Dozens of activists including those from Angola, Nigeria, Canada, Alaska, and the U.S. Gulf Coast traveled to San Ramon, California to attend Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting to deliver a new report: The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report. This report includes accounts by more than 40 authors and records egregious corporate behavior in locations as diverse as California, Burma, Colombia, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the Philippines and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Outside the Chevron AGM, activists joined together to fight back in protest against the dire impacts of Chevron’s reckless pursuit of profits.

Two days before Chevron’s shareholder meeting, members of communities from around the world that have been impacted by Chevron’s reckless business operations participated in a True Cost of Chevron Teach-In.

To find out more about what happened during these events, here’s info on photos, videos and press clippings for you:

PHOTOS OF CHEVRON AGM PROTEST

Check them out here on Flickr.

MEDIA CLIPPINGS

• Women Demand Environmental Justice from Chevron /Ms Magazine
• Chevron under siege at shareholder meeting in San Ramon/Mercury News
• Activists’ ‘True Cost’ report takes on Chevron/SF Gate
• Chevron critics hold protest at shareholders meeting/San Ramon Express

For more press clippings, visit our Energy Program in the News web page.

VIDEO FROM OUTSIDE THE CHEVRON AGM

Watch Videos from outside the Chevron AGM here.

Here’s one of Global Exchange Energy Program Director Antonia Juhashz:

NOW IS STILL THE TIME TO TAKE ACTION!

Get your copy of The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report. Download the report or make a $15 contribution to Global Exchange to receive a hard copy of the book.

Sign on to the petition “Leave it in the Ground: Statement against Arctic Offshore Drilling”: Please take 30 seconds to sign the petition here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 25, 2011
Contact: Antonia Juhasz
antoniajuhasz@gmail.com
415-846-5447

–Photos, Video and Interviews Available–

San Ramon, CA — Today at Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting, 22 indigenous, First Nation, and other impacted community members and supporters who had traveled to the company’s headquarters from locations around the globe and across the state confronted CEO John Watson with the brutal human and environmental abuses caused by the oil giants operations.

Watson struggled to defend his company’s record in the face of the devastating criticism from institutional investors, shareholders, and impacted community members and was instead forced to turn multiple times to pre-packed video and slideshows prepared prior to the meeting.

Outside the meeting, 150 supporters rallied in a colorful and creative protest against the company’s operations around the world and across their home state. [video footage]

Community leaders from Angola, Ecuador, Nigeria, Indonesia, the tarsands of Canada, Alaska, Texas, and Richmond, and those representing communities in China, Australia, the Philippines, Kazakhstan, and more attended the meeting as share- and proxy-holders providing first-hand descriptions of their lives and environment in and around Chevron’s operations.

While Watson tried to highlight the company’s human rights, environmental, and economic successes, when the microphones were opened to shareholders, those successes quickly turned to failures. Half the meeting became a referendum on the company’s disastrous track record of supporting brutal dictators in Burma, decimating local livelihoods though its offshore operations in Alaska and Angola, and causing mass pollution and destruction of human health in locations as diverse as Ecuador, Richmond, California, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, and Nigeria.

Emem Okon of the Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, who had come from Nigeria’s Niger Delta, challenged Watson’s assertions that the company had improved its record on flaring.

“I am here to represent the women of the Niger Delta who live in communities near gas flares and who suffer health issues of infertility, early menopause, miscarriages, cancer, rashes; women who fish in waters polluted by Chevron.” Ms. Okon asked CEO Watson, “When will Chevron stop environmental violence against women? When will Chevron stop the toxic flares in the Niger Delta. When will Chevron management meet with the women of the Niger Delta and their international allies.”

Thomas Evans of the Nanwalek Tribe spoke in response to Chevron’s claims of the health and safety of its offshore operations. Evans spoke of the harmful impacts from the toxic discharge of produced waste from Chevron’s offshore drilling rig on his community and environment in Cook Inlet, Alaska. Mr. Evans said he will return to Alaska and report to his Tribe that Chevron CEO Watson “does not care about our subsistence way of life, and is totally disrespectful of our culture, and of all the people dying of cancers.”

Gitz Crazyboy (Ryan) Deranger, of the First Nation Dene/Pikini (Blackfoot) people, came to the meeting from Alberta, Canada where Chevron is partner in extensive tarsands operations. “Chevron’s pollution is killing our way of life. Our moose and caribou are dying. Our fish are dying. Chevron is destroying our culture, Chevron is committing cultural genocide.”

Elias Isaac, of the Open Society Institute, traveled from Angola to attend the meeting and directly challenge Watson’s assertion that Chevron is supporting human rights and local economies in Angola. “Chevron’s understanding and definition of human rights is completely distorted. Their approach is to respond with charity work, but this does not address the long-term sustainable economic and social challenges facing the local fishing communities of Cabinda Province.”

Each speaker carried a copy of the True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report, on which all had worked. They provided the report to eager shareholders, but when Richmond resident Reverend Kenneth Davis attempted to hand the report to Watson, he was stopped by private security guards. Watson threatened to stop the entire meeting if the Reverend insisted on handing the report directly to him.

At the meetings conclusion, the community leaders exited to a cheering and supportive crowd. They called the meeting a success and vowed to return again next year.

—–
See Global Exchange’s True Cost of Chevron Network page for more information.

Cover of True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report

Last night I participated in an incredible event. One dozen community leaders from areas harmed by Chevron’s operations and experts from leading advocacy organizations traveled from all corners of the globe to come together as The True Cost of Chevron Network.

We exposed not only Chevron’s abuses, but also the incredible and powerful united front formed to take on the oil giant. Audience members attending the True Cost of Chevron Public Teach-in were crying, cheering, listening intently and ready to take action.

One of the 2011 True Cost of Chevron Ads

Today, we all can learn more as Global Exchange and The True Cost of Chevron Network release our third annual True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report and tomorrow we can take action at Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting.

CEO John Watson opened Chevron’s 2010 Annual Report by telling the corporation’s stockholders that “2010 was an outstanding year for Chevron.”

The communities who bear the costs of Chevron’s operations do not agree.

These communities have seen Chevron continue its long history of human rights violations, ignore longstanding decisions of Indigenous communities, destroy livelihoods, and convert dollars into unjust political influence in the United States and around the world.

This is why dozens of activists, including those from Angola, Nigeria, Canada, Alaska, and the U.S. Gulf Coast have traveled to San Ramon, California to attend Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting to deliver this new report: The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report.

The report – being released to the public today – includes accounts by more than 40 authors and records egregious corporate behavior in locations as diverse as California, Burma, Colombia, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the Philippines and the U.S. Gulf Coast, including new sections detailing Chevron’s pursuit of ever-riskier and ever-deeper offshore projects in the South China Sea, the North Sea, and the Canadian Arctic and its role in the Deepwater Horizon disaster. The report also profiles the historic victory and ongoing battle over Chevron’s crimes in Ecuador.

TAKE ACTION

Get your report today. Download the report, or make a $15 contribution to Global Exchange to receive a hard copy of the book.

In the Bay Area? Join the True Cost of Chevron Network to take on Chevron at their annual shareholder meeting tomorrow, May 25th. We will come together to fight back against the dire impacts of Chevron’s reckless pursuit of profits. Join us for a colorful and fun rally outside Chevron’s headquarters in support of those dozens of community leaders who will go into the meeting to demand human rights, environmental, economic and climate justice, and more.

Can’t make it to the protest? Follow updates right here on our Chevron Program blog, the Chevron Program Facebook page, and on Twitter. Also see the 2011 True Cost of Chevron Ads.

Protesting Chevron Shareholder Meeting 2010 Photo Credit: The Campaign for Justice in Ecuador

On May 25th, two days after an illuminating and informative True Cost of Chevron Teach-in, people will travel from around the world to descend on San Ramon, CA to confront Chevron at its annual shareholder meeting. They’ll come from Angola, Alaska, Ecuador, Nigeria, Indonesia, Canada, Texas, California, and more. They will all have two things in common: they all come from communities that have suffered the dire impacts of Chevron’s reckless pursuit of profits, and they’re all fighting back.

You’re welcome to join a rally outside Chevron’s headquarters in support of human rights, environmental, economic and climate justice, and more.

Across the globe, Chevron’s outdated practices are putting our climate and the health of communities at great risk. That’s why it’s the focus of a growing resistance movement. By expanding, strengthening, and highlighting this movement, we are building more allies and creating a powerful advocacy base for lasting change.

Chevron Protest Information

When: Wednesday, May 25 · 7:00am – 11:00am
Where: Chevron’s World Headquarters at 6001 Bollinger Canyon Rd San Ramon, California 94583

For more information: Check out the Facebook invite

Got questions about the protest? Check out the event on Facebook first, then contact Mike G. or Tonya Hennessey if you’ve still got questions.

Can’t make it to the protest? Follow updates on this blog, the Chevron Program Facebook page, and on Twitter.

Find out why Chevron’s shareholders should say NO to offshore drilling: Global Exchange Energy Program Director Antonia Juhasz’s Huffington Post article Chevron’s Shareholders Should Say No to Offshore Drilling spells it out for you.

P.S. The third annual True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report is coming out tomorrow! This report includes accounts by more than 40 authors – led by those on the front lines of Chevron’s operations — reporting egregious corporate behavior in locations around the world. To get your copy, check back here on our blog tomorrow for ordering info.

The following post was written by Tonya Hennessey, Global Exchange Energy Program’s Chevron AGM Campaign Coordinator:

—

“2010 was an outstanding year for Chevron.”

With these words, CEO John Watson opens Chevron’s 2010 Annual Report.

The communities who bear the costs of Chevron’s operations do not agree. On May 23, you can hear directly from community leaders who will travel from Angola, Nigeria, Ecuador, Indonesia, the tar sands of Canada, Alaska, Texas, Richmond, CA and beyond to the Bay Area to share the true cost of Chevron’s operations where they live.

JOIN US AT A TEACH-IN ON THE TRUE COST OF CHEVRON

Monday, May 23 from 7-10 PM PST
David Brower Center, Tamalpais Room, 2150 Allston Way
Berkeley, California 94704
Tel: 510.809.0900

Elias Isaac will travel from Angola to share his story at the teach-in. Elias, of the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, wrote in the forthcoming True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report for 2010 (our third installment of the report to be released soon):

“The impacts of oil activity in the Sea of Cabinda are so disastrous that most of the sand on the shores is polluted and black in color, and most of the beaches cannot be used. Chevron barely acknowledges or accepts responsibility for these impacts. According to fishermen, the shortage of fish in the Sea of Cabinda started in the 1980s, reaching its peak in the late 1990s when serious environmental destruction began.”

Also speaking at the teach-in is Mardan Pius Ginting of WAHLI-Friends of the Earth Indonesia. Pius wrote in the True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report for 2010:

“Chevron has employed brutal measures to quiet protests, including utilizing Indonesia’s notorious security services, bringing charges of human rights abuse, violence and intimidation.”

Other teach-in speakers traveling to the Bay Area from Chevron-affected communities include:

• Humberto Piaguaje, Amazon Defense Coalition, Ecuador
• Emem Okon, Kebetkache Women Development and Resource Centre, Nigeria
• Gitz Crazyboy (Ryan Deranger), First Nation Dene/Pikini (Blackfoot), Alberta, Canada
• Bryan Parras, Texas Environmental Advocacy Services and the Gulf Coast Fund, Houston, Texas
• Tom Evans, of the Native village of Nanwalek, CookInlet Keepers, Alaska

While the company touts its “Human Energy” PR message of corporate social responsibility, we will bear witness to the social and environmental costs that go unmentioned by Chevron. Chevron’s current “We Agree” ad campaign asks: “Oil Companies Should Support the Communities They’re a Part Of: Do You Agree?”

A close look at Chevron’s operations worldwide shows a very different picture.

JOIN SUPPORT RALLY DURING CHEVRON SHAREHOLDER MEETING

On May 25, these community leaders and many more will go to Chevron’s annual shareholder meeting in San Ramon. We ask you to join us there at a support rally outside of Chevron’s gates.

More information about this event will be available on our website soon.

Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill is a searing look at the human face of BP’s disaster in the Gulf. This book tour lands in Colorado Tue 5/3 (tonight) at the Boulder Bookstore in Boulder and Wed 5/4 at the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver. 7:30pm start time both nights. Then on to Moe’s Books in Berkeley, CA on Wed 5/11 at 7:30pm and last but not least, the tour culminates on Thur 5/12 at 7pm at the Book Passage in Corte Madera, CA.

Find more details about these events on our Black Tide Book Tour Dates page.

To get an idea of what to expect at the book launch events, here’s a video of Black Tide author Antonia Juhasz:

One year ago today the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded off of the coast of Louisiana killing eleven men and igniting the largest oil disaster in U.S. history.

To mark the one-year anniversary, I released Black Tide, and joined Gulf Coast residents harmed by the disaster at BP’s annual shareholder meeting in London and at PowerShift in Washington, DC.

I have shared the statements of those who could not attend these events, including Keith Jones, whose son Gordon died aboard the Deepwater Horizon.

I appeared on Democracy Now!, BBC, NPR and other shows and have written several articles, including “Questions for BP and the oil industry, one year after Deepwater Horizon,” for the Harvard School of Journalism.

As BP spreads its wealth to the GOP, we are spreading the message that the one-year anniversary is THE moment to remind the nation and the world that the Gulf oil disaster is not over and that fundamental change is still needed to ensure such a disaster never occurs again.

Please Join Us!

TAKE ACTION
Support local actions in the Gulf Coast with the Gulf Restoration Network as they Declare: “The Oil is Still Here and So Are We!”
Take Action where you live TODAY with Act Against Extraction Day of Action April 20!

I’m still on tour! Please join me at a city near you, share my events with friends, and keep spreading the word.

Thank you.

Find The Energy Program on Facebook and Twitter.

Below are clips of Antonia speaking at the BP shareholder meeting and her appearance on Democracy Now! speaking about the BP oil spill.

Antonia speaking in London during the BP Shareholder Meeting on Thursday April 14, 2011:

Antonia speaking on Democracy Now! about the BP oil disaster and the BP shareholder meeting:

It is time to learn the lessons of the disaster: neither the technology nor the regulation of deepwater drilling is capable of protecting workers or the environment.

One year ago this month, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded 50 miles off the coast of Louisiana. This week we learned that the company’s CEO, Steven Newman, and other executives of Transocean, the owner and operator of the rig, were not only awarded raises, but also millions of dollars in bonuses for 2010 after “the best year in safety performance in our company’s history,” according to the company’s annual report and proxy statement.

News of the bonuses went viral and enraged the public. Within one day, announcements that the executives were donating the bonuses to families of the 11 men who died on the rig soon went viral as well.

While the contributions are certainly welcome, they are little more than a gesture. First, the contributions accounted for but a small fraction of the total bonuses the executives received (approximately $250,000 out of nearly $900,000, according to Fortune), and not a single executive turned down his or her raise.

The fact that Transocean awarded the raises and bonuses is more than an affront to the families and colleagues of the 11 men who died aboard the rig and the millions more who have suffered as a consequence of the 210-million-barrel oil gusher. They are also a warning.

Transocean is the largest deepwater driller in the world, operating nearly half of all rigs in more 3,000 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico. All of the major oil companies rely heavily upon its services. If the ongoing fight for new offshore drilling in places like California (where I live) is lost by opponents, Transocean will unquestionably enter these new waters. Yet, investigations are sure to conclude that Transocean’s operational failures are as much to blame for the Deepwater Horizon disaster as are BP’s flawed managerial decisions. If Transocean has not learned the lessons of the largest oil disaster in American history, then we all have great reason to worry.

Since 2008, 73 percent of incidents that triggered federal investigations into safety and other problems on deepwater drilling rigs in the Gulf have been on rigs operated by Transocean, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“This event was set in motion years ago by these companies needlessly rushing to make money faster, while cutting corners to save money,” Stephen Lane Stone, a Transocean roustabout who survived the April 20 explosion, told a Congressional committee last May. “When these companies put their savings over our safety, they gambled with our lives. They gambled with my life. They gambled with the lives of 11 of my crew members who will never see their families or loved ones again.”

The results of that cost cutting were apparent all across the Deepwater Horizon — a rig leased by BP and run by Transocean. Of the 126 people on board the rig on April 20, 79 worked for Transocean. More tragically, of the 11 men who died that day, nine were Transocean employees.

Testimony from federal investigations reveals charges of literally hundreds of unattended repair issues on the Horizon. Transocean chief electronics technician for the rig, Mike Williams, described one as “the blue screen of death,” explaining that the computer screens regularly “locked up” with no data coming through, making it impossible for the drillers at those chairs to know what was happening in the well 18,500 feet below.

Williams also reported the failure to utilize the automatic alarm systems. On April 20, as gas rose from the Macondo well into the rig, the crew should have been automatically alerted and operations in their areas automatically shut in. Instead, the automatic gas alarms were intentionally inhibited, set to record information but not to trigger alarms.

More than a year before, Williams asked why. His superiors replied that they did not want people woken up “at three o’clock in the morning due to false alarms.” When Williams tried to fix the alarms, Transocean subsea supervisor Mark Hay reportedly told him, “The damn thing’s been in bypass for five years. Why did you even mess with it?” Hay said, “Matter of fact, the entire [Transocean] fleet runs them in bypass.”

Even without the alarms, the blowout preventer (BOP) should have shut in the well. But when the engineers in the drill room triggered it, the BOP failed to activate.

The rig has two additional backups. The first, the Emergency Disconnect System (EDS), triggers the BOP and separates the rig from the wellhead. The EDS was activated by the crew on the bridge, but again, nothing happened.

Federal regulations require BOPs to be recertified every five years. The Deepwater Horizon BOP had been in use for nearly 10 years and had never been recertified. Getting it recertified would have required Transocean to take the rig out of use for months while the four-story stack was disassembled and examined.

There were several problems with the BOP that were well known on the rig and had been reported in the BP Daily Operations Reports as early as March 10. Both BP and Transocean officials knew the BOP had a hydraulic leak. They also knew that federal regulations required that if “a BOP control station or pod … does not function properly,” the rig must “suspend further drilling operations” until it’s fixed.

When the BOP failed to activate from the floor and from the bridge, there should have been one more backup, the automatic mode function (AMF), but it failed, too. The reason, according to BP, is that the batteries had run down.

All across the Deepwater Horizon, the technology on which everything so dearly depends was failing, and with catastrophic results.

Rather than overhaul its safety system, Transocean declared that in 2010 “we made significant progress in achieving our strategic and operational objectives for the year,” but unfortunately, “these developments were overshadowed by the April 20, 2010 fire and explosion onboard our semi-submersible drilling rig, the Deepwater Horizon.”

Unfortunately, the public has allowed the events aboard the Deepwater Horizon and all that followed its explosion to be overshadowed as well. As we approach the one-year anniversary, it is time to learn the lessons of that disaster: that neither the technology nor the regulation of deepwater drilling is capable of protecting the workers on the rigs, the ecosystems within which they work, or those whose livelihoods are dependent upon those water ways and beaches.

As oil industry analyst Byron King has said, “We have gone to a different planet in going to the deepwater. An alien environment. And what do you know from every science fiction movie? The aliens can kill us.”

Today, our friends at Amnesty International have launched an important new campaign to end flaring — and you can help!

The oil industry is abusing the human rights of hundreds of thousands of people in the Niger Delta region. So far, the Nigerian government can’t or won’t hold oil companies accountable. Amnesty’s Demand Dignity Campaign is pressuring the world’s largest oil companies–including Chevron, and the government of Nigeria, to clean up the Niger Delta. As part of that work, Amnesty International USA’s new Eyes on Nigeria project uses the power of satellite technology to monitor oil industry abuses in the region.

A major source of oil pollution is the practice of gas flaring — burning off excess gas as waste. The people of the Niger Delta need a real deadline for ending gas flaring — and they need full transparency about the health risks of flaring.

This summer, Amnesty International will be pushing government and corporations for accountability on this issue.

TAKE ACTION!

Add your voice to the Niger Delta petition at amnestyusa.org/endgasflaring.

Learn More!

Read about gas-flaring in Nigeria in The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report.

Stay connected!

• Check The Energy Program website for updates
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Photos (c) Alison Dilworth/Friends of the Earth