Shell Oil has announced it may take a page out of the BP โBeyond Petroleumโย greenwashing book, rebranding itself as something other than an oil company for its United States-basedย unit.
Marvin Odum, director of Shell Oil’s upstream subsidiary companies in the Americas, told Bloomberg the name Shell Oil โis a little old-fashioned, Iโd say, and at one point weโll probably do something about thatโ during a luncheon interview with Bloomberg News co-founder Matt Winklerย (beginning at 8:22)ย at the recently-completed Shell-sponsoredย Toronto Global Forum.
โOil,โ said Odum, could at some point in the near future be removed from theย name.
Odum’s comments come as Shell has moved aggressively to drill for offshore oil in the Arctic and deep offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, while also maintaining a heavy footprint in Alberta’s tar sands oil patch.
Image Credit:ย Bloomberg Newsย Screenshot
Shell also recently acquired BG (British Gas) Group, a company that owns numerous assets in the global liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry, transforming the company into what Forbes hailed as a โworld LNG giant.โย
Winkler quipped in Toronto that due to this major asset purchase, it might be more accurate to call Shell Oil, โShellย Gas.โ
In October 2011, BG Group signed a major contract with the U.S.-based LNG giant Cheniere to ship its gas product obtained via hydraulic fracturing (โfrackingโ) to the global market. That LNG will begin to flow by the end of the year.
Just a week before Odum told Winkler that Shell may take โoilโ out its company name, he appeared on Bloomberg News on the sidelines of the Aspen Ideas Festival to boast about his company’s big plansย โ plans to drill forย oilย in the deep offshore Gulf of Mexico Appomattox field. At Aspen, Odum called Appomattox a โworld class oil and gasย project.โย
โShell Candyย Companyโ
Those fighting against Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic responded with anger to Odum’sย comments.ย
โThey can call themselves Shell Candy Company for all anyone cares, but the point is that they are still making a product that is toxic and destructive and people are going to see that,โ Karthik Ganapathy, the US communications manager for 350.org, told VICE News. โCompanies don’t want to be associated with words like petroleum and oil anymore. They want to window dress it so they can hide what they areย doing.โ
Shell says for now that the company hasn’t officially begun theย rebranding.
โNo action has been taken on this. It was really a hypothetical question and answer,โ Kelly op de Weegh, head of Shell’s US media relations, told VICEย News.
Photo Credit: Wikimediaย Commons
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