of protestors blockade an oilfield in Tabasco, Mexico, in protest against environmental destruction by Pemex. According to state legislator Joaquin Alvarez, Pemex has yet to respond to 63,000 complaints from local people.
• A burst pipeline spills 70-100 tonnes of crude on Sri Lanka’s beaches, the worst spill in Sri Lanka’s history.
JULY
• Shell and Mobil pull out of Camisea, Peru’s biggest ever natural gas project on which they began work in 1996. Shell has put an enormous effort into consultation with communities and NGOs, claiming the project as a model for socially reponsible hydrocarbon development. However, it has received severe criticism from Project Underground, Rainforest Action Network and other NGOs. The reason for the pull-out is that the Peruvian government insisted that the gas should be sold in Peru, and at a fixed price; the companies wanted to sell it on the Latin American free market, and claim the government’s conditions make the project financially unfeasible. It will probably now be taken up by Peruvian companies.
• Shell swaps its oil and gas assets in Yemen and Colombia for Occidental’s Philippine and Malaysian hydrocarbons businesses. This includes Shell’s share of the Cano Limon field in Colombia, development from which was to threaten the U’wa people.
AUGUST
• ARCO decides to pull out of Burma, following major human rights protests against the company. It also plans to withdraw from a project in the Ecuadorian Amazon, where six of its workers were kidnapped by indigenous people demanding a share of oil royalties.
• BP and Amoco announce their merger deal (see Analysis).
• Chevron claims the new deepwater drilling world record, at a sea depth of 7,718 feet, for an exploratory well in the Gulf of Mexico.
SEPTEMBER
• World Bank decides not to fund gas power plant in Burma, as human rights and environmental concerns are raised by activists.
• 5 activists from Project Underground, Rainforest Action Network and the Ruckus Society drop a 138-square metre banner saying “Houston, we have a problem - Stop new oil exploration!”, outside the congress of the World Energy Council in Houston, Texas. The five are arrested, and bail is set at $700,000 (for comparison, the average for murder is $20,000).
• Mobil withdraws from Block 77 in the Peruvian Amazon, where it has been heavily criticised for exploring for oil on the lands of at least three uncontacted tribes. This is a big victory for Survival International, which has campaigned extensively on the issue.
OCTOBER
• Members of the Ijaw tribe of the Niger Delta, take action against the oil industry, shutting down flow stations and pipelines, and cutting Nigeria’s oil output by up to 40%. Troops are called in to break up the protest.
• NGOs in Aceh, Indonesia, publish a report accusing Mobil of providing buildings and facilities used by the military for repression of local people. Thousands have been killed in recent years, and Mobil’s excavators are alleged to have been used to dig mass graves.
• at least 700 people are killed by a petrol pipeline fire near Warri in the oil-producing southeast of Nigeria. The casualties were so high because people were trying to gather petrol, which is ironically a scarce and very expensive commodity in the area, as most is exported.
NOVEMBER
• Oil companies postpone the controversial decision on which way to route the export pipeline from Azerbaijan.
• More than 60 people are killed and thousands fall sick because of an oil spill in Aiyetoro, in south-west Nigeria. Meanwhile, Shell shuts down sections of a key crude oil pipeline near Bonny after workers trying to seal a leak are attacked by stone-throwing villagers. United Nations human rights envoy calls for an independent inquiry into environmental damage in Nigeria by oil companies.
• The New York lawsuit against Texaco for severe toxic contamination in Ecuador falls again. Clean-up costs, and compensation for damage to rainforest and cancers caused were estimated at up to $1 bn. The problem is that a hostile judge ruled that the Ecuadorian government must join the plaintiffs. It did, but this was reversed under a new government - shortly after the Ecuadorean attorney general made a confidential visit to the United States for a presumed meeting with Texaco. The government refuses to meet the plaintiffs.
• Chevron admits it paid and transported Nigerian military who shot and killed unarmed activists in May.
• An oil spill arising from the collision of two ships, near the mouth of the Pearl River in south China, threatens the Chinese white dolphins, which already are on the verge of extinction because of pollution.
DECEMBER
• Ijaw youths meeting in Kaiama, Nigeria, order oil companies to leave by 30th December, or face increasing peaceful direct action to remove them. The Kaiama Declaration also calls for self-determination of the Ijaw people, and expresses solidarity with other indigenous struggles and with oilworkers.
• A pipeline in the northern Yemen, operated jointly by Hunt Oil Corporation and Exxon, is blown up for the third time by Jahm tribesmen. They are protesting against the lack of basic facilities in their communities whilst American corporation extract oil wealth.
• In Texas, USA, Pennzoil agrees to pay $6.75m to 700 black employees, to settle a 1996 lawsuit in federal courts accusing the oil company of racially discriminatory employment practices regarding wage raises and promotions. |