Shell Has No Case To Answer On Nigeria | newmatilda.com:
On Thursday last week, the United States Supreme Court delivered a judgment that rewrites the rules on international human rights litigation.
In Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum the Court decided that an idiosyncratic US law dating from 1789, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), does not apply to events that occur in the territories of other states. The ATS has been used by victims of human rights abuses around the globe to seek a remedy for their harms in US courts.
This is a significant blow not only to the plaintiffs in this case. It is a blow to human rights enforcement more broadly. Human rights advocates are now left asking, "Where next?"
The Kiobel case addressed the right of a group of Nigerian nationals to sue Dutch, UK and Nigerian companies (known collectively as Shell) in US courts for aiding and abetting human rights violations — including torture, extrajudicial executions, and crimes against humanity. The plaintiffs were victims of violence directed against them by the Nigerian military in the 1990s for protesting the operations of the foreign companies in their communities.
On Thursday last week, the United States Supreme Court delivered a judgment that rewrites the rules on international human rights litigation.
In Kiobel v Royal Dutch Petroleum the Court decided that an idiosyncratic US law dating from 1789, the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), does not apply to events that occur in the territories of other states. The ATS has been used by victims of human rights abuses around the globe to seek a remedy for their harms in US courts.
This is a significant blow not only to the plaintiffs in this case. It is a blow to human rights enforcement more broadly. Human rights advocates are now left asking, "Where next?"
The Kiobel case addressed the right of a group of Nigerian nationals to sue Dutch, UK and Nigerian companies (known collectively as Shell) in US courts for aiding and abetting human rights violations — including torture, extrajudicial executions, and crimes against humanity. The plaintiffs were victims of violence directed against them by the Nigerian military in the 1990s for protesting the operations of the foreign companies in their communities.
On Wednesday, December 21, SkyTruth
obtained a radar satellite image showing a major oil spill in the
waters off the coast of Nigeria. The image, taken at approximately
9:30am local time on December 21, 2011 by the ASAR instrument aboard
the Envisat satellite operated by the European Space Agency, reveals a
slick covering 923 square kilometers (356 square miles).
The image may be viewed and downloaded from the SkyTruth blog.
Photo Damian Kelly
Posts
After years of talk from Barnett on him being able "...to look black kids in the eye",anyone would think he would have done something about this by now.
ReplyDeleteSummit called over suicides
A Perth Aboriginal corporation has organised a "crisis summit" for next month in response to what it says is an alarming sudden rise in indigenous suicides during the past four months.
Robert Eggington, director of Dumbartung Aboriginal Corporation, said it heard "almost fortnightly" from communities about a suicide, usually of a young person.
He said about six weeks ago a young girl, who he believed was 15, had taken her own life. He said the ages of those taking their own lives went through to men in Perth in their early 30s.
"In Mowanjum (near Derby) the other day there was another death, of a 12-year-old girl," Mr Eggington said. "One woman in Esperance has lost three children to this epidemic."
The corporation has invited State and Federal governments, WA Police and judicial figures to a three-hour meeting on May 21 to discuss the current strategies and funding for suicide prevention.
"The question must be asked, if these services are working, why then are the statistics and the death rate of our people through suicide remaining at the highest in the world," Mr Eggington said.
He and his wife Selina, who runs an Aboriginal loss and grief program at the corporation based in Waterford, lost their 27-year-old son Bob three years ago when he took his own life.
Mr Eggington said the lack of support for grieving families had prompted the creation of a "mourning room", with pictures of applicants to the State Government's Redress scheme for abuse victims, many of whom had been affected by suicide.
Premier Colin Barnett last week admitted the billions of dollars the Government had spent on Aboriginals was not achieving the improvement it wanted, prompting it to create an Aboriginal affairs Cabinet subcommittee.
"State Government expenditure on services for Aboriginal people was about $2.3 billion in 2010-11, or approximately $30, 000 per person," the Premier told Parliament on April 17.
"Despite this reform and investment, outcomes for Aboriginal West Australians are unacceptable.
"Mortality rates are 2� times higher and suicide rates are three times higher."
Mental Health Minister Helen Morton and Indigenous Affairs Minister Peter Collier said they could not attend the crisis meeting between noon and 3pm because the Legislative Council was sitting from 3pm.
They will send representatives.
If you or someone you know is thinking of suicide call Lifeline on 13 11 14
Are all eyes still on JPP?
ReplyDeleteOr will some of Broomes business community wake up to what we have here?
Barnett give up the CA and port and lets get on with it....already!
Air deal a bonanza for Broome
The alliance between Qantas and Emirates has seen airline bookings to regional cities such as Broome leap threefold.
According to Qantas, since selling tickets on the joint network started in January, Emirates customers from Britain, Europe, North Africa, South-East Asia and the Middle East have bought three times as many fares to regional centres, including Coffs Harbour, Broome and Cairns, as under the previous partnership with British Airways.
Qantas executive manager of international sales Stephen Thompson said inbound tourism would benefit from Emirates selling seamless itineraries to some of Australia's most popular regional centres.
"As a result of our partnership with Emirates, our regional centres are being promoted to a bigger audience than ever before," Mr Thompson said. "We have already seen strong bookings for new code-share destinations across Australia including Broome, Townsville, Darwin, Launceston, Alice Springs, Devonport, Rockhampton and the Gold Coast."
Very scary....we may have only 2 years left!
ReplyDeleteProfessor joins fight to save Arctic
In a room at the White House next week, an extraordinary meeting of the brightest minds will attempt to form a strategy to curb climate change's crippling effects on the Arctic.
Amid fears the top of the planet could be free of summer ice within two years, the meeting has been organised by a US brains trust on the Arctic that includes NASA's chief scientist, the director of the US National Science Foundation, representatives from the US Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon. Joining them in Washington will be Professor Carlos Duarte, a marine scientist from Perth, who is one of 10 researchers from around the world called on to help protect the Arctic.
Professor Duarte, who leads the University of WA's Oceans Institute, warned the Arctic was suffering and the "snowballing" situation would prove as hard to slow down as a runaway train.
He said melting of the ice was accelerating faster than any of the models could predict and the prospect of an Arctic Ocean free of ice had been brought forward to 2015, compared with a prediction in 2007 that at least one-third of the normal extent of sea ice would remain in summer in 2100.
"The more ice melts, the more methane is released to the atmosphere, further propelling climate change," Professor Duarte said.
At the White House meeting, he and other scientists have been asked to come up with scenarios that will inform research program on changes in the Arctic and the impacts on Arctic ecosystems.The Arctic is thought to be warming twice as fast as NASA's calculation of a 0.8C rise in temperatures globally since 1880.
More methane than we could ever burn - so why not stop the fracking?
ReplyDeleteWHY THE CANNING BASIN GAS WILL HAVE TO STAY IN THE GROUND FOREVER.
The plans to frack the Fitzroy Valley and the Dampier peninsular could all turn out to be a repeat of the senseless destruction of JPP.
Given the time frame of many years of drilling and fracking by dozens of huge rigs to get to a production level it is very likely they will create a huge amount of destruction all for nothing.
The reason for this is plain,there are enormous reserves of methane that could be developed and compete with fracking.Methane hydrates.
The math is simple,Japan gets into this within 7 years.China the same.BUT the US,especially Alaska,gets stuck into it as well and on top of their already vast reserves of fracked methane and KABOOM - Buru and co. can kiss their ass goodbye.It will not be oversupply it will be a flood.
Here is a very "unintelligent report" to backup this theory :
(especially given the state of the Artic - from above article : "He said melting of the ice was accelerating faster than any of the models could predict and the prospect of an Arctic Ocean free of ice had been brought forward to 2015, compared with a prediction in 2007 that at least one-third of the normal extent of sea ice would remain in summer in 2100.
"The more ice melts, the more methane is released to the atmosphere, further propelling climate change..."
..
"The Unintelligent Report"
ReplyDelete..
Ice Gas: A Step Closer to Commercial Production
The news in early March that a Japanese company had finally successfully extracted natural gas from methane hydrate deposits under the seabed offshore Japan was hailed as a breakthrough for the energy industry around the world. There are large deposits of methane hydrate, or "ice gas", in several locations around the planet which means, if successfully exploited, they could bring to many regions around the world the low gas prices currently seen in North America as a result of the shale gas boom.
Japan Oil, Gas and Metals National Corporation (JOGMEC) reported March 12 that it successfully extracted natural gas from methane hydrate deposits from around 1,000 feet under the seabed offshore Japan.
Methane hydrate is a compound in which a large amount of methane is trapped within a crystal structure made up of water, so forming a solid that is similar to ice in its composition (although it looks like slush). For methane hydrate deposits to form the right conditions in terms of pressures and temperatures are required. These conditions are normally found in four kinds of environment:
•Sediment and sedimentary rock under Arctic permafrost
•Sedimentary deposits along continental margins
•Deepwater sediments of seas and lakes (e.g. the fresh water Lake Baijal, Siberia)
•Beneath Antarctic ice
There are some 40 trillion cubic feet of methane held in methane hydrate deposits under the sea in the eastern Nankai Trough, off the southern coast of the Japanese island of Honshu, according to JOGMEC. This is equivalent to around 11 years of the amount of liquefied natural gas that is currently imported into Japan.
JOGMEC has been working at the Daini Atsumi Knoll, off the coasts of the Atsumi and Shima Peninsula since February 2012. After acquiring pressurized core samples last summer, the company began an experimental flow test in March this year, successfully yielding gas from the methane hydrate deposits.
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While the Japanese government says that it is now planning a three-year study into how much ice gas it has within its territorial waters in the Japan Sea, a number of other countries have also been looking to exploit methane hydrate resources.
For example, last August, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced funding for 13 research projects across 11 U.S. states to help develop methane hydrate deposits as an energy source. At the time, U.S. Energy Secretary Dr. Steven Chu commented that although research on methane hydrates is still at an early stage, these research efforts could one day yield the same kind of benefits achieved by the shale gas boom after the country invested in researching shale gas in the 1970s and 80s.
Meanwhile, China is also investing millions of dollars into the study of methane hydrates.
cont...
ReplyDeleteImmense Energy Content
The energy content of methane occurring in hydrate form is immense and could exceed the combined energy content of all other known fossil fuels (one cubic foot of methane hydrate contains approximately 160 cubic feet of natural gas), according to the U.S. DOE. But there is still the question of how big future production volumes could be. This is what the current project by JOGMEC should go some way towards determining, as will certain projects that the DOE is funding.
One of the projects that the DOE is helping to fund is being carried out Georgia Tech Research Corporation. This organization was granted $626,000 for a project that aims to understand the behavior of gas hydrates hosted in fine-grained sediments such as clay or silt, including how to evaluate extraction methods that could be used to produce gas from such sediments.
The U.S. government's strong research interest in methane hydrates is not surprising given that the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has identified several accumulations of methane hydrates offshore United States and Central America. Meanwhile, in the North Slope of Alaska the USGS estimates a mean resource of some 85 trillion cubic feet of natural gas held within methane hydrate deposits.
As well as offshore Japan and the Russian Far East, accumulations of methane hydrates have also been discovered in the Black Sea and off the coast of West Africa. But there are plenty of other locations around the world where methane hydrates are thought likely to occur.
............
So it is very simple,the US builds more export terminals because objections to US fracked gas exports stop as the huge reserves are ready to be exploited - more methane than the US could ever burn - and with Japan exploiting theirs that's it - GAME OVER!
...........
Australia to Ban Shale Mining Under Great Barrier Reef
...."World heritage principals on mineral extraction are absolutely clear," the newspaper quotes Mr. Burke as saying. "You can't extract minerals or oil from under the Great Barrier Reef."
Queensland Energy said it has no plans to mine shale reserves below the high tide line, the Guardian added.
....
Main Pass US Floating LNG export project signs preliminary supply deal with India
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Main Pass Energy Hub, a US Floating LNG export project to be located offshore Louisiana, has signed an initial agreement with Petronet LNG to supply cargoes to India by 2018.
...
Italy’s Eni completes Mozambique LNG assessment and upgrades gas reserves
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
Italian energy company Eni raised its feed-gas reserve estimate after completing the appraisal campaign of its discoveries in Area 4 offshore Mozambique that will underpin the huge LNG project being developed with Anadarko Petroleum of the US and other shareholders in two licences.
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Shell-led US Elba Island LNG export project progresses with environment assessment
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
The Elba Island liquefaction project in the state of Georgia, led by Royal Dutch Shell and US pipeline company Kinder Morgan, is making progress with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issuing a notice that it will prepare an environmental assessment.
...
cont...
ReplyDeleteNoble reports steady income and higher East Med feed-gas reserves for LNG
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Noble Energy, the developer of LNG projects in the Eastern Mediterranean from resources offshore Israel, reported first-quarter net income of $261 million compared $232M in the year-ago period.
...
LNG engineer Technip sees higher profit and orders even as some projects delayed
Thursday, 25 April 2013
Technip, the France-based energy engineering company now specializing in Floating LNG projects, said first-quarter net income rose even as some companies delayed ventures because of rising costs.
...
Woodside,(long the undisputed kings of the "Great Australian Offset",must be asking themselves,"Why?Oh why?").
Chevron makes 21st feed-gas discovery for its LNG projects in Western Australian
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
Chevron Corp. announced further drilling success by its Australian subsidiary in the Exmouth Plateau area, located in the Carnarvon Basin not far from the Gorgon LNG project.
...
Sweeteners?Now who do we know likes these....hmmmmm..?
Fracking firms should offer sweeteners to locals, say MPs
Energy committee says UK shale resources should be exploited but 'that looks difficult, given local opposition'
Shale gas fracking companies should be made to offer incentives, such as cash payments or rebates on energy bills, to people living near their sites, according to an influential committee of MPs.
But the demand for sweeteners to help overcome opposition to fracking came as one of the world's leading insurance groups warned that those drilling in shale areas, deep waters or the Arctic risked "company-killing" reputational and environmental damage.
The energy and climate change committee says on Friday that substantial incentives would be needed to overcome local opposition to shale gas drilling, which has been associated with water, ground and air pollution in the US, and which green groups say is incompatible with moving to a low-carbon energy supply. The MPs also warn that, even if fracking does take place on a wide scale in Britain, there is no guarantee it will lower energy bills.
...
So my assumption is exactly the same argument as for JPP - wrong place wrong time - there is the financial leverage to worry investors,go the Traditional Custodians,go the Greenies!
Hello cattle companies and farmers and growers.