Occidental Petroleum

Occidental Petroleum Corporation ("Oxy") NYSE: OXY is an international petroleum exploration and development company headquartered in the Westwood district of Los Angeles.

It has also had interests in other forms of energy such as coal, and the production of other minerals such as phosphates.

For many years Occidental was headed by the late Armand Hammer, who was noted for his long-term friendly relationship with the Soviet Union, which made the company controversial in some quarters during the cold war.

Company History

Involvement at Love Canal

In 1942, a subsidiary of Occidental, Hooker Chemical and Plastics Corporation, started disposing of chemical waste in the Love Canal region, although other companies and the US military had used it as a chemical disposal site since the 1920s. In 1947, Hooker Chemicals became the owner and sole user of the land. In 1952 the site was filled to capacity and closed off. Later in the 1950s the local school board convinced, under threat of expropriation to sell the land to them with the intent of using an unused area of the dump to build a school in. Hooker Chemical sold the land to the school board for $1 and gave a warning that the site contained "some plant waste" but did not provide details about the toxic chemicals buried at the site, nor the amount buried. A school was built on the site and later a middle class residential district was built up on the land adjacent to the site. In the late 1970s there was increasing awareness of health issues in the Love Canal region, including high rates of cancer and birth defects. Soon after it became a national issue in the US and in 1980 then president Jimmy Carter declared a federal emergency in the area. Residents of the area were eventually relocated and Occidental reportedly spent over $200 million to cleanup the site.

Piper Alpha disaster

In July 6, 1988 Occidental's Alpha offshore production platform in the Piper oifield in the North Sea exploded after a gas leak. The accident killed 167 workers.

Recent opportunities and resistance

From 1992 to 2001, Occidental Petroleum incurred substantial resistance in its attempts to drill for oil in the territory of the U'wa people in northeast Colombia. The resistance was apparently over concern for environmental damage, tribal beliefs (the group believe that oil is the "blood of the earth" and should not be removed) and fear that development would bring strangers and violence to their region. They believe oil infrastructure will be a target for violent leftist guerillas in the country. After years of shareholder resolutions, legal battles, extensive civil disobedience and a failed test well, the company abandoned the project, which is now continued by Repsol YPF.

In 1998, the US Government sold the Elk Hills Naval Petroleum Reserve to Occidental Petroleum for USD 3.65 billion. The advertised purpose of this sale was to reduce the national debt, and reduce the size of government, as the Reserve was no longer strategically necessary. Critics of government cited Vice President Al Gore's involvement with the company as proof of graft.[1]

In 2005, Occidental Petroleum and partner Liwa won eight out of fifteen exploration spots on the EPSA-4 auction, making both companies among the first to enter the Libyan market since the United States lifted its embargo on that country.

In August of the same year, the company was accused of 42 legal violations in Ecuador, including environmental destruction and espionage. As a result the Ecuadorian government refused to renew a contract for oil field exploration ^[1]. Ecuadorian protestors in the northeast part of the country are calling for the withdrawal of Occidental.

Gore Family Ties

Occidental's coal interests were represented for many years by attorney and former U.S. Senator Albert Gore, Sr., among others. Gore, who had a long-time close friendship with Hammer, became the head of its subsidiary Island Creek Coal Company upon his election loss in the Senate. Much of Oxy's coal and phosphate production was from Tennessee, the state Gore represented in the Senate, and Gore owned shares of stock in the company. The shares were controlled by his son, former Vice President Albert Gore, Jr., for which he received much criticism from environmentalists. [2] [3] Gore sold all of his family's shares in 2000. [4]

See also

• Caño Limón

External links

• Occidental Petroleum Corporation

References

• "Gore's Oil Money" by Ken Silverstein, The Nation, May 3, 2000, retrieved May 30, 2006
• "Ecuador Breaks with Washington over Occidental Petroleum" The Council on Hemispheric Affairs

1. ^ Adbuster #67 Volume 14 Number 5 Ecuador vs. Occidental

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