Oil Daily
November 15, 2002 Friday
Copyright 2002 Energy Intelligence Group, Inc.

A new book funded by a green group challenges Royal Dutch/Shell's environmental and social track record and says the company "routinely practices at a high level of negligence."

"Riding The Dragon: Royal Dutch/Shell & The Fossil Fire" claims to expose dozens of environmental and community abuses committed by the Anglo-Dutch supermajor over its 100-plus year history, according to its author and backers.

One of the most serious charges is that the company has neglected to deal with a high number of health problems suffered by people living near Shell refineries or petrochemicals plants over the years. Environmental Health Fund, a Boston-based advocacy organization working to protect people's health through reducing toxic chemical exposures, provided the funding for journalist Jack Doyle's "Riding The Dragon".

"What we found was a company routinely practicing at a high level of negligence. This book is trying to challenge Shell to improve its social and environmental record," Doyle told reporters on a conference call Nov. 14.

Advocates of the book said that Shell's new-fangled image as a socially responsible and environmentally conscious oil company is a farce.

"Shell has an abysmal track record around the globe. Its glitzy, multimedia campaign to improve its image is not fooling anyone," said Denny Larson, national coordinator of the Refinery Reform Campaign (RRC), which sponsored last week's teleconference.

"Riding The Dragon" and RRC contend that people living near Shell refineries and petrochemical plants suffer from an inordinate number of health problems, including respiratory ailments, liver and kidney diseases, and cancer. Shell's US Gulf Coast plants are cited, as is the company's plant in Durban, South Africa.

In a statement, Shell said representatives from the campaign group behind "Riding The Dragon" met with Shell executives at the Shell Center in London last Tuesday.

"We are still analyzing the content of the book and considering our response to it. What we can say at this stage is that the book covers a number of historical incidents all of which have been made public before," the statement said.

"It does not appear to publish new evidence or provide a new analysis of the incidents. Nevertheless, we take all such events very seriously so that we can learn from them as we strive to improve our environmental and social performance," the Shell statement added.

Larson, who was one of the campaign members to meet with Shell last week, said that two company representatives listened to the group's list of complaints, but offered no comments or firm commitments on possible actions at that time.

"They realized that these are serious issues," Larson said. "They promised to respond to us within a matter of weeks, rather than months. It was a moving meeting."

Paul Merolli

Fair use of copyrighted material