Shell Oil announced Thursday that it is suspending efforts to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean in 2014. The announcement came as the company’s new CEO Ben van Beurden addressed investors to confirm that the company’s fourth-quarter profits had dropped by 71 percent to $2.1 billion.
I just heard today that Exxon's profits (didn't hear if that was annual or quarterly) were down 16%. According to the analyst, this was due to "all the low-hanging fruit oil reserves being used" [depleted?] and other reserves increasingly difficult--and expensive!--to reach--Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, South America, etc--well, the whole story was so sad I was about to donate my next paycheck to "Oil Companies Relief Fund." However, the oil analyst did say that oil companies would continue to be profitable, perhaps just not so much so.
ReplyDeleteWith Shell's and Exxon's profits in decline, easy-to-reach reserves gone, and our second Polar Vortex in 30 days, you might think you'd hear whispers, a verbal cue or two, something--somewhere--sometime about how sorry they are they denied climate change for so long, or at least a hint that they might be allowing for the possibility that there might be something like climate change, however oblique and vaguely worded, but NO.
No climate change, no global warming, certainly no mention of peak oil or even the suggestion that oil might be a finite resource. No, nada, nothing, zip and zippity-doo-dah. Oil business as usual.