Oil giant looked to make tax-exempt donations to universities and civic groups in the early 1990s to promote the company’s interests
Oil giant Mobil sought to make tax-exempt donations to leading universities, civic groups and arts programmes to promote the company’s interests and undermine environmental regulation, according to internal documents from the early 1990s obtained by the Guardian.
Related: How Mobil pushed its oil agenda through 'charitable giving'
Continue reading...Their methods and origins differ, but their hunger for gold drives violence – and any foreign incursion could trigger escalation
Late 2016, Nicolás Maduro tweeted a photograph of himself with a smile on his face and a gleaming ingot in his hands – but not all that glitters is gold.
Venezuela claims to possess some of the largest untapped gold and coltan reserves in the world, and the country’s gold rush picked up when the president decreed the creation of a massive area of 112,000 sq km destined for mining, known as the Orinoco mining arc. In a recently published development plan Venezuela set the goal to produce more than 80,ooo kilos of gold a year by 2025.
Continue reading...Puerto Ordaz has been swept up in a gold rush that powers the city as the armed groups running the mines flourish
Puerto Ordaz was once Venezuela’s industrial hub, a modernist dream of broad boulevards and ranks of factories and gateway to a belt of rich oilfields that funded government largesse for decades.
As the economy has crumbled though, the modern city of steel and aluminium has been swallowed by its past, transformed into little more than an outpost of the gold mines a few hours’ drive away in the fringes of the Amazon.
Continue reading...PGPIC hit with economic penalties because of its ties to Revolutionary Guards, US treasury says
The United States has hit Iran’s Persian Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company (PGPIC) with economic sanctions due to its ties with the country’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), the Treasury department has said.
The move aims to choke off financing to the country’s largest and most profitable petrochemical group and extends to its 39 subsidiaries and “foreign-based sales agents,” Treasury said in a statement.
Continue reading...Dispute likely to escalate after Nicosia said it would seek to arrest anyone caught drilling
Tensions over energy resources in the eastern Mediterranean have risen sharply after Turkey said it would “exercise its sovereign rights” to drill off Cyprus in flagrant defiance of warnings from western allies.
As the dispute over potential gas reserves intensified, Ankara insisted its state-of-the-art drilling ship, the Fatih, and its support vessels would begin operations in waters viewed by the EU as being within the island’s exclusive economic zone.
Continue reading...Risk to oil market of three simultaneous disruptions becomes lobbying point for Iran and Libya
In November 2018, Donald Trump tweeted: “Oil prices getting lower … a tax cut for America and the world! Enjoy! $54 … Thank you to Saudi Arabia.”
Five months on, with oil prices more than $70, Trump will be in a less celebratory mood as Opec’s oil ministers and their allies gather in Jeddah on Friday, without Iran. The main agenda item will be the implications for oil of three interconnected American foreign policy crises – in Venezuela, Iran, and Libya. Together these crises, being played out simultaneously, have the potential to scrub as much as 3.5m barrels of oil per day from the markets.
Continue reading...Hassan Rouhani’s move to alter commitments amid crippling US sanctions outlined
Iran has suspended commitments it made under the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal, which lifted sanctions on the country in exchange for limits on Tehran’s nuclear programme. The deal was reached after years of negotiations.
Continue reading...Preventing Iran’s oil from reaching the market will raise oil prices and US business costs
The past two and a bit years have shown that it is naive to expect Donald Trump’s strategic and economic policies to demonstrate coherence. Even so, the lack of joined-up thinking in the decision to end the waiver against sanctions from nations that buy oil from Iran takes some beating.
Related: US toughens stance on Iran, ending exemptions from oil sanctions
Continue reading...Mike Pompeo says any nation interacting with Iran should do its diligence and err on the side of caution
The US has announced it will no longer exempt countries from sanctions that aim to impose a complete oil embargo on Iran.
Officials said the Trump administration would not renew any of the sanctions waivers granted to a handful of countries, including China, India, Turkey, Japan and South Korea, when those waivers expire on 2 May.
Continue reading...State-owned Saudi Aramco makes profits of £84.7bn last year, beating Apple and Exxon
Saudi Arabia’s state oil company has emerged as the most profitable business in the world, racking up profits of $111.1bn (£84.7bn) in 2018 to overtake Apple.
According to a rare glimpse into its finances contained in a bond-offering document, Saudi Aramco made the profit on revenues of $355.9bn last year, as it produced 10.3m barrels per day of crude oil.
Continue reading...The devastating impact of oil spills is widely recognised. The past decade has witnessed the destruction caused to human life and the environment from spills including the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and the Montara spill in Australia in 2009.
On each occasion the global community has reacted with horror, demanding the oil industry clean up local ecosystems and communities. Yet in Nigeria, and particularly in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta, these calls are ignored.
Continue reading...Ad campaigns hide investment in a huge expansion of oil and gas extraction, says InfluenceMap
The largest five stock market listed oil and gas companies spend nearly $200m (£153m) a year lobbying to delay, control or block policies to tackle climate change, according to a new report.
Chevron, BP and ExxonMobil were the main companies leading the field in direct lobbying to push against a climate policy to tackle global warming, the report said.
Continue reading...Concerns had been raised over project increasing German reliance on Russian energy
Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, called it a mistake, while the US president, Donald Trump, has branded it very inappropriate and a “very bad thing for Nato”.
The Nord Stream 2 pipeline to take Russian gas to Germany is arguably Europe’s most controversial energy project, drawing opposition from Ukraine, which it will bypass, and uniting the US, eastern EU states, and the European Commission which fears it will undermine the bloc’s ‘energy union’ plans.
Continue reading...Expected announcement by ExxonMobil of discovery off island’s south coast seen as potential game changer
Tensions between Cyprus and Turkey over energy could soon come to a head, with ExxonMobil apparently poised to announce a significant natural gas find off the divided island’s southern coast.
After more than three months of deep-water exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, the US firm is expected to unveil findings this week in what is being described as a seminal moment in the race to tap potentially profitable underwater resources.
Continue reading...Fighting between UN-backed GNA and Libyan National Army over field closed since December
Fighting has broken out over the future of Libya’s largest oil field, as forces loyal to the UN-recognised Tripoli-based government battle Libyan National Army (LNA) forces led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the leading figure in fractured Libya’s east.
Al-Sharara field, 560 miles south of Tripoli, is capable of producing 315,000 barrels of crude a day – about a third of Libya’s total current output. But it has been closed by the Libyan National Oil Corporation (NOC) since December when the installation was seized by local tribes demanding the Tripoli government did more to lift the area out of poverty.
Continue reading...Mustafa Sanalla says specialist unit needed to end repeated seizures of oil assets by militias
The head of Libya’s national oil company has said he wants to set up a national force armed with surveillance to protect the country’s petroleum assets after repeated seizures of oil installations by militias.
Mustafa Sanalla, the chairman of the National Oil Corporation (NOC), said the force would require an annual budget of $10m (£7.6m) and be under the control of the UN-recognised government. But the force could include members of the Libyan National Army (LNA) headed by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the dominant figure in Libya’s east, he added.
Continue reading...