Greenwash: Shell May Remove "Oil" From Name as it Moves to Tap Arctic, Gulf of Mexico

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Shell Oil has announced it may take a page out of the BP โ€œBeyond Petroleumโ€ย 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 โ€œis a little old-fashioned, Iโ€™d say, and at one point weโ€™ll 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.

โ€œOil,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.

Shell Oil Greenwashing
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 โ€œworld LNG giant.โ€ย 

Winkler quipped in Toronto that due to this major asset purchase, it might be more accurate to call Shell Oil, โ€œShellย 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 (โ€œfrackingโ€) 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 โ€œoilโ€ 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 โ€œworld class oil and gasย project.โ€ย 

โ€œShell Candyย Companyโ€

Those fighting against Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic responded with anger to Odum’sย comments.ย 

โ€œThey 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. โ€œCompanies 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.

โ€œNo 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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Steve Horn is the owner of the consultancy Horn Communications & Research Services, which provides public relations, content writing, and investigative research work products to a wide range of nonprofit and for-profit clients across the world. He is an investigative reporter on the climate beat for over a decade and former Research Fellow for DeSmog.

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