Chevron, Oil Pollution, and Human Rights

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cancel2 2022

Canceled
Another example of Americans exercising double standards, how much do you hear in your media about the role Chevron plays in Nigeria?

Chevron’s record in the Niger Delta includes extensive pollution and gas flaring, construction of facilities in communities without consultation, and support for military repression. In May 1998, Chevron ended a non-violent occupation of its Parabe platform by flying in Nigerian soldiers who opened fire on protesters with assault rifles, killing two people. In January 1999, Chevron-leased helicopters and speedboats carried soldiers to the villages Opia and Ikenyan, where they attacked villagers and burned houses to the ground.

http://www.africaresource.com/index...ron-oil-pollution-and-human-rights&Itemid=346

For well over 50 years , Chevron has drilled on and offshore Nigeria for its petroleum wealth, generating riches that have flowed whether dictatorships or democracies govern the region and providing strong earnings for Chevron and its shareholders. For over half a century, the people and communities living near the shores of Africa’s richest oil boom have become poorer, more dispirited, and are living shorter lives while petroleum flows from their region. Oil operations in the Niger Delta have economically marginalized local villagers, while giving them virtually no control over their own livelihood,land or resources.

http://justiceinnigerianow.org/about-chevron

Here is an explosion on an oil rig operated by Chevron, in what looks remarkably like a rerun of Deepwater Horizon. Yet we are told that by a former Chevron bean counter that they have far safer working practices than BP and this can't happen!!

On Monday 16 January at 4.30 to 5am, Chevron's KS Endeavour drilling rig burst into flames, approximately 6 miles off the coast of Nigeria. Two workers are reported missing. The gas rig is still said to be burning for the second day running and is reported to have partially collapsed into the ocean. The cause is as yet unconfirmed, but early reports indicate that the explosion was partly the result of a failed blow out preventer (BOP), with parallels being drawn to the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The Nigerian state oil company, NNPC, speculated that Chevron's drillers lost control of gas pressure when equipment failure led to a "gas-kick".
Chevron has been criticised for its lack of transparency over the incident. Locals have been kept in the dark about Chevron's emergency response plan, the risk to the local population and any information about efforts to control the fire and limit the environmental damage. Chevron has also been silent about what the worst case scenario and what this means for its stakeholders.


http://platformlondon.org/2012/01/18/chevron-oil-rig-explodes-off-coast-of-nigeria-2-killed/
 
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Texaco, which was purchased by Chevron in 2001, is responsible for the deliberate dumping and abandonment of approximately 18.5 billion gallons of toxic waste byproducts into a large stretch of the Ecuadorian Amazon from 1964 to 1990. Seventeen million gallons of crude oil were also spilled into the same region. An ongoing lawsuit in Ecuador could potentially fine Chevron $27.3 billion for its role as Texaco’s owner, if enforced. Chevron has created its own website broadcasting its “views and opinions” regarding this lawsuit, countering allegations (“myths”) made against them.


Chevron is accused of causing or contributing to numerous other environmental and human rights abuses in the Niger Delta, Iraq, Australia, Kazakhstan, the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, and other areas. During violent crackdowns of peaceful protests against oil companies in Nigeria, Chevron-branded helicopters carried soldiers who opened fire upon the non-violent protestors.


Subsidiary Chevron Pipe Line Co. was fined by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for spilling 33,600 gallons of crude oil Utah's Red Butte Creek. While a lightning strike was blamed for starting the spill, poor oversight and maintenance on the part of the company contributed to the accident.


The Political Economy Research Institute ranks Chevron number 82 out of the 100 highest air polluters in the United States, emitting 3.73 million pounds of toxic chemicals in 2006. The burden of the company's polluting facilities rests disproportionately on low income and minority communities.


In March of 2012, 17 employees from Chevron and Transocean - a company that operates drilling rigs - were barred from leaving Brazil because of their involvement in an oil spill from an offshore field owned by Chevron. Chevron is rapidly expanding its offshore operations in Brazil, which is known for its difficult deepwater driling conditions. The company hopes that development of the Brazilian offshore oil fields will make Chevron one of the largest oil producers in the world, rivalling Iran and Venezuela's nationally owned oil companies.

http://www.polluterwatch.com/chevron
 
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Chevron does not plan to increase production at its fire-damaged Richmond refinery after repairs are made, allowing it to forego requirements to install the newest clean-air technologies, the company said. A section of the refinery was damaged in an Aug. 6 fire, which sent a cloud of black smoke into the air and spurred thousands to seek medical treatment. The cause of the fire was a leaky, decades-old pipe that failed due to corrosion.

In documents filed last week, Chevron told the Bay Area Air Quality Management District it would repair — not replace — its existing equipment, which means the company will not be forced to adopt the industry's most advanced pollution equipment, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Still, the company said it will voluntarily cut air pollution emissions and replace about one-third of the facility's potentially leaky valves and fittings. "All repairs and replacement equipment and materials will meet or exceed applicable industry standards and codes," Nigel Hearne, the refinery's general manager, said in the filings.

Federal law dictates that refinery owners must install the best available pollution technology in use worldwide — but only when companies make large-scale changes to a facility. By choosing to replace older equipment rather than upgrade it, many oil companies are able to sidestep the pollution control upgrade requirement.

Chevron's decision comes after the Richmond City Council and air district passed resolutions calling for more advanced technologies to be installed. Gayle McLaughlin, the city's mayor, told the newspaper that Chevron should do better than the minimum required. "They should be using this opportunity to build much further along in terms of reducing emissions," she said. Chevron has estimated the damaged unit in the refinery could be back online as early as January.

http://beta.local.yahoo.com/news-da...122.41964&statecode=CA&cityname=San Francisco
 
A massive Chevron oil refinery fire that sent hundreds of people rushing to hospitals and is pushing West Coast gas prices higher was just the latest pollution incident at the facility that records show has increasingly violated air quality rules over the past five years. The refinery is one of three such facilities near San Francisco that rank among the state’s top 10 emitters of toxic chemicals, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory.


Chevron’s Richmond refinery — the scene of Monday’s fire that shrouded the area in black smoke — has been cited by San Francisco Bay area regulators for violating air regulations 93 times in the past five years. The number has increased from 15 violations in 2007 to 23 in both 2010 and 2011. The refinery is also the state’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases, according to state regulators.


The Richmond refinery produces about 150,000 barrels of gasoline a day — or 16 percent of the West Coast’s daily gasoline consumption of 963,000 barrels, said Tom Kloza, chief oil analyst at Oil Price Information Service. With inventories of gasoline in the region already low compared with the rest of the country, pump prices on the West Coast will soon average more than $4 a gallon, Kloza said. This week’s disruption in production quickly sent the price of a gallon of regular gasoline in California up 3 cents, said analyst Patrick DeHaan of the website GasBuddy.com.


Investigations continued Wednesday into Chevron’s response to the fire and the effectiveness of Contra Costa County’s emergency warning system. The U.S. Chemical Safety Board, a federal agency, sent a seven-member team to look into possible exposure of workers after vapor ignited and caused the fire. Monday wasn’t the first time Richmond residents had received shelter-in-place orders to stay in their homes and close the doors and windows after fires or accidents at nearby refineries. They were anxious about the latest fire, and reports of a minor, secondary fire at the refinery on Wednesday only magnified concerns.


“Events like this most recent fire are a trigger for a longstanding mistrust of Chevron,” said Jason Corburn, a University of California, Berkeley public health and urban planning professor. “People feel these spikes in air pollutants, and feel these dangerous events in the context of the daily (air quality issues) that don’t show up on county air monitors.” The Richmond facility is not the biggest violator of air quality laws among the region’s five oil refineries, but it has been cited for violating air regulations numerous times. Some of the violations remain under investigation for determination of penalties. Chevron spokeswoman Melissa Ritchie said in an email that the refinery “places the highest priority on the health and safety of our work force, our neighbors and the protection of the environment.” “We know our ability to do so is dependent on a proven capability to operate safely and in an environmentally sound way,” she wrote.


Some of the San Francisco Bay area’s other refineries have more violations than Chevron. The most involved a Valero-owned refinery in nearby Benicia, which has 222 violations over the same five-year period. A Shell refinery in Martinez, a few miles east of the Chevron facility, posted the fewest violations with 83. Not all of the air violations were for exceeding legal limits on pollution emissions, said Brian Bateman, the district’s health and science officer. Some, he said, can be for bad record-keeping or other administrative problems, as well as equipment problems.


While the sprawling Chevron refinery has produced much of the West Coast’s daily gasoline supply over the past dozen years, it has also emitted an average of 543,155 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air annually, according to EPA data. In 2010, all of the state’s toxic emitters, including hazardous waste disposal sites combined, released more than 9 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air. Still, most releases, when mixed with the cleaner air surrounding the refineries, fall below thresholds considered dangerous to human health, Bateman said. Chevron paid $170,000 to the air district for all of its violations between 2005 and 2009 after reaching a settlement. The total amount of fines for more recent violations has not been determined.

The federal Clean Air Act sets limits on pollutants that refineries and other emitters can release and imposes penalties for violations. Local air districts enforce the law.


While some of the region’s 27 air monitoring station’s detected an uptick in pollution during Monday’s fire, further laboratory testing confirmed that the levels did not pose a significant health concern, the air district said. Fires and accidents over the years have inspired community protests and litigation.

A court recently blocked Chevron’s plans to expand the facility, after a lawsuit from community groups alleged Chevron had not properly determined the potential health impacts. “The fact that we’ve had two major fires in the last five years is unacceptable and symptomatic of Chevron’s tenuous relationship with the community,” said Roger Kim, executive director of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network.



http://www.foxrio2.com/59651/chevrons-pollution-problem-sent-hundreds-to-hospital/
 
[h=1]BP Gulf of Mexico Case May Last to 2015 - Report[/h]
British oil giant BP PLC (BP) could remain tangled in litigation over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill until 2015, the Telegraph reports Sunday.Last week, BP reached an agreement with U.S. authorities to accept criminal responsibility for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers and to pay $4.5 billion in fines and restitution, the biggest penalty ever levied by the U.S. Justice Department.
However, the oil major still faces civil litigation for the pollution caused by the incident, which caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
BP stands accused of gross negligence in the Gulf of Mexico disaster and if found guilty could face fines of up to $20 billion under the Clean Water Act, about four times more than if the company is found simply to have been negligent.
The case is set to go before a federal judge in New Orleans in February.
"If something were to happen at the trial that read across to gross negligence we would certainly take that to appeal, which would probably take you out to 2014 or 2015," BP's chief financial officer Brian Gilvary told analysts, the Telegraph reports.


Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/201...o-case-may-last-to-2015-report/#ixzz2Cb0Ofuv6
 
Rune said:
BP Gulf of Mexico Case May Last to 2015 - Report


British oil giant BP PLC (BP) could remain tangled in litigation over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill until 2015, the Telegraph reports Sunday.Last week, BP reached an agreement with U.S. authorities to accept criminal responsibility for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster that killed 11 workers and to pay $4.5 billion in fines and restitution, the biggest penalty ever levied by the U.S. Justice Department.
However, the oil major still faces civil litigation for the pollution caused by the incident, which caused the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.
BP stands accused of gross negligence in the Gulf of Mexico disaster and if found guilty could face fines of up to $20 billion under the Clean Water Act, about four times more than if the company is found simply to have been negligent.
The case is set to go before a federal judge in New Orleans in February.
"If something were to happen at the trial that read across to gross negligence we would certainly take that to appeal, which would probably take you out to 2014 or 2015," BP's chief financial officer Brian Gilvary told analysts, the Telegraph reports.


Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/news/201...o-case-may-last-to-2015-report/#ixzz2Cb0Ofuv6
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Proof positive that shrimps are more important to you than brown people or furriners come to that!! I bet that you'd never heard of Piper Alpha until I mentioned it, 167 people died yet ignorant Yankee arseholes like you have never heard of it. There was nearly an accident in Nigeria back in January which could easily dwarfed Deepwater Horizon and it was almost an exact rerun, even down to a wrongly interpreted gas emission and a faulty blowout preventer. That ignorant cunt Topspin claimed that Chevron operates to far higher standards than BP yet the exact same thing happened nearly two years after the Deepwater spill.

IF you want to stop oil spills in the Gulf then you will have to ban offshore oil drilling as it will happen again without any doubt. At least the fuckwit can't use that crock of shit anymore.
 
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