Shell news stories on Newser

Shell Sues Greens Over Arctic Drilling

Rob Quinn — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 02:01:30 CST

Lawyers for Shell filed suit against more than a dozen environmental groups yesterday over Arctic drilling. The suit, an unusual preemptive legal strike, seeks to head off future lawsuits by having a federal court declare that Shell's Arctic oil spill response plan for upcoming drilling complies with the law, the...

Xena Actress Arrested After 3 Days on Oil Ship

Evann Gastaldo — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 08:25:05 CST

Lucy Lawless was arrested today in New Zealand along with five other Greenpeace members, three days after they boarded an oil-drilling ship that had been contracted by Shell. Lawless, aka Xena: Warrior Princess , occupied the vessel to protest its plan to do exploratory drilling off Alaska. "This chapter has ended,...

Xena Star Occupies Oil Ship

Rob Quinn — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 03:53:00 CST

Xena Warrior Princess star Lucy Lawless is back in battle, this time against oil drilling in the Arctic. Lawless and six other Greenpeace activists slipped past port security in New Zealand and boarded an Arctic-bound Shell drilling vessel. The activists, who have scaled a derrick on the ship, say they...

UK Consulted Big Oil Before Iraq Invasion

Rob Quinn — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 03:21:16 CDT

Contrary to official denials, British oil firms were jockeying for a share of Iraq's oil wealth the year before Britain took a leading role in the 2003 invasion, newly released documents reveal. Government ministers held at least five top-level meetings with execs from BP and Shell in late 2002, and...

Arctic Drilling to be Suspended

Rob Quinn — Thu, 27 May 2010 05:35:00 CDT

Shell is going to have to wait, baby, wait to get its hands on new sources of Arctic oil. The Obama administration plans to suspend exploratory drilling in the Arctic Ocean until 2011 at the earliest because of the problems exposed by the Gulf oil spill, a source tells AP...

Bush Cabinet Member in Criminal Inquiry

Jason Farago — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 06:40:37 CDT

The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation into whether Gale Norton illegally used her power as secretary of the Interior to obtain three oil contracts for Royal Dutch Shell—which only months later hired her as a legal counsel. The 2006 decision to award Shell leases on oil-rich federal...

Shell Settles Nigeria Case for $15.5M

Jason Farago — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 05:40:00 CDT

Royal Dutch Shell agreed to settle a lawsuit over the 1995 deaths of Ken Saro-Wiwa and other Nigerians for $15.5 million, reports the Financial Times . Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists against petroleum exploitation were executed by the Nigerian military government, allegedly at the behest of the oil giant. In...

Shell Accused of Crimes Against Humanity

Jason Farago — Fri, 22 May 2009 07:18:15 CDT

Next week Royal Dutch Shell will finally appear in court to answer charges that it was complicit in the death of Ken Saro-Wiwa, the author and oil company critic executed by Nigeria's former military regime in 1995. Saro-Wiwa's family accuses the oil company of "a systemic campaign of human rights...

Iraq Dumps Western Oil Deals

Rob Quinn — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 03:04:32 CDT

Iraq has scrubbed plans to award six coveted no-bid contracts to Western oil companies, the New York Times reports. Negotiations with the oil giants—including Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP and others—dragged on for too long, said Iraq's foreign minister. The companies would have been unable to complete work...