Energy, Mining & Utilities

Nigeria has defeated an attempt to extract over US$11 billion in compensation for a canceled natural gas processing plant in Calabar, Cross River state, Nigeria, by Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID), a shell company based in the the tax haven of British Virgin Islands. Read More

Cobre Panamá, the largest open pit copper mine in Central America, is operated by Toronto-based First Quantum Minerals. After some 250,000 people in Panama took to the streets to protest against corruption and environmental damage at the mine, Panama’s supreme court declared that First Quantum’s contract to operate the mine unconstitutional, causing it to be shut down. Read More

Private sector projects to solve the climate crisis have soared in the last decade: green energy options from British Gas and NextEra; Tesla electric cars; panels from JinkoSolar in China; and Siemens wind turbines in the North Sea. Yet how many truly mark a departure from business-as-usual by industry? Read More

Oxford University holds regular career fairs for students to meet privately with prospective employers. The university also claims to be committed to net zero and to be sustainable. Read More

Navigator CO2 Ventures proposed to build a 2,000 kilometre pipeline to transport carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to be stored underground in southern Illinois. Environmentalists, farmers and landowners joined forces to oppose the Heartland Greenway pipeline which was canceled after it was denied a construction permit by the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission. Read More

ExxonMobil wants to restart oil drilling off the coast of Santa Barbara, California. It plans to transport the crude oil to inland refineries in Santa Maria and Pentland by truck. Environmentalists fought the proposal citing the history of oil spills from trucks and pipelines in the region. Local government officials and courts recently ruled in their favor. Read More

Residents of Makhasaneni, KwaZulu-Natal province, South Africa, are escalating their fight to stop Jindal Africa’s plans to build a $2 billion iron ore mine project that threatens to displace as many as 3,000 people and severely impact the local environment. Read More

Yasuni National Park in the Amazon rainforest of Ecuador, one of the most biodiverse areas of the planet, is home to the Huaorani, Tagaeri and Taromenane Indigenous peoples. It has been exploited for oil by companies like Shell and Petroecuador for over 50 years. In September 2023, after 10 years of activism, the people of Ecuador voted to halt oil drilling forever. Read More

Mining company Telupac Holdings requested a government permit to explore for minerals under the unique Northern Jarrah Forest close to the city of Perth. The area included a monastery belonging to the Buddhist Society of Western Australia. The monks’ campaign to block Telupac’s application was successful when the company withdrew their application in August 2023. Read More

Moti Group, a business conglomerate based in Johannesburg, tried to stop amaBhungane, a South African investigative news website, from reporting on leaked documents about an allegedly corrupt mining deal in Zimbabwe. A court-issued gag order was overturned on appeal in July 2023. Read More