DEC 05

Wow, I guess i never thought about how the gas companys were directly effecting the environment not just us putting around in our cars. Do you know if there is one major gas company over another that is more eco concerned that i should support instead of Chevron? Granted i wish i didnt have to support any of them but which is the lesser of all the evils?

I'd like to know as well.

This news is just depressing. They should be prosecuted by the rest of the world for this. WHAT...THE...HELL...

Well that just sucks. My home country is being harmed by those idiots. What depressing news, Hank.

Wait, who did the damage Shell or Chevron? The title says Chevron but the article mentions Shell having to pay for the damage. I did a quick search and they seem to be two separate entities so which company is actually the offender?

The Ecuadorean government knew what was happening. Those who allowed it to happen should also be prosecuted. It's time for Ecuadoreans to hold themselves accountable, and stop blaming other entities for their ills.

Do people destroy third world environments to feed the addiction to oil? People do.

"And if it only costs shell $27 B to clean it up..."

I thought this article was about Chevron.

Seeing as it's shell with a lower case s (as apposed to Shell), and it's in the context of money, I think it may be a grammatical error of the phrase "to shell out" (i.e. to pay) being warped. Also, there's no mention of Shell in the sourced article.

And I agree with Carlos A, the government knew about this, and let them dump the waste there, so they should bear some of the responsibility as well.

Technically Chevron had nothing to do with this. It was TEXACO that caused all the damage; Chevron simply acquired responsibility for it when they acquired Texaco. I can't understand why a large corporation spending a truckload of money to buy another company wouldn't, you know, check into their background first. Tsk to Chevron for that...now they have to pay the consequences. But what Carlos A said is very true. The government was well aware of what was taking place and they chose to turn a blind eye for whatever reason. They are as corrupt as anyone else involved and should be handed heavy blame accordingly.

"18 billion gallons of toxic waste" more detail required. what is the chemical composition of this toxic waste and what were its origins, what is the name of the manager/executive who authorised the dumping. else this story sound like a flight of someones fantasy.

Here's a link to a press release just issued by Amazon Watch about this very real disaster in the Ecuadorian Amazon: http://www.chevrontoxico.com/article.php?id=491

Shareholders, Wall Street Concerned Over Chevron’s $27 Billion Environmental Liability in Ecuador

Latest In Long Series of Setbacks for Oil Giant

San Francisco (December 8, 200 – An increase in Chevron’s potential environmental liability in Ecuador to $27 billion is causing concern among Wall Street analysts and shareholders that the oil giant has failed to set aside sufficient reserves and has not fully disclosed its risk for what could be one of the largest civil judgments in history, according to a group closely monitoring the trial.

At 247WallStreet.com, which provides insight and commentary for U.S. and global equity investors, analyst Paul Ausick expressed concern, writing: “[Chevron] has made no estimate of potential losses in this case nor has it reserved any funds to pay for damages, so it had better win.”

The new $27 billion figure, revised last week from $16 billion primarily because of new evidence about groundwater contamination and oil-related cancers, is the latest in a series of setbacks for Chevron in the class action case. In October, a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit unanimously denied Chevron’s attempt to force Ecuador’s government to accept responsibility for the contamination. In September, two Chevron lawyers and seven former Ecuadorian government officials were indicted in Ecuador on fraud charges relating to a purported remediation in the mid 1990s that was used to try to get the case dismissed.

Also in October, Ecuador’s bilateral trade preferences were renewed by the U.S. Congress despite a concerted lobbying effort by Chevron to block their extension as a way to influence the outcome of the Ecuador trial. The SEC earlier had opened a probe of the company to determine compliance with disclosure obligations relating to the case.

The trial is in Ecuador at Chevron’s request after the case was filed in U.S. federal court in 1993 by 30,000 plaintiffs alleging that Texaco (bought by Chevron in 2001) created one of the worst oil-related contaminations on the planet.

Several institutional shareholders who own Chevron stock or follow the company expressed concern about the company’s approach to its Ecuador problem:

o Shelly Alpern, who represents Trillium Asset Management in Boston, said the announcement of the $27 billion claim, “is the latest in a series of setbacks for Chevron related to the litigation.”

Alpern added: “We believe Chevron’s management thought it could keep this case hidden from investors, a strategy that has backfired miserably because it failed to recognize the magnitude of public interest in the case worldwide… It is time for Chevron to rethink what can be gained by continuing to fight what seems to be an increasingly inevitable and embarrassing judgment of enormous financial magnitude.”

o Newground Social Investment released a statement referencing the $27 billion figure that said: “Profligate and risky behavior of this sort must be reined in – both for straightforward decency and human value considerations, but also because it damages long-term financial liability.”

o Jack Ucciferri, an investor with Harrington Investments in California, said in reference to the damages claim: “It seems it is time for Chevron’s directors to get this issue behind them and take the company in a new direction… Unfortunately for [Chevron management]… this Ecuador liability of roughly $27 billion threatens to wipe out more than a full year of profit. And if that number isn’t scary enough for shareholders, apparently Chevron has not reserved any funds to cover that potential liability.”

o Sanford Lewis, an attorney and expert in corporate disclosure rules, said Chevron now has the “duty to update their shareholders on the late $11 billion increase in projected liability. Also, since they have asserted these figures are not a good estimate of their actual exposure, it seems to be high time for the company to provide either a worst case or best estimate if their legal and factual assumptions fail to be accurate.”

In private documents used as part of its Washington lobbying campaign, Chevron had indicated several months ago that it was expecting a “significant adverse judgment” in the case. “But the company has not disclosed that bleak assessment in its public filings with the SEC as required by law,” said Mitch Anderson, Corporate Accountability Campaigner at Amazon Watch, an environmental organization that has been monitoring the trial.

Chevron for the first time in May mentioned the long-running case in its SEC filings but downplayed the risk claiming the expert report is not an “adequate” basis for a damages claim and that the company could not estimate the potential loss. “Such a statement contradicts what Chevron management is saying privately in other forums about the nature of the actual risk,” said Anderson.

The lawsuit charges that Texaco deliberately dumped billions of gallons of toxic waste into Amazon waterways and abandoned more than 900 waste pits, creating a public health catastrophe and decimating five indigenous groups over an area the size of Rhode Island. Texaco was the sole operator of a concession in the area from 1964 to 1990 that included 378 wells and oil production facilities.

Chevron now claims it is the victim of an unfair trial process, but the plaintiffs counter that the scientific evidence found by the court expert indicates all 94 Chevron sites inspected during the trial are contaminated with life-threatening carcinogens. A group of U.S. scientists who have reviewed the damages assessment called the $27 billion figure reasonable compared to large clean-ups in the U.S., and concluded that the methods used by the expert and his team of 14 technical experts were sound.

Since Texaco left the region, Ecuador’s state-owned oil company has taken over the oil fields and significantly improved environmental standards, although problems remain, according to the plaintiffs.

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The governor of Ecuador has changed ten times in the past 15 years or so. The government in place at the time Texaco was dumping toxic water and oil into the Amazon rainforest was, in all likelihood, paid off by Texaco to let them destroy the rainforest, where only indigenous people lived. Oil companies have been in bed with Latin American governments for a long time. It's only recently that that has changed. Read The Savages.

Chevron is acting like it has done nothing wrong in the rainforest of Ecuador. Texaco (Chevron bought Texaco in 2001) dumped over 18 billion gallons of oil and toxic water into the streams. Today the drinking water is contaminated and over 1,000 people have died from cancer and thousands more are sick with skin disease and respiratory illness. If you want to find out more about what is surely the largest environmental disaster on the planet, read this blog, http://www.thechevronpit.blogspot.com and this article, http://www.http://latimesblogs...eps-u.html

Thats what these oil companys do after oil spils they would rather get fined then to pay for the clean up.

Hey Hank,

I saw your post on Chevron/Ecuador and I thought you might want to join Ethos Alliance for a really good environmental / social cause -- www.ethosalliance.org. It's a new organization that's helping provide humanitarian relief for thousands of Ecuadorians affected by the worst oil contamination disaster in history. You can follow them on Twitter too @ethosalliance.