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Big Oil

Big Oil seems to be acting like Big Tobacco

Article by Sheldon Whitehouse published Sunday 31 May 2015 by The Washington Post/Associated Press

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Fossil fuel companies and their allies are funding a massive and sophisticated campaign to mislead the American people about the environmental harm caused by carbon pollution. 

Their activities are often compared to those of Big Tobacco denying the health dangers of smoking. Big Tobacco’s denial scheme was ultimately found by a federal judge to have amounted to a racketeering enterprise.

The Big Tobacco playbook looked something like this: (1) pay scientists to produce studies defending your product; (2) develop an intricate web of PR experts and front groups to spread doubt about the real science; (3) relentlessly attack your opponents.

Thankfully, the government had a playbook, too: the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO. In 1999, the Justice Department filed a civil RICO lawsuit against the major tobacco companies and their associated industry groups, alleging that the companies “engaged in and executed — and continue to engage in and execute — a massive 50-year scheme to defraud the public, including consumers of cigarettes, in violation of RICO.” read more

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Let Big Oil bail out Big 3 Auto Companies

A Google search of the most recent financial information from the major oil companies shows ExxonMobil alone with a stash of $34 billion. Chevron had cash on hand of $10 billion, Shell of $7.8 billion, BP America of $9.8 billion (at the end of 2007). It sounds like plenty to go around to give the Big Three a helping hand.

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Consolidation in oil industry likely in 2009

Major oil companies are sitting on enormous piles of cash after posting record profits in recent quarters, while crumbling stock and crude prices have made many smaller oil and gas companies potential targets.

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Oil giants talk tax to kill environment

Evidence is mounting of a coordinated global oil industry effort to seize upon the international economic crisis as an opportunity to “rebel” against ecological controls and bludgeon concessions out of governments.

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Big Oil: We told you so

"Exxon got criticized for underinvesting over the last four years," said Fadel Gheit, a senior energy analyst at Oppenheimer. "It's not that they were stupid, it's just that they thought it was too expensive. Now Exxon is going to laugh all the way to the bank."

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More consolidation likely in oil industry

"Big Oil has a growth problem for sure but is extremely well capitalized and we now see an M&A window opening,"

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Women to Watch: Linda Cook

The following year was critical for Shell: The company was rocked by scandal when it emerged that it had overstated its energy reserves. There followed a major restructuring, which catapulted Ms. Cook to the top echelons of Shell management.

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Big Oil, the big survivor

It was the oil-rich nations operating as their own cartel, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which ultimately brought down the corporate cartel

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Peak Oil: Are Oil Prices Destined to Rise Again?

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

October 31, 2008, 12:13 pm

Posted by Keith Johnson

Crude oil futures continued down on Friday, spooked by the dim outlook for the U.S. economy. That’s precisely what makes it likely oil prices will rebound next year.

TroutRun_art_200v_20081031111117.jpg  A tough run upstream (AP)

Big oil companies are already finding it harder to maintain, let alone increase, production. Chevron doubled its third-quarter net profit, but said production fell 5.7% in the quarter, after ExxonMobil reported an 8% production drop yesterday.

Falling oil prices are only going to accelerate that trend, analysts warn, at a time when OPEC is accelerating output cuts and production declines at oil fields around the world is apparently increasing. read more

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Big Oil’s Last Stand

The American public is fed up with Big Oil. In 2006 Gallup published its annual rating of public perceptions of U.S. industry. The oil industry is always a poor performer, but this time it came in dead last — earning the lowest rating for any industry in the history of the poll.

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Africa’s Potential to Sate World’s Oil Demand Dims

For big state-owned and private oil companies, Africa has played an outsized role. It is responsible for adding nearly a quarter of the globe's total increase in reserves over the past decade. That has been a boon for companies such as Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Exxon MobilCorp. and Total SA, all of which have struggled to replace reserves on their books

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Palin’s Big Oil infatuation

Palin’s Big Oil infatuation. She is as much a product of the oil industry as the current president and his vice president.

By Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 
ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY, JR.

September 24, 2008 I was water-skiing with my children in a light drizzle off Hyannis, Mass., last month when a sudden, fierce storm plunged us into a melee of towering waves, raking rain, painful hail and midday darkness broken by blinding flashes of lightning. As I hurried to get my children out of the water and back to the dock, I shouted over the roaring wind, “This is some kind of tornado.” 

The fog consolidated and a waterspout hundreds of feet high rose from the white ocean and darted across its surface, landing for a moment on a moored outboard to spin it like a top, moving toward a distant shore where it briefly became a sand funnel, and then diffusing into the atmosphere as it rained down bits of beach on the harbor. For 24 hours, a light show of violent storms illuminated the coastline, accompanied by booming thunder. My dog was so undone by the display that she kept us all awake with her terrified whining. That same day, two waterspouts appeared on Long Island Sound. read more

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Sarah Palin taxes put pipelines in jeopardy, say oil giants

In Alaska I broke the lobbyist and special interests that had controlled big oil. We are going to make this nation energy-independent.”

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BP’s troubles in Russia show Big Oil’s clout fading

Gone are the days when BP manhandled reserves out of foreign countries, as it did in Iran the early years of the last century. Once the lion of British enterprise, Russia has brushed it aside like a kitten.

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America, Over Big Oil’s Barrel

To repel public hostility and government action, meanwhile, the American Petroleum Institute, the main oil and gas lobbying group, has launched a multimillion dollar media blitz.

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Big Oil’s facts answer the attacks

We've all heard about the alleged sins of Big Oil, the handy media-made pejorative for the world's largest oil and gasoline manufacturers: It controls/manipulates the world energy market. Its six "supermajors" -- multinationals like ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron -- are exceptionally evil and rapacious corporations that are responsible for skyrocketing oil and gasoline prices. They are uniquely and grossly profitable. They deserve to have their "excess" profits taxed and their robber-baron bosses scolded - if not publicly waterboarded -- by Congress.

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U.S. oil probe focusing on price manipulation: report

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. regulatory probe into potential oil-market trading abuses is focusing on possible short-term manipulation of benchmark crude prices and the use of information related to important oil storage tanks to influence prices, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

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Blame Congress for High Oil Prices

Gasoline prices are through the roof and Americans are angry. Someone must be to blame and the obvious villain is "Big Oil" with its alleged ability to gouge consumers and achieve unconscionable, "windfall" profits. Congress is in a vile mood, and has dragged oil industry executives before its committees for show trials, issuing predictable threats of punishment, e.g. a "windfall profits tax." But if there is a villain in all of this, it is Congress itself.

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Big Oil and Lawmakers Spar Over Supplies

WASHINGTON -- As oil prices crossed $130 a barrel Wednesday, industry executives defended themselves against lawmakers blaming them for high prices, while asking senators to open access to domestic resources and reject tax increases.

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The Majors Look West, Again

After years of shunning North America and Europe in favor of exotic locales that promised oil in far greater quantities at a much lower cost, the industry's largest players have come crawling back. The reason? Those big projects have been difficult to pull off and haven't made up for declining production in more mature regions like the U.S. Last year the five largest U.S. and British oil companies—ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA), BP (BP), Chevron (CVX), and ConocoPhillips (COP), which together account for 11% of worldwide output—saw their oil production slide 3%, to 10 million barrels per day. Those shrinking supplies are one reason that oil now tops $125 a barrel.

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Investors get much of Big Oil’s cash windfall

Executives such as Shell Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer say their companies are doing their bit. Shell invested $7.6 billion in the first quarter, more than larger rival Exxon.

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STOP SUBSIDIZING BIG OIL

In 2006, the CEO of ExxonMobil exclaimed that, gosh, his corporation was rolling in so much profit that he simply didn't know how to spend it all.

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Taxing oil profits: Proceed with caution

"If our profits are taxed, that means we'll have less capital to invest in new production" and it could raise gas prices, John Hofmeister, president of Shell U.S., recently told CNNMoney.com.

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A Crude Game: Paying For Our Own Destruction

Today six "supermajors"—Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, Conoco Phillips, and the French Total—dominate the world oil market.

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Big Oil’s Friends in the Senate

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NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL: Big Oil’s Friends in the Senate

Published: May 5, 2008

Listen to almost any politician, President Bush included, and you’ll hear that the fight against global warming cannot be won without cleaner technologies that will ease dependence on fossil fuels. Yet these same politicians are on the verge of allowing modest but vital tax credits to expire that are crucial to the future of renewable energy sources like wind and solar power.

These credits are necessary to attract new investment in renewable sources until they become competitive with cheaper, dirtier fuels like coal. When the credits disappear, investments shrivel. The production tax credit for wind energy has been allowed to expire three times. In each case, new investment dropped by more than 70 percent. The credits for wind and solar expire at the end of this year, so action now is important. read more

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Time for big oil to explore places it would rather avoid

Rising costs and taxes, and limited access to new supplies help explain why BP and Shell have performed so badly and underperformed US peers ExxonMobil and Chevron. But other factors have been at work, such as the fatal accident at BP's Texas City oil refinery and the reserve misreporting scandal at Shell.

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