Washington, D.C.-based environmental coalition seems bent on rewriting history. U.S. Public Interest Research Groups, also known as PIRG, sent out a press release Jan. 5 — the day after the U.S. Congress convened — claiming to have convinced Alaska North Slope producer ConocoPhillips to drop out of Arctic Power.
According to PIRG, ConocoPhillips dropped out of the Anchorage-based pro-ANWR drilling advocacy group because of a shareholder resolution opposing drilling in ANWR that was filed in December 2004 — the same resolution that failed in May 2004 when 91 percent of the company’s shareholders voted against it.
However, according to Arctic Power executive director Kevin Hand, ConocoPhillips did not give official notice it was dropping its membership at any point this past year.
“They did not renew their membership for 2004; there was no official notice at any time that they had dropped their membership,” Hand told Petroleum News Jan. 5. “It’s been more than a year since we’ve had a contribution from ConocoPhillips. …This was not news to us or to ConocoPhillips.”
ConocoPhillips Alaska spokeswoman Dawn Patience confirmed Hand’s statement, saying the company had not renewed its membership for 2004 and that the membership had simply “lapsed” without a formal notice or announcement of any kind.
“We have not been involved in the ANWR debate in many years and have focused our investment attention in Alaska toward the gas pipeline and development of other North Slope satellite fields. Since ANWR is currently closed to development, we feel that any resolution or pledge on our part would be moot,” she said.
PIRG puts new spin on old news
But Athan Manuel, director of PIRG’s Arctic Wilderness Campaign, put a different spin on what Hand referred to as “old news.”
Manuel called ConocoPhillips’ decision not to renew its membership a “withdrawal” from the advocacy group that was spurred by Green Century Capital Management’s December re-filing of the anti-ANWR drilling resolution that failed in May and Green Century’s offer to withdraw the resolution if the company dropped out of Arctic Power.
“This is a significant win for America’s Arctic, and we commend ConocoPhillips for listening to their shareholders and the American people and dropping out of Arctic Power. It appears that ConocoPhillips and BP are more enlightened than the Bush Administration when it comes to drilling in the Arctic Refuge. Hopefully Congress will get the message and defeat attempts to allow drilling in the Arctic Refuge this year,” Manuel said in PIRG’s press release.
BP dropped out of Arctic Power in 2002. Although BP has sold or dropped all of its exploration acreage in Alaska and is concentrating on producing more oil from its existing North Slope oil fields, the London-based company has held onto its ANWR acreage where it and partner ChevronTexaco drilled a well in 1985.
Effort has gone on for years without oil companies
Hand was quick to point out that ConocoPhillips has been “a good supporter of Arctic Power over the years” and that Alaska employees of the company continue to be involved in the association.
“This is a transparent effort on the part of the environmentalists to create a false impression of a lack of support in Alaska that coincides with the new Congress. It is a desperate grasp to change the focus from the issue of responsible development on the merits to something else.”
Hand said more than “75 percent of Alaskans support environmentally sensitive development of ANWR.”
Roger Herrera who represents Arctic Power in Washington, D.C., said, “The effort to open ANWR has been going on for many years without the oil companies. One has to note — neither BP nor ConocoPhillips has said they would not participate in a lease sale on the coastal plain. In fact BP,” which currently holds leases on the coastal plain, “has implied the exact opposite. Both companies are currently drilling in the Arctic. What’s the difference between drilling in NPR-A” where ConocoPhillips is currently exploring “and drilling in ANWR’s coastal plain? Physically and environmentally there is absolutely no difference at all.”
PIRG targeting Chevron, Exxon
Since 1998, PIRG’s Arctic Wilderness Campaign and its partners have targeted four of the major oil companies that have expressed interest in drilling in ANWR. PIRG’s press release said the campaign has filed 15 shareholder resolutions and “generated more than 65,000 e-mails, phone calls, and letters” to BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, and ChevronTexaco.
“Resolutions have also been filed this year at ChevronTexaco and ExxonMobil that ask each company to report on the risks of operating in sensitive areas such as the Arctic Refuge. These resolutions will be voted on at each company’s 2005 annual meeting,” PIRG said in its release.
