Climate activists across world raise funds for the court case against Shell

Friends of the Earth Netherlands: 20/01/2023 | 16:25 PM

In 2021, thousands of Dutch citizens took one of the largest carbon emitters in the world to court and won. Together with Friends of the Earth Netherlands (Milieudefensie) they won a historic court case against Royal Dutch Shell, the parent company of Shell Group, forcing the company to take climate action.

The judge ruled that Shell’s current climate policy would contribute to a level of climate change that would be so dangerous that it would impose a threat to human rights. read more

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Flaring emissions dominate pollution from Beaver County’s Shell plant

ANYA LITVAK: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette alitvak@post-gazette.com: Jan 22 2023

September was a tumultuous month for the Shell chemical plant in Beaver County.

On Sept. 3, a missing O-ring in a circulation pump led to a leak of isobutane vapor. Two days later, brown emissions were seen coming out of high pressure ground flares — two metal combustion chambers that burn off unwanted gasses from the ethane cracker.

Three days after that, two separate flanges leaked hydrocarbons, and an ethylene refrigerant compressor tripped after it registered a high dew-point temperature. It tripped again two days later because of high vibration, which cascaded into a trip of several other systems. read more

Large-scale polluter Shell loses legal battle

The Guardian: Isabella Kaminski: Thu 29 Dec 2022 12.00 GMT

Between 2004 and 2007, the villages of Oruma, Goi and Ikot Ada Udo in Nigeria were polluted with oil from infrastructure built by Royal Dutch Shell. More than 15 years later, in late December, the company finally agreed to pay four farmers and their communities €15m in compensation and install a leak detection system after a court in the Netherlands ruled that Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary was liable and the parent company had a duty of care. read more

S&PG Global

Platts

Shell expects new US petrochemical complex to start up by year-end: CFO

• Author Kristen Hays 
• Editor Benjamin Morse 
• Commodity Petrochemicals

Shell Chemicals expects its new petrochemical complex in southwest Pennsylvania to come online by year-end, Royal Dutch Shell CFO Jessica Uhl said Feb. 3.

She said during the company’s Q4 2021 earnings call that the company was finishing up the project in 2022, “which should hopefully be up and running by the end of the year.”

The project also will mark Shell’s re-entry into polyolefins. In 2017, CEO Ben Van Beurden said during a company earnings call that Shell has been in polyolefins “through a very difficult convoluted way in the past through a number of joint ventures,” but the new complex “will be a re-entry in a way that will sustain our position as a polyolefins player.” read more

ecori.org

CLF Files Motion Seeking Shell Oil Climate Documents

By ecoRI News staff: January 04, 2022

PROVIDENCE — The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) recently filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island to force London-based Shell Oil to turn over records regarding the multinational oil and gas company’s knowledge of climate and severe weather risks as part of an ongoing lawsuit.

CLF has claimed in court proceedings that Shell’s Providence facility, which sits along the city’s waterfront, is unprepared for climate risks such as flooding and extreme weather. The 75-acre property and ethanol railcar terminal on Allens Avenue with 25 petroleum storage tanks sits in a flood zone and discharges petroleum and toxic chemicals into the Providence River via stormwater runoff. read more

Extract from a letter to the Beaver County Times about Shell’s new Pennsylvania  ethylene cracker plant

FROM DAVE SUTTON

In great detail, the article describes how the opening of this plant will render the Beaver Valley environment untenable for human habitation.

According to the self-proclaimed experts quoted, cancer will be rampant, the air will be toxic along with the water. Even the light and noise from the plant will destroy everyone’s well-being. However, the Beaver County Emergency Services stands ready to aid at a moment’s notice. read more

BY PRESS ASSOCIATION 2021

EXTRACTS

Joe Lycett staged a stunt outside Shell’s HQ in London to campaign against the company’s “greenwashing”.

The comedian, 33, arrived outside the offices in a yellow bus painted with a mural of a mock Shell advert featuring the caption “We’re turning our carbon emissions green for earth day”.

He and several dancers then performed a routine that culminated in Lycett being sprayed with grey paint to represent oil.

A parody television advert starring Lycett was then shown outside the firm’s HQ. read more

Sniffing out danger? That odor from the Shell cracker plant put the community on alert

Hi there, John,

There was a major smell incident near the Shell ethane cracker plant in Beaver, PA recently.

Here’s one news link: Shell cracker plant confirms a sweet-smelling odor came from its Beaver County facility

Community members encountered a powerful smell. And per the article, “On Mon., Sept. 27, the PADEP issued Shell a notice of violation for the odor and fugitive dust, and it considers this an open compliance matter, meaning that it is an ongoing violation of environmental law. Each day the violations continue is considered a separation offence. The notice of violations is neither an order or any final action by the PADEP.” read more

Independent.ie

Extinction Rebellion protesters target science museum over Shell sponsorship

Crowd chanted: ‘No more petrol, no more diesel, funding fossil fuels is evil’

Isobel Frodsham: August 29 2021 05:08 PM

Around 200 people have gathered outside the Science Museum in London to protest against an oil giant sponsoring an exhibition about greenhouse gases.

Supporters of Extinction Rebellion stood outside the museum waving flags and banners and playing drums and blowing whistles.

Doctors, scientists and members of the climate campaign group addressed the crowd about the effect fossil fuels are having on the planet. read more

Aug. 10, 2021, 10:50 PM

Shell Oil Company has agreed to pay $29.5 million towards ongoing cleanup costs at the McColl Superfund Site in Fullerton, Calif., according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The cost recovery settlement will go towards cleaning up waste and contaminated groundwater at the site, a disposal area for petroleum refinery waste contaminated with benzene, metals, and a volatile chemical known as tetrahydrothiophene, according to a federal consent decree. A federal court earlier found Shell liable for the cleanup as one of the parties responsible for the contamination. read more

-By Zik Gbemre  

OIL DEGRADATION/POLLUTION OF NIGER-DELTA CREEKS/LANDS: A SHARED BLAME 

• Most pipeline vandalism in recent times are third party induced for various unlawful gains 
• The increasing crime now a shared evil involving host communities, service contractors and some oil companies workers. 
• The polluted communities endangering lives and livelihoods of generations unborn 

It is very uncommon to experience crude oil/condensate spillages caused by equipment failure on the vast pipelines constructed by the Federal Government of Nigeria through supervisory NNPC/NPDC and operating oil partners to transport crude oil and associated product across the operating environment.

But no doubt, a significant proportion of crude oil/condensate spills that have become almost a daily experience, threatening health and livelihoods, in massive pollution, particularly across the Niger-Delta states are third party induced for various unlawful self-enrichment. read more

THE BELLINGHAM HERALD

A refinery spewed black smoke into this NW community. Now this oil giant will pay

BY YSABELLE KEMPE: JULY 26, 2021 05:10 PM

The Northwest Clean Air Agency slapped Shell with a $60,000 penalty Monday, July 26, after its Puget Sound Refinery in Anacortes spewed odorous black smoke into the air in August and September.

FULL ARTICLE

Image from Amnesty International UK

IMAGE SOURCE: Slick PR can’t disguise Shell’s devastating oil pollution in Nigeria

ARTICLE FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES

The Fisherwomen, Chevron and the Leaking Pipe

By Ruth Maclean July 25, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ET

Oil companies like Chevron, Shell and Eni have made billions in profits in the vast Niger Delta region in the last decades. But now some are pulling out — and they are leaving utter ruin in their wake, according to government monitors and environmental and human rights organizations. The delicate ecosystem of the Niger Delta, once teeming with plant and animal life, is today one of the most polluted places on the planet. read more

THE

HILL

Fossil fuels are definitively the new tobacco

BY ANDREAS KARELAS, OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 06/07/21 10:05 AM EDT 

THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL

Former hedge fund manager, host of CNBC’s “Mad Money” and investment guru Jim Cramer declared in January of last year he was “done with fossil fuels… we’re in the death knell phase. They’re tobacco.”

Not everyone was so sure about this at that time — but now there’s no disputing it. Fossil fuels are definitively the new tobacco, and we are witnessing a historic moment in real-time: The end of the fossil fuel age. Here are the latest markers of the fossil fuel industry’s accelerating implosion.  read more