Phillip Inman The Observer, Sunday 22 January 2012 When even successful companies such as Shell and Unilever are taking an axe to staff retirement packages, is the outlook bleak for everyone? Unilever, the maker of everything from Pot Noodles to Dove soap, has infuriated its staff by cutting pension payouts despite being highly profitable. [...]
Posts under ‘The Observer’
Shell’s battle for the heart of Ireland
Ed Vulliamy: The Observer, Sunday 29 May 2011 This land is our land: pipeline protesters Willie and Mary Corduff at the quay at Rossport. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod for the Observer If the sea is calm, you can hear the traffic in New York,” goes the local introduction to the breathtaking beauty of Erris, in the [...]
Anger grows across the world at the real price of ‘frontier oil’
Far from the Gulf of Mexico, campaigners are accusing energy companies of destroying land and livelihoods in the search for increasingly scarce resources A woman hurries away from the heat of a gas flare near a flow station belonging to Shell in Warri, Nigeria. Photograph: George Osodi/AP Richard Wachman and John Stibbs Sunday 20 June [...]
Problems with big oil that won’t go away
The Deepwater Horizon spill, which is threatening swaths of the Gulf of Mexico’s coast, again raises questions about how rigorously safety and environmental regulations are enforced Tim Webb The Observer, Sunday 2 May 2010 Washington, 5am, Tuesday: a tired Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, was finally patched on to the conference call. At the [...]
Shell and BP face onslaught from tar sands campaigners
Lobbyists bid to turn RBS, BP and Shell annual meetings into green referendums
Shell accused of abandoning solar power buyers in the developing world
Row over responsibility for sold-off systems has left Sri Lankan communities unable to replace faulty equipment Terry Macalister The Observer, Sunday 3 January 2010 Shell is at the centre of a row over warranties for solar power systems sold to the developing world. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images Shell has become embroiled in a major row [...]
Peak oil: the summit that dominates the horizon
The big international companies such as BP and ExxonMobil are struggling to find enough new oil to replace their exploited reserves year-on-year and Shell found itself on the end of a major fine for exaggerating its reserves report to the Securities & Exchange Commission in the US.
Revealed: how Shell won the fight for Libyan gas and oil
Documents reveal orchestrated campaign by ministers, mandarins and royalty Terry Macalister The Observer, Sunday 30 August 2009 Marsa El-Brega was once a tiny Libyan fishing village on the most southerly tip of the Mediterranean – now it is a thriving port handling 300 ocean-going ships a year and, with the help of Shell, is poised [...]
Shell Upstream International Executive Director Malcolm Brinded named in Libyan intrigue
Secret documents uncover UK’s interest in Libyan oil Negotiations fuel rumours of commercial deal behind Megrahi’s release Terry Macalister The Observer, Sunday 30 August 2009 Libya has been courted by Prince Charles, government ministers and Foreign Office mandarins on a dozen or more occasions in pursuit of lucrative oil and gas contracts. Documents obtained by [...]
Villagers flee Niger Delta fighting as Saro-Wiwa settlement raises hopes
Nick Mathiason The Observer, Sunday 14 June 2009 Tens of thousands of villagers in the Niger Delta are again picking up the pieces after the most intense violence in the oil-producing region for months, if not years. Military attacks, targeted at the feared guerrilla army known as the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta [...]
Angry shareholders ambush the top pay bandwagon
Its managing director, Alan MacDougall, says that if Shell, for instance, fails to put its house in order, ministers will need to “rewrite the corporate governance rulebook” and make majority shareholder votes at annual meetings binding on management.
Shell board told to pay back bonuses
The backlash against executive pay took a dramatic new turn this weekend when shareholder activists demanded that Royal Dutch Shell directors return their bonuses.
They also called for the resignation of Sir Peter Job, the former senior Reuters executive who chairs the energy multinational’s remuneration committee.
Revealed: bosses’ huge pension pots: Jeroen van der Veer to receive £1,189,285 per year
Two directors have already amassed pension funds which will pay them more than £1m a year on retirement. Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, has accrued a nest egg worth almost £1.2m;
Reveal carbon risks, oil firms told
Oil giants involved in the exploitation of tar sand fields face calls this week to disclose future carbon liabilities. Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) and environmental charity WWF-UK are launching a campaign for a legal requirement for companies including Shell and BP to include this information in financial reporting.
Solar power companies in plea to maintain green jobs
Several major energy companies, including Shell, BP and Centrica, have said they will axe or reconsider investment in “low carbon” energy such as wind and solar power and carbon capture for coal-fired power stations.
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