Energy, Mining & Utilities

Two senior Tanzanian officials were arrested after they failed to produce details of 26 multi-billion dollar agreements signed with Statoil of Norway; the BG Group and Ophir from the UK; and ExxonMobil from the U.S. Opposition politicians want assurances that the money will be spent in a transparent manner. Read More

Indigenous activists burned down a bridge in British Columbia, Canada, to prevent Imperial Metals from starting a lead and zinc mine on the lands of the Secwepemc peoples. Local tribes say that the mine may severely impact the one of the largest remaining sockeye salmon populations in the world. Read More

The Dutch Supreme Court recently upheld an arbitration tribunal judgment requiring the Ecuadorean government to pay Chevron $106 million for breach of contract. Ironically, activists say Ecuador is now free to hand this money to indigenous communities who have sued the oil giant for pollution in an unrelated case. Read More

Kashagan, Kazakhstan's flagship offshore oil project in the Caspian Sea, will need to spend some $4 billion to repair 200 kilometres of pipelines that are leaking corrosive sulphur-containing gas, according to new estimates. The reports confirm long standing fears of environmental organizations and the local community. Read More

Kosmos Energy, a Texas oil company, is preparing to drill for oil in Western Sahara, a disputed territory currently controlled by Morocco. The company has dispatched a state of the art oil rig to begin operations later this year, according to Western Sahara Resource Watch (WSRW), an activist group. Read More

Paulo Roberto Costa, former head of Petrobras' refining and supply unit, has named dozens of politicians who allegedly took bribes from the Brazilian company. Costa claims that Petrobras paid out three percent of the value of new contracts to the politicians in return for favorable votes for the government. Read More

As many as 10 people have been killed by police this year at African Barrick Gold's operations in Tanzania, according to a new report from two NGOs - MiningWatch Canada and Rights and Accountability in Development (RAID) in the UK. Read More

Soco International PLC, a UK oil company, has claimed that it will halt oil exploration in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), following complaints by local communities and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) about the potential environmental impact. Read More

Fracking for oil and gas across Europe has suffered a series of setbacks with Chevron closing its offices in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Shell postponing fracking plans in the Ukraine by at least two years. Meanwhile the French government is standing firm in its opposition to fracking. Read More

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