REP. Carolyn Maloney (D - NY) on COMMITTEE Assignment

From an Article by Matt Egan and Ella Nilsen, Cable News Network, October 28, 2021

(CNN) — House Oversight Chair Carolyn Maloney announced at the end of Thursday’s hearing with top executives from the fossil fuel industry that she plans to subpoena the oil companies and trade groups for key documents related to their conduct around the climate crisis.

Her announcement came after executives from ExxonMobil, BP America, Chevron, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute and the US Chamber of Commerce, testified in front of Congress for the first time about their role in climate disinformation.

Maloney said that while the companies and trade groups did provide many documents that were publicly available, they did not supply “a substantial portion of the key documents the committee requested.”

“We are at code red for climate and I committed to doing everything I can to help rescue this planet and save it for our children,” the New York Democrat said during her closing remarks. “We need to get to the bottom of the oil industry’s disinformation campaign, and with these subpoenas we will.”

Specifically, Maloney said the oil companies have not produced “detailed funding information” the lawmakers requested to understand their “payments to shadow groups,” public relations firms and others. Other documents requested include corporate strategies around climate change and internal documents and communications from senior executives about their companies’ role in the climate crisis.

“I have tried very hard to obtain this information voluntarily, but the oil companies employ the same tactics they used for decades on climate policy: delay and obstruction,” Maloney said.

Rep. Ro Khanna, a California Democrat who chairs the committee’s Subcommittee on the Environment, told CNN later Thursday that he and Maloney had decided during the middle of the fossil fuel hearing to subpoena the companies. “It wasn’t the plan that we were going to do that,” Khanna told CNN. “We’re very cautious to issue a subpoena, and we hadn’t issued any subpoenas up until now.”

Khanna said he and Maloney had huddled and made the decision 20 to 30 minutes before she made the announcement at the end of the hearing, with the congressman calling the decision “very significant.”

Khanna, who said there’s a chance lawmakers will call the CEOs back to testify again, added that the committee’s fossil fuel disinformation investigation could take six months. The committee’s investigation has been ongoing for about three months. Lawmakers particularly want to know more about the companies’ more recent activities, from 2015 to the present, including their presence and ads on social media.

During the hearing, committee members pressed the executives about their knowledge of the climate crisis, the role fossil fuels have played in it and their desire to put profits over a climate solution. An undercover video released this summer appeared to show former ExxonMobil lobbyist Keith McCoy admitting the company “aggressively” fought climate policy and the science behind it. Maloney played the video during the hearing.

“Our witnesses today would like you to think that their actions I have laid out and put in the record are ancient history, but they’re not,” Maloney said.

Khanna urged US oil giants ExxonMobil and Chevron to follow in the footsteps of their European rivals in planning to cut production to address the climate crisis. “Are you embarrassed as an American company that your production is going up while European counterparts are going down?” Khanna asked Chevron CEO Michael Wirth.

The Chevron boss responded by pointing out that demand for energy is going up around the world.
Khanna cited calls from the United Nations and the International Energy Agency to cut oil and gas production to save the planet. When Khanna asked if Chevron would commit to lowering production, Wirth declined to do so. “With all due respect, I’m very proud of our company and what we do,” Wirth said.

Democrats took turns pressing the executives for specific answers about their role in the climate crisis and the disinformation surrounding it. Several of them said the executives should resign.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, said that the companies “hide” behind front groups that lobby public opinion against clean energy. “When you look at these ads, they don’t say the name ‘Exxon,’ ‘BP,’ ‘Chevron’ anywhere,” Tlaib said. “Y’all hide and you deceive the public.”

Republicans on the committee questioned the legitimacy of the hearing, saying they should instead focus on the Biden administration’s energy policies and the progress that the US has already made to reduce emissions. Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana — whose constituents face some of the highest flooding risk in the country — delivered a fervent defense of oil executives.

“It’s abhorrent my colleagues across the aisle have called a so-called hearing today to demonize American industry whose products make modern life possible,” Higgins said, later adding: “It’s insane what my colleagues across the aisle are putting these good American men and women through and attacking American workers as our country dissolves around us. You push patriots too far; you’ve gone a bridge too far. We won’t take it anymore.”

Higgins represents an area very vulnerable to climate change impacts. Cameron Parish in southwest Louisiana — which is part of Higgins’ district — is the most vulnerable county in the US to flood risk, according to a recent nationwide flooding analysis by nonprofit research and technology group First Street.

Fossil fuel companies used their time to focus on their commitment to solving the climate crisis, to get to net-zero emissions by 2050 and to emphasize the steps they are taking to lower emissions.
“Exxon does not, and never has, spread disinformation regarding climate change,” ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said in his prepared remarks. “Its public statements about climate change are, and have been, truthful, fact-based, transparent and consistent with the views of the broader, mainstream scientific truthful, fact-based, transparent and consistent with the views of the broader, mainstream scientific community at the time.”

Wirth, Chevron’s CEO, said the idea this his company is spreading misinformation about the climate crisis is “simply wrong.” Wirth said Chevron accepts that “climate change is real, and the use of fossil fuels contributes to it.” But when Khanna asked the executives to tell the American Petroleum Institute and other groups to stop lobbying against electric vehicles and methane regulations — two initiatives the oil companies themselves support — he was met with silence.

“You could do something here,” said Khanna. “You can tell them to knock it off for the sake of the planet. You could end that lobbying. Would any of you take that opportunity to look at API and say ‘stop it?’” The committee room fell silent. “Any of you?” he asked. “Could you commit? Any of you?”
No CEO responded to Khanna’s question. community at the time.”

Wirth, Chevron’s CEO, said the idea his company is spreading misinformation about the climate crisis is “simply wrong.” Wirth said Chevron accepts that “climate change is real, and the use of fossil fuels contributes to it.” But when Khanna asked the executives to tell the American Petroleum Institute and other groups to stop lobbying against electric vehicles and methane regulations — two initiatives the oil companies themselves support — he was met with silence.

“You could do something here,” said Khanna. “You can tell them to knock it off for the sake of the planet. You could end that lobbying. Would any of you take that opportunity to look at API and say ‘stop it?’” The committee room fell silent. “Any of you?” he asked. “Could you commit? Any of you?”

No CEO responded to Khanna’s question.

Green Growth is a flawed concept

From an Article by George Monbiot, The Guardian (UK), September 29, 2021

There is a box labelled “climate”, in which politicians discuss the climate crisis. There is a box named “biodiversity”, in which they discuss the biodiversity crisis. There are other boxes, such as pollution, deforestation, overfishing and soil loss, gathering dust in our planet’s lost property department. But they all contain aspects of one crisis that we have divided up to make it comprehensible.

The categories the human brain creates to make sense of its surroundings are not, as Immanuel Kant observed, the “thing-in-itself”. They describe artefacts of our perceptions rather than the world. Nature recognises no such divisions. As Earth systems are assaulted by everything at once, each source of stress compounds the others.

Take the situation of the North Atlantic right whale, whose population recovered a little when whaling ceased, but is now slumping again: fewer than 95 females of breeding age remain. The immediate reasons for this decline are mostly deaths and injuries caused when whales are hit by ships or tangled in fishing gear. But they’ve become more vulnerable to these impacts because they’ve had to shift along the eastern seaboard of North America into busy waters.

Their main prey, a small swimming crustacean called Calanus finmarchicus, is moving north at a rate of 8km a year, because the sea is heating. At the same time, a commercial fishing industry has developed, exploiting Calanus for the fish oil supplements falsely believed to be beneficial to our health. There’s been no attempt to assess the likely impacts of fishing Calanus. We also have no idea what the impact of ocean acidification – also caused by rising carbon dioxide levels – might be on this and many other crucial species.

As the death rate of North Atlantic right whales rises, their birthrate falls. Why? Perhaps because of the pollutants accumulating in their bodies, some of which are likely to reduce fertility. Or because of ocean noise from boat engines, sonar, and oil and gas exploration, which may stress them and disrupt their communication. So you could call the decline of the North Atlantic right whale a shipping crisis, or a fishing crisis, or a climate crisis, or an acidification crisis, or a pollution crisis, or a noise crisis. But it is in fact all of these things: a general crisis caused by human activity.

Or look at moths in the UK. We know they are being harmed by pesticides. But the impact of these toxins on moths has been researched, as far as I can discover, only individually. Studies of bees show that when pesticides are combined, their effects are synergistic: in other words, the damage they each cause isn’t added, but multiplied. When pesticides are combined with fungicides and herbicides, the effects are multiplied again.

Simultaneously, moth caterpillars are losing their food plants, thanks to fertilisers and habitat destruction. Climate chaos has also knocked their reproductive cycle out of sync with the opening of the flowers on which the adults depend. Now we discover that light pollution has devastating effects on their breeding success. The switch from orange sodium streetlights to white LEDs saves energy, but their wider colour spectrum turns out to be disastrous for insects. Light pollution is spreading rapidly, even around protected areas, affecting animals almost everywhere.

Combined impacts are laying waste to entire living systems. When coral reefs are weakened by the fishing industry, pollution and the bleaching caused by global heating, they are less able to withstand the extreme climate events, such as tropical cyclones, which our fossil fuel emissions have also intensified. When rainforests are fragmented by timber cutting and cattle ranching, and ravaged by imported tree diseases, they become more vulnerable to the droughts and fires caused by climate breakdown.

What would we see if we broke down our conceptual barriers? We would see a full-spectrum assault on the living world. Scarcely anywhere is now safe from this sustained assault. A recent scientific paper estimates that only 3% of the Earth’s land surface should now be considered “ecologically intact”.

The various impacts have a common cause: the sheer volume of economic activity. We are doing too much of almost everything, and the world’s living systems cannot bear it. But our failure to see the whole ensures that we fail to address this crisis systemically and effectively.

When we box up this predicament, our efforts to solve one aspect of the crisis exacerbate another. For example, if we were to build sufficient direct air capture machines to make a major difference to atmospheric carbon concentrations, this would demand a massive new wave of mining and processing for the steel and concrete. The impact of such construction pulses travels around the world. To take just one component, the mining of sand to make concrete is trashing hundreds of precious habitats. It’s especially devastating to rivers, whose sand is highly sought in construction. Rivers are already being hit by drought, the disappearance of mountain ice and snow, our extraction of water, and pollution from farming, sewage and industry. Sand dredging, on top of these assaults, could be a final, fatal blow.

Or look at the materials required for the electronics revolution that will, apparently, save us from climate breakdown. Already, mining and processing the minerals required for magnets and batteries is laying waste to habitats and causing new pollution crises. Now, as Jonathan Watts’s terrifying article in the Guardian this week shows, companies are using the climate crisis as justification for extracting minerals from the deep ocean floor, long before we have any idea of what the impacts might be.

This isn’t, in itself, an argument against direct air capture machines or other “green” technologies. But if they have to keep pace with an ever-growing volume of economic activity, and if the growth of this activity is justified by the existence of those machines, the net result will be ever greater harm to the living world.

Everywhere, governments seek to ramp up the economic load, talking of “unleashing our potential” and “supercharging our economy”. Boris Johnson insists that “a global recovery from the pandemic must be rooted in green growth”. But there is no such thing as green growth. Growth is wiping the green from the Earth.

We have no hope of emerging from this full-spectrum crisis unless we dramatically reduce economic activity. Wealth must be distributed – a constrained world cannot afford the rich – but it must also be reduced. Sustaining our life-support systems means doing less of almost everything. But this notion – that should be central to a new, environmental ethics – is secular blasphemy.

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See Also: The idea of ‘green growth’ is flawed. We must find ways of using less and wasting less energy, Michael Joy, The Conversation, May 27, 2021

As countries explore ways of decarbonising their economies, the mantra of “green growth” risks trapping us in a spiral of failures. Green growth is an oxymoron. Growth requires more material extraction, which in turn requires more energy. The fundamental problem we face in trying to replace fossil energy with renewable energy is that all our renewable technologies are significantly less energy dense than fossil fuels. This means much larger areas are required to produce the same amount of energy. And, there is much more to consider!

Petrochemical industry affected by “Act of God”

From an Article by Kristen Hays & Jacquelyn Melinek, S & P Global, September 1, 2020

Houston — More polymer producers have declared force majeure on polyethylene products in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura’s assault, according to customer letters obtained by S&P Global Platts.

Chevron Phillips Chemical on Sept. 1 and Westlake Polymers on Aug. 31 each declared force majeure on PE, which is used to make the world’s most-used plastics. Both companies have operations that were in the Category 4 storm’s path, knocking out electric power in far southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana.

“Unfortunately, it has become apparent that issues arising in connection with the hurricane and the associated outages have impacted our planned production and delivery of polyethylene products,” CP Chem said in its notice to customers.

Westlake Polymers said the company had begun to assess facility conditions and associated supply and distribution issues, and would have a better damage assessment and potential timing on restarts “in the forthcoming days.”

Those notices were in addition to a separate Westlake Chemical force majeure declaration on Aug. 31 for construction staple polyvinyl chloride and its precursor, vinyl chloride monomer. Sasol also on Aug. 31 declared force majeure for polyethylene.

Entergy, the power provider for much of the affected region, said on Sept. 1 that outages in Texas would be restored in early September. CP Chem’s southeast Texas operations include a cracker and a high density PE plant.

However, Entergy said Lake Charles — where Westlake and Sasol operate significant complexes — as well as other southwest Louisiana areas “face weeks without electrical power.”

Hurricane Laura came ashore near the Texas-Louisiana state line early Aug. 27 packing 150 mph winds, just 7 mph less than a Category 5 storm. Overall, 19% of US ethylene capacity remained offline, down from 29% shortly after the storm.

Here are operations and pricing effects of Hurricane Laura’s aftermath:

FORCE MAJEURE

CP Chem: Force majeure declared Sept. 1 on US polyethylene.

Westlake Polymers: Force majeure declared Aug. 31 on US polyethylene.

Sasol: Force majeure declared Aug. 31 on all North American polyethylene, including all LLDPE and HDPE grades.

Westlake Chemical: Force majeure declared on Aug. 31 on all North American PVC and VCM.

INEOS Olefins & Polymers USA: Force majeure declared Aug. 26 on HDPE at 460,000 mt/year unit in La Porte, Texas; plant is a joint venture with Sasol.

Formosa Plastics USA: Force majeure declared Aug. 14 on PVC at its Texas and Louisiana operations; unrelated to Hurricane Laura.

SHUTDOWNS OF CHEMICAL OPERATIONS

Lake Charles

Sasol: 1.5 million mt/year and 439,000 mt/year crackers; 470,000 mt/year LLDPE; 380,000 mt/year ethylene oxide/monoethylene glycol; a new 420,000 mt/year LDPE plant slated to start up in September. Assessing damage; restart pending availability of power.

Westlake Chemical: Three chlor-alkali plants, combined capacity of 1.27 million mt/year of chlorine and 1.36 million mt/year of caustic soda; two vinyl chloride monomer plants, combined capacity of 952,543 mt/year; a 1.8 million mt/year ethylene dichloride plant; two crackers, combined capacity of 1.19 million mt/year; 200,000 mt/year LLDPE; 60,000 mt/year HDPE/LLDPE; 386,000 mt/year LDPE; 258,547 mt/year styrene. Assessing damage; restart pending availability of power.

Lotte Chemical: 1 million mt/year joint-venture cracker; 700,000 mt/year MEG plant. Assessing damage; awaiting restart pending availability of power.

LyondellBasell: 400,000 mt/year and 1 million mt/year PP plants. Assessing damage; awaiting restart pending damage assessment and availability of power.

Orange, Texas

Dow Chemical: 882,000 mt/year cracker; 236,000 mt/year LDPE; no major damage found, awaiting restart pending restoration of external infrastructure, including power.

CP Chem: 420,000 mt/year HDPE; limited visible damage found, assessment continuing, awaiting restart pending restoration of power.

Port Neches, Texas

Indorama Ventures: 235,867 mt/year cracker; 1 million mt/year EO/MEG; 238,135 mt/year propylene oxide; 988,000 mt/year MTBE. Minimal damage assessed, awaiting restart pending restoration of power.

Port Arthur, Texas

CP Chem: 855,000 mt/year cracker; limited visible damage found, assessments continuing; awaiting restart pending restoration of power.

Total/BASF: joint-venture 1 million mt/year cracker, was shut for maintenance pre-Hurricane Laura.

RESTARTS OF CHEMICAL OPERATIONS

Beaumont, Texas

ExxonMobil: 826,000 mt/year cracker; 650,000 mt/year and 325,000 mt/year LLDPE; 225,000 mt/year HDPE; 220,000 mt/year HDPE/LLDPE; minor repairs needed, restarts began Aug. 28.

Port Arthur, Texas

Motiva Enterprises: 635,000 mt/year cracker; restart began Aug. 27, flaring expected to last through Sept. 1, per regulatory filing.

Pasadena, Texas

CP Chem: Three HDPE units, combined capacity of 998,000 mt/year; working to resume normal operations.

Houston

TPC Group: 544,000 mt/year butadiene; restart began Aug. 29.

Fairway Methanol: 1.3 million mt/year Fairway methanol facility in Clear Lake shut Aug. 26, restart began Aug. 28.

Baytown, Texas

CP Chem: 1.7 million mt/year and 837,000 mt/year crackers; working to resume normal operations.

ExxonMobil: Had reduced rates at 1.25 million mt/year, 962,000 mt/year and 1.59 mt/year crackers; resumed normal rates Aug. 28.

Bayport, Texas

INEOS Styrolution: 779,000 mt/year styrene monomer. Restart began Aug. 31, per company notice on community hotline.

LyondellBasell: 1.16 million mt/year, 455,000 mt/year, 235,000 mt/year PP; restarted Aug. 28.

Baystar: 400,000 mt/year joint-venture HDPE; assessing damage, began restarting Aug. 28.

Alvin, Texas

LyondellBasell: 180,000 mt/year HDPE; restart began Aug. 29-30.

PRICES FOR PETROCHEMICALS

US spot ethylene prices rose $2.5 cents/lb to an 11-month high of 26.5 cents/lb FD Mont Belvieu on Sept. 1; the FD Choctaw marker rose 4.5 cents/lb to 27 cents/lb, an all-time high since S&P Global Platts began assessing Choctaw; 19% of US ethylene capacity remained offline.

US spot export LDPE, HDPE prices reached their highest levels in months on Sept. 1 amid multiple producer having declared force majeure in the aftermath of Hurricane Laura. LDPE prices rose $110/mt, LLDPE butene prices increased $99/mt and HDPE blowmolding rose $88/mt.

A deal for September export PVC was done Sept. 1, up $165/mt since Aug. 26 after Westlake Chemical’s force majeure declared Aug. 31 on PVC and VCM and Formosa Plastics USA’s force majeure on PVC still in place after its Aug. 14 declaration.

PORTS AND RAILROADS

Houston Ship Channel: Closed Aug. 26, reopened Aug. 27.

Sabine-Neches Waterway, channel closed Aug. 26; on Aug. 31 parts open with restriction; status unchanged on Sept. 1.

Port of Lake Charles closed Aug. 25; resumed movements Sept. 1 for vessels with a 30-foot or less draft.

Union Pacific: On Sept. 1, service restored to mainline network affected by Hurricane Laura, including a segment linking Lake Charles, Louisiana, to Beaumont, Texas; generators will continue to be used throughout the Lake Charles area until commercial power is restored; embargoes remain in place at southwest Louisiana locations.

Report from CIEL describes COVID-19 impacts on O & G industry

Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline: Why Exploiting the COVID-19 Crisis Will Not Save the Oil, Gas, and Plastic Industries

From the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), April 2020

Amidst a global pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus, the oil, gas, and plastic industries are exploiting the crisis by aggressively lobbying for massive bailouts and special privileges in a desperate attempt to revive an oil and gas industry already in decline.

Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline: Why Exploiting the COVID-19 Crisis Will Not Save the Oil, Gas, and Plastic Industries documents how long-term systemic declines in the oil and gas industry had been accumulating long before the coronavirus pandemic emerged. Compounded by the impacts of the pandemic and related economic crisis, the industry’s collapse has accelerated, with leading companies losing an average of 45% of their value since the start of 2020.

While the current crises have exacerbated the industry’s collapse, its underlying risks remain unchanged. Ultimately, government bailouts and regulatory rollbacks will not reverse the inevitable decline of the oil, gas, and plastic industries.

Recommendations:

>> Public Officials taking policy action to respond to COVID-19 and the economic collapse should not waste limited response and recovery resources on bailouts, debt relief, or similar supports for oil, gas, and petrochemical companies.

>> Institutional Investors and Asset Managers should recognize the overwhelming evidence that the risks of continued investment in fossil fuels now substantially outweigh the benefits, and they should rebalance their portfolios to eliminate their exposure to volatile and declining oil and gas assets.

>> Frontier Countries considering whether to open their lands, waters, and democracies to new oil and gas extraction should urgently reassess their prospects in light of the collapse in oil prices and demand, demonstrated severe risks of economic dependence on volatile oil markets, ongoing long-term decline of the sector, and its fundamental incompatibility with climate action.

>> Local Communities and Decisionmakers should reject demands from the oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors for public subsidies, tax abatements, lax environmental enforcement, or other special concessions. They should interrogate industry promises of long-term sustainable employment actively and skeptically, and they should require evidence to support those claims that goes beyond simplistic assumptions of market growth. In the rare circumstances where these burdens are met, affected communities should require project proponents to irreversibly commit the funds required to restore communities and the environment when the project reaches the end of its economic life.

Read the full report here: Pandemic Crisis, Systemic Decline: Why Exploiting the COVID-19 Crisis Will Not Save the Oil, Gas, and Plastic Industries, CIEL, April 2020, pp. 28.

CIEL Overview — Since 1989, the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) has used the power of law to protect the environment, promote human rights, and ensure a just and sustainable society.

>>> CIEL (Headquarters), 1101 15th St NW, 11th Floor, Washington DC, 20005. E-mail: info@ciel.org

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See also: Bankruptcy looms over U.S. energy industry, from oil fields to pipelines – Oil & Gas 360, April 23, 2020

More shale producers are expected to seek bankruptcy protection in coming weeks, industry and banking sources say, following Whiting Petroleum, which announced such steps earlier this month. Many small and mid-sized producers, including Chesapeake Energy Corp., have retained debt advisers.

The forecast loan default rate for 2020 among energy companies is 18%, according to Fitch Ratings, while nearly 20% of all energy corporate bonds are trading below 70 cents on the dollar, indicating distress, according to data from MarketAxess.

Northeast Petrochemical Conference, Pittsburgh, June 2019

From an Article by Nick Cunningham, OilPrice.com, June 24, 2019

Fracking has been an “unmitigated disaster” for shale companies themselves, according to a prominent former shale executive.

“The shale gas revolution has frankly been an unmitigated disaster for any buy-and-hold investor in the shale gas industry with very few limited exceptions,” Steve Schlotterbeck, former chief executive of EQT, a shale gas giant, said at a petrochemicals conference in Pittsburgh. “In fact, I’m not aware of another case of a disruptive technological change that has done so much harm to the industry that created the change.”

He did not pull any punches. “While hundreds of billions of dollars of benefits have accrued to hundreds of millions of people, the amount of shareholder value destruction registers in the hundreds of billions of dollars,” he said. “The industry is self-destructive.”

The message is not a new one. The shale industry has been burning through capital for years, posting mountains of red ink. One estimate from the Wall Street Journal found that over the past decade, the top 40 independent U.S. shale companies burned through $200 billion more than they earned. A 2017 estimate from the WSJ found $280 billion in negative cash flow between 2010 and 2017. It’s incredible when you think about it – despite the record levels of oil and gas production, the industry is in the hole by roughly a quarter of a trillion dollars.

The red ink has continued right up to the present, and the most recent downturn in oil prices could lead to more losses in the second quarter.

So, questionable economics is not exactly breaking news when it comes to shale. But the fact that a prominent former shale executive – who presided over one of the largest shale gas companies in the country – called out the industry face-to-face, raised some eyebrows, to say the least. “In a little more than a decade, most of these companies just destroyed a very large percentage of their companies’ value that they had at the beginning of the shale revolution,” Schlotterbeck said. “It’s frankly hard to imagine the scope of the value destruction that has occurred. And it continues.”

“Nearly every American has benefited from shale gas, with one big exception,” he said, “the shale gas investors.”’

The industry is at a bit of a crossroads with Wall Street losing faith and interest, finally recognizing the failed dreams of fracking. The Wall Street Journal reports that Pioneer Natural Resources, often cited as one of the strongest shale drillers in Texas, is largely giving up on growth and instead aiming to be a modest-sized driller that can hand money back to shareholders. “We lost the growth investors,” Pioneer’s CEO Scott Sheffield said in a WSJ interview. “Now we’ve got to attract a whole other set of investors.”

Sheffield has decided to slash Pioneer’s workforce and slow down on the pace of drilling. Pioneer has been bedeviled by disappointing production from some of its wells and higher-than-expected costs.

But, as Schlotterbeck told the industry conference in Pittsburgh, the problem with fracking runs deep. While shale E&Ps have succeeded in boosting oil and gas production to levels that were unthinkable only a few years ago, prices have crashed precisely because of the surge of supply. And, because wells decline at a precipitous rate, capital-intensive drilling ultimately leaves companies on a spending treadmill.

Meanwhile, as the financial scrutiny increases on the industry, so does the public health impact. A new report that studied over 1,700 articles from peer-reviewed journals found harmful impacts on health and the environment. Specifically, 69 percent of the studies found potential or actual evidence of water contamination associated with fracking; 87 percent found air quality problems; and 84 percent found harm or potential harm on human health.

The health impacts have been a point of controversy for years, pitting the industry against local communities. The industry largely won the tug-of-war over fracking, beating back federal and state efforts to regulate it. However, the story is not over. Related: Philadelphia Refinery Explosion To Boost Gasoline Prices

In many cases, there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence pointing to serious health impacts, but peer-reviewed research takes time and has lagged behind the incredible rate of drilling. Now, the public health research is starting to catch up. Of the more than 1,700 peer-reviewed studies looking at these issues, more than half have been published since 2016.

One need not be an opponent of fracking to recognize that this presents a threat to the industry. For instance, a spike of a rare form of cancer has cropped up in southwestern Pennsylvania recently. The causes are unclear, but some public health advocates and environmental groups are pointing the finger at shale gas drilling, and have called on the governor to stop issuing new drilling permits. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, said the request was “ridiculous.” The region is right at the heart of high levels of shale drilling, so any regulatory action coming in response the public health outcry could impact drilling operations. Time will tell.

In the meantime, poor financials are the largest drag on the shale sector. “And at $2 even the mighty Marcellus does not make economic sense,” Steve Schlotterbeck, the former EQT executive said at the conference. “There will be a reckoning and the only questions is whether it happens in a controlled manner or whether it comes as an unexpected shock to the system.”

Divestment March at University of Toronto

Essay by Carl Bucholt, Manchester Journal, May 31, 2019

The word “divestment” appears frequently in the news, often in the context of climate change. I’d like to explain what divestment means and make a case for why it’s important.

To “divest” is to get rid of something. The current global divestment movement is trying to convince universities, hospitals, governments, and churches to eliminate fossil fuel stocks from their endowment portfolios and (state government) pension plan funds.

Why should a school, or an individual, sell off their fossil fuel stocks?

Reason 1: To make a public statement and take a moral stand: that they no longer want to be associated with an industry that habitually lies to the public and which puts short-term profits above the long-term health of our planet and the people who live on it. (Case in point: EXXON’s own scientists knew in 1987 that burning oil would result in global warming, but the executives not only failed to make that knowledge public, they began a systematic campaign to confuse the public as to the cause of global warming.)

Reason 2: It is financially responsible to sell off fossil fuel stocks now because they will plummet in value as the world transitions to cheaper and cleaner renewable energy sources, and as electric cars replace vehicles with internal combustion engines. (Case in point: Xcel supplies electricity to people in 10 states in the middle of the US; they announced earlier this year that in the near future the electricity they supply to their customers will come 100 percent from renewables because it is cheaper than buying from existing coal and gas plants.

The major oil companies’ monetary worth is predicated on extracting all of their known oil reserves. However, if you do the math (as Bill McKibben did), you discover that to burn that amount of fossil fuel would result in the warming of the planet by 6 degrees Celsius – four times as much as scientists tell us is safe to sustain life as we know it on Earth. Logic dictates that we simply can not extract and burn all the oil and gas reserves that are carried on the books as Assets. When those reserves become “stranded assets”, there will be a rapid decline in the value of fossil fuel stocks.

Reason 3: Selling off fossil fuel stocks frees up money to be re-invested in the green economy. Jobs in the renewable energy sector are growing much faster than the fossil fuel sector and many of those jobs pay better and reinvigorate the local economy, as opposed to the profits leaving the region/state.

Reason 4: Divestment works to erode the enormous political power that the fossil fuel industry has on Congress and state governments. The oil, gas, and coal industries donate millions of dollars in campaign contributions and assault Congress critters with hoards of lobbyists, thereby ensuring favorable legislation. (Case in point: We have no idea what chemicals are poisoning our land and water through fracking because the industry got Congress to grant them an exemption from reporting that information. Also, we the people are subsidizing the fossil fuel industry by giving them billions of dollars in tax breaks and by granting leases to our public lands at well-below market value.)

Ask your financial advisor or portfolio manager how you can join governments, universities and individuals all around the world who have divested from fossil fuel stocks. It’s easy, you’ll feel good about helping the planet and your grandchildren, and your stock portfolio will ultimately be safer and more profitable.

>>> Carl Bucholt of Manchester is a member of Transition Town Manchester and Earth Matters, two local environmental groups dedicated to fostering resilience, weaning ourselves off fossil fuels and pesticides, and improving the quality of life for all of Earth’s inhabitants.

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Commentary by Tom Bond, June 5, 2019

Climate change is the inevitable result of adding gases to the atmosphere connected with burning fossil fuels. It is reasonable to expect improvements with renewable technology and electrical storage, such as the recent announcement by China of a better, cheaper way to recover the critical mineral, lithium. The conventional energy industry has no incentive to reduce it’s money flow, so it must be done by others. Starving it of investment funds is easier to accomplish, because it is disperse and away from the enabling legislation fossil fuels command.

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See Also: Oil And Gas Giants Spend Millions Lobbying To Block Climate Change Policies [Infographic]

Plastic pollution is now in the Great Blue Hole

From an Article by Jordan Simmons, EcoWatch.com, December 14, 2018

In a recent expedition, Gaelin Rosenwaks found plastic in the Great Blue Hole in Belize, Central America.

Did you know that 2018 was the year for plastic pollution awareness. One good aspect of the plastic crisis is the fact that we can solve it. Getting involved with solutions is an easy way to have our voices heard globally.

“The bottom line with plastic pollution is that there’s plastic everywhere,” said Gaelin Rosenwaks, founder of Global Ocean Exploration, during an EcoWatch Live interview on Facebook Thursday. The interactive live interview with Rosenwaks—who just got back from an expedition diving deep into the Great Blue Hole in Belize—inspired EcoWatchers to educate themselves on plastic pollution and commit to solutions.

“It doesn’t matter where you go … whether you are in the open sea … or at the bottom of the blue hole, you’re going to see plastic,” said Rosenwaks who brings cutting-edge research from global expeditions to the public through film and photography.

Education is the first step. We must understand and acquire the tools we need to solve this pervasive issue. Eliminating single use-plastic when possible is critically important, but to double that effort, we must survey how many items we use that are wrapped in plastic and work towards a zero-waste lifestyle.

Each time we refuse plastic whether it’s single use or plastic packaging, we are planting a seed for witnesses or companies to examine.

“The thing about plastic that’s a blessing in disguise is that it’s something that every single individual can do and have an impact,” said Rosenwaks. “Showing that as a consumer you care will hopefully drive industries to care and make changes.”

Tune in to the conversation above to find out more about solutions to plastic pollution and to hear from two passionate individuals who are not only tackling the problem of plastic pollution, but creating a better world for future generations through awareness and commitment.

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Depths of Belize’s Great Blue Hole, the World’s Largest Sinkhole, to Be Explored by Submarine

Information from The Weather Channel, November 29, 2018

Belize’s Great Blue Hole is one of the most awe-inspiring yet mysterious places on the planet, stretching over 1,000 feet across, more than 400 feet deep and standing out as a bold blue blob amid the light blue waters of Lighthouse Reef. And now, for the first time, we’re going to find out what it looks like below the surface.

Global entrepreneur Richard Branson and Fabien Cousteau — grandson of Jacques Cousteau, who took a one-man submarine into the Great Blue Hole in 1972, according to the USGS — are taking a submarine to the depths of the sinkhole this December to explore part of the Earth that’s never been seen before.

The underwater sinkhole sits some 60 miles off the coast of Belize City and is part of the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Central America.

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SEE THIS NEW NEWS REPORT:

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: Cleaning up the plastic in the ocean – 60 Minutes – CBS News

Enbridge Line 3 expansion under construction near Hardesty, Alberta

From an Article by Leola Abraham, Greenpeace (EcoWatch.com), November 7, 2018

More than 400,000 people demanded Credit Suisse stop investing in environmentally harmful projects like pipelines and tar sands.

Growing Resistance to Large & Long Distance Pipelines

The banking industry should stop funding extreme fossil fuel pipeline projects that impact the climate and violate human rights. These projects are risky for banks as they face mounting pressure from a growing resistance movement and increased reputational risk in a world that is recognizing the urgent need to rapidly tackle climate change to avoid climate catastrophe.

Recently, more than 400,000 people, from 138 countries, signed a global petition demanding banks and financial institutions immediately end financial relationships with tar sands pipelines projects and other controversial pipeline companies such as Energy Transfer, the company that built the Dakota Access pipeline.

The Indigenous-led movement at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access pipeline further galvanized and helped grow a global movement against dirty oil pipeline companies. However, it saw the industry lash out in a variety of ways, including Energy Transfer’s baseless $900m SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) against Greenpeace entities and others falsely accusing the groups of orchestrating the resistance at Standing Rock.

People march in support of the Standing Rock Nation at the Civic Center Plaza of San Francisco. The protest was one of many in a global day of action against the Dakota Access Pipeline calling on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to cancel the permit for the project. Cy Wagoner / Greenpeace

Growing Reputational and Investment Risk

Despite the threats of bogus lawsuits and concerning corporate behavior by pipeline companies, many Indigenous Peoples, communities, and allies in the U.S. and Canada remain opposed to the dirty pipelines.

In North America, two out of the five proposed new tar sands pipelines—TransCanada’s Energy East and Enbridge’s Northern Gateway—were canceled after facing Indigenous and environmental legal challenges, widespread public opposition and changing economics.

In some cases the dirty pipelines cut across unceded Indigenous lands and threaten Indigenous rights by putting drinking water and precious ecosystems at risk of oil spills. Knowing there is no safe way to transport oil, no community wants the risk of an oil spill. When a spill inevitably happens, the impacts on the community and the environment are immense and oftentimes irreversible.

Even with this information, new tar sands pipelines are proposed and facing opposition. In Minnesota, Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline is opposed by a coalition including tribal governments and landowners.

Even the Minnesota Department of Commerce has communicated concerns with the project. Also, recently a group of 13 young people, known as the Youth Climate Intervenors announced they planned to take the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission to court over the approval of Enbridge’s Line 3 tar sands pipeline.

In Nebraska, Indigenous leaders from across the U.S. and Canada signed a formal declaration against TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline and tar sands expansion in general.

In British Columbia, the Secwepemc Nation built solar-powered tiny houses to be placed in the path of Kinder Morgan’s planned new Trans Mountain Expansion Project and Tsleil-Wautuh Water Protectors built a traditional Coast Salish “Watch House” near the pipeline route, which played a central role in organizing resistance to the project.

Thousands gather in Metro Vancouver, British Columbia, for Indigenous-led “Protect the Inlet” mass mobilization against the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline. Here a “Watch House” is being built near the pipeline route. Zack Embree

In Vancouver, an Indigenous-led protest saw more than 10,000 people peacefully march demanding a stop to Kinder Morgan’s pipeline. What followed was months of resistance including more than 200 people arrested and protests in Quebec and across Canada, as well as in Seattle, the UK, Switzerland, Spain, Australia, Fiji and around the globe.

Ultimately, Kinder Morgan deemed the project too great a financial and reputational risk and, in May, sold the Trans Mountain pipeline and the infrastructure for the Expansion Project to Justin Trudeau’s Canadian government for CAN $4.5 billion. The move was a clear sign that dirty pipelines are risky investments for the companies, the banks and everyone involved.

Growing Line of Investors to Shun Tar Sands

Trudeau’s decision to purchase the pipeline also came after the Royal Bank of Scotland, a large global bank, and BNP Paribas and HSBC, Europe’s two biggest banks, announced scale backs on financing tar sands projects.

Since then, other financial institutions such as the international financial services company, NN Group in the Netherlands, announced its withdrawal from tar sands oil and associated pipeline companies in Canada and the U.S. citing human rights concerns, pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions as the main reasons for its departure.

NN Group’s announcement came on the heels of the IPCC report where the world’s leading scientists sounded the alarm, sending a timely message to world leaders that they must get serious and cut emissions from fossil fuels by half in the next 10 years if we are to avoid climate catastrophe.

Banks and financial institutions should wake up and face their role in the looming climate disaster. They must act on their commitments to the Paris agreement—by reviewing their policies and funding patterns and aligning their businesses with a world that limits climate change to 1.5 degrees Celsius, protects the environment, and respects human rights.

As the global petition is delivered to banks, the people-powered resistance movement to stop dirty pipelines will continue because our future depends on it. #StopPipelines

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US judge halts construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline