Chevron Launches ‘Green Spin’ Campaign Ahead of Planned LNG Project in the Kimberleys

Comment

American oil giant Chevron has rolled out its controversial ‘We Agree’ campaign across Australia this month, with spots on Channel 9 and ABC television. The advertisements feature Australian actors and align the company’s corporate philosophy with community values of job creation and environmental conservation. The campaign coincides with the debate over the proposed gas hub at James Price Point in the Kimberley region, which has pitted Chevron, their Australian partners and the government against conservationists and indigenous landowners who believe the project will have devastating environmental impacts in the area.

Do we agree with the ‘We Agree’ Campaign?
The We Agree campaign was first aired on American television in October last year, in a bid to improve Chevron’s public image in its home country. Ironically, the provocative statements made in the advertisements, such as ‘it’s time oil companies get behind the development of renewable energy’ and ‘oil companies should support the communities they are part of’, aroused the cynicism of Americans and even became the target of a spoof ad campaign by comedians the ‘Yesmen’. Chevron spokesperson Rhonda Zygocki told the Wall Street Journal:

“It was a conscious decision on our part to take on some of the more frequent questions that we’re asked. The directness of this campaign we’re hoping will at least draw attention”

A History of Environmental Mismanagement
Perhaps Chevron executives were hoping to draw attention away from a disastrous, environmental track record that may damage their investment opportunities in America and overseas. Chevron, (previously Texaco), first came under public scrutiny in the mid 1990s, when the people of Ecuador accused the company of the environmental mismanagement of the Lago Agrio oilfield development that led to the discharge of 18 billion gallons of industrial waste water into the Amazon rainforest. Local farmers and health officials reported extensive damage to native forest and crops, in addition to linked, higher rates of disease among the people.

Chevron/Texaco formally agreed to a three year remediation program for the area at a cost of four million, that soil sample tests have since shown was largely unsuccessful. The government of Ecuador have levied a fine of 8.6 billion for irreversible environmental damage that Chevron has, to this date, refused to pay.
More recently in 2002, Chevron was fined two million by the people of Angola as compensation for the effects of oil spills allegedly caused by the company. In 2010, just before the roll-out of the We Agree campaign, the Chevron pipeline in Salt Lake City Utah burst, dumping over 33,000 gallons of oil into the Red Butte creek, exposing wildlife and residents to possible long-term health impacts. Remedial efforts having failed, a second rupture five months later leaked a further 21,000 gallons of oil into the river system of Salt Lake City. Chevron dismisses attempts to secure compensation for all these environmental catastrophes as ‘pure extortion’.

Chevron has now put aside its history of human and environmental exploitation and is attempting to restyle itself as a green energy company. The company’s PR arm have produced an attractive ‘biodiversity policy’ which states that:

“Protecting the safety and health of people and the environment is a Chevron core value. We undertake activities to raise internal and external awareness of the importance of conserving biodiversity”.

In keeping with their new green and humane image, Chevron have promised to invest between three and four million US dollars each year into the development of alternative fuel sources and environmentally sustainable technologies. The company has also embarked on corporate responsibility projects such as a public HIV education program in Nigeria and the funding of an elementary school in Richmond, California. However, co-author Antonia Juhasz points out in the report ‘The True Cost of Chevron’ that:

“Chevron’s business is not to develop alternative energy, social services or human rights protection, but to explore for and produce oil for profit”

In fact, since 2009 Chevron has increased its budget for oil exploration and production from 21.8 billion to 26.0 billion, while reducing its spending on alternative energy projects.

Chevron’s Investment in Australia
While Chevron are only just now introducing themselves to the Australian public through the We Agree Campaign, the company already has substantial holdings in the oil-rich Pilbara region of Western Australia. Chevron is the operator of the Gorgon oilfield project on Barrow Island which was established back in 2009.They hold the controlling interest in Gorgon at 57%, in partnership with American Exxon Mobil and Anglo-dutch Shell.

In September this year, Chevron received clearance from Premier Colin Barnett to proceed with the Wheatstone LNG project in the Pilbara and construction has begun. Chevron holds 73.6% equity in Wheatstone with Shell and expects that the project will ‘propel Chevron into the position of one of the largest LNG producers in the world’.

The recent controversy over the gas hub at James Price Point is now threatening to obstruct the previously smooth path of investment in Australia for Chevron. The company has minimized their involvement in the project with a single line announcement on their website stating simply that they are investing in the Browse Basin with partners Woodside and BHP Billington.

The results of environmental impact studies which show that the laying of a gas pipeline at James Price Point would create a marine ‘dead-zone’ and species extinctions in the area has rubbed off some of Chevron’s newly acquired ‘green sheen’ and management are hoping to influence Australian Woodside, who hold 50% in the development, to move the project to another location. A further incentive to change sites has been provided by opposition from some sections of the indigenous community in the Kimberleys, who have been threatened with the compulsory acquisition of their land for the gas hub.

The final investment decision on the James Price Point site is expected in mid 2012. In the meantime, Chevron and their partners have the task of winning back the goodwill of the Australian people through the workings of a well-oiled PR machine to further their investment agenda.

~Nienke Brand

posted by nienke on October 17, 2011 at 5:03 pm · filed under