PrairiePundit

Fuel Fix: Chevron said Wednesday it's interested in either buying or building an oil refinery in the Houston area to process its booming production from West Texas' Permian Basin. Chevron is the nation's second-largest energy company, but it doesn't have any Texas refineries. Outside of the West Coast, California-based Chevron only has its Pascagoula refinery in Mississippi. Spokesman Braden Reddall said a strong refining portfolio is a critical focus for the company. ... As first reported by Reuters, Chevron's head of downstream and chemicals, Pierre Breber, said at an energy conference in London that the company is highly interested in gaining a strong oil refining presence along the Houston Ship Channel to take advantage of the company's increasing presence in the Permian. ... I think they might be better off building a new designed for light crude than buying an existing one since most of those were designed for imported heavy crude.  A new light c...

Jazz Shaw: Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Those of you who have been following our years-long coverage of what’s become known as the Chevron Shakedown are probably already familiar with Steven Donziger. He’s the New York attorney who worked with a corrupt court in Ecuador and several environmental groups in the United States to achieve a bogus judgment against the energy giant valued in the billions of dollars. That fell apart completely under court scrutiny and instead of winding up with a huge payday, Donziger found himself on the losing end of a RICO trial in New York. Now, adding insult to injury, that same court has come back and determined that someone does indeed need to pay. But it’s not Chevron. Saying that, “the case is over save for the matters of costs and attorney fees,” the presiding judge brought down the hammer on Donziger for the cost of the massive court fees incurred. And he brought it down hard . (The Amazon Post) The cost of fraud just went up for Steven Do...

Bloomberg/Fuel Fix: Chevron Corp. won a victory in its long-running battle against Ecuadoreans and the zealous American lawyer who represented them, as an appeals court barred the attorney from enforcing in the U.S. an $8.6 billion award because he won it through deceit. “Even innocent clients may not benefit from the fraud of their attorney,” the appeals court said Monday. The defeat of lawyer Steven Donziger on appeal could influence the outcome of the storied legal dispute, which was documented in the 2009 film “Crude” and continues to play out in courts around the world. Ecuadoreans are seeking to seize Chevron assets because the company has refused to pay on a judgment awarded in 2011 by an Ecuadorean court. It is unlikely to be the last twist in the saga, which began in 1993 when American lawyers sued over pollution which they say affects 30,000 indigenous villagers in the oil-rich Lago Agrio region. ... Chevron, which bought Texaco in 2001, hasn’t argued against the ac...

AP/US News: Ecuador pays Chevron $112 arbitration award Ecuador has paid a $112 million arbitration award to Chevron Corp stemming from a 1990s-era oil contract dispute Ecuador had threatened to withhold payment, but the risk of being cut off from the world economic system was too great to risk it.  The award was unrelated to the case Ecuador brought against Chevron alleging environmental damages, that has been challenged as fraudulent in several courts.

AP/Fuel Fix: Justices reject Ecuador’s appeal of $96M award to Chevron The appeal was of an arbitration award for failing to resolve disputes in a timely fashion.  Ecuador has been in litigation with Chevron on other issues and the company has alleged that the results in a different case was achieved through fraud.

Washington Free Beacon: Documents Reveal Ecuadorian Government Organized Protests on U.S. Soil Foreign Ministry’s chief of staff recruited expats to rally outside of legal proceedings in D.C. ... The documents “confirm that ‘public protests’ in the Chevron case are merely political theater stage-managed by the Correa government,” said Jose Cárdenas, a former senior State Department and USAID official, referring to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa. ... Ecuador's handling of the Chevron case was a shameful attempt at injustice.  Correa's rule looks more despotic as more comes out about his actions inside Ecuador.  He is actively trying to suppress that information with controls over the media.

Business Wire: Another Key Funder of Fraudulent Ecuador Litigation Against Chevron Withdraws Support Chevron contiues to go after those behind the tainted litigation in Ecuador.

Stephen W. Green: Five Irrefutable Truths About the Fraudulent Lawsuit Against Chevron In Ecuador "If you repeat a lie a thousand times it becomes the truth." That's the motto Steven Donziger, the U.S. lawyer behind the fraudulent case against Chevron in Ecuador, once emphasized to a member of his team. In March he was found by a U.S. court to have violated federal racketeering laws, committing mail and wire fraud, money laundering, witness tampering and obstruction of justice. ... The piece is worth reading in full.  It tells you something about the trial lawyers and the Big Green lobby that they would continue to push  a case the courts have found to involve a massive fraud.

WSJ: A federal judge ruled in favor of Chevron Corp. on Tuesday in a civil racketeering case, saying a record $9.5 billion environmental judgment in Ecuador against the oil giant was “obtained by corrupt means.” U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan found that New York lawyer Steven Donziger and his litigation team engaged in coercion, bribery, money laundering and other criminal conduct in pursuit of the 2011 verdict. The decision barred Mr. Donziger and his two Ecuadorean co-defendants from profiting from the verdict. The decision could hamper efforts to enforce the 2011 judgment by pursuing Chevron’s assets in Canada and elsewhere. In a statement, Mr. Donziger said he intends to appeal the ruling, which he called: “an appalling decision resulting from a deeply flawed proceeding that overturns a unanimous ruling by Ecuador’s Supreme Court. We believe Judge Kaplan is wrong on the law and wrong on the facts and that he repeatedly let his implacable hostility toward me, my Ecuadorian clie...

Fuel Fix: Chevron Corp. is entitled to unspecified damages against the federal government in a contract dispute over oil deposits in California worth $37 billion, the U.S. Court of Claims ruled. The Department of Energy “repeatedly and materially violated” two agreements governing determination of equity interests in oil and gas deposits located in the Elk Hills Reserve of California, Judge Susan Braden in Washington wrote in a 90-page ruling. Chevron “is entitled to be compensated for damages, in an amount to be determined, including sanctions for DOE and the government’s ‘bad faith’ conduct and abusive discovery tactics,” Braden wrote in the ruling made public yesterday. ... The Elk Hills Field, located near Bakersfield, California, encompasses more than 47,000 acres and includes more than 1,000 wells, a 47-megawatt power plant and two units that process gas. The government’s share in the field of about 78 percent, which is still being disputed by Chevron, is estimated to hold rese...

Houston Chronicle: For the past year, Chevron Corp. has refused to pay an $18 billion pollution lawsuit judgment from a court in Ecuador, arguing that the judicial process there was marred by politics, official misconduct and fraud. So on Wednesday, the company's Ecuadorean opponents moved the case to Canada, a country whose court system enjoys a rock-solid reputation. They filed suit in Ontario, in a bid to seize enough of Chevron's assets to satisfy the $18 billion judgment from their homeland. If the Canadian court sides with them, they say, Chevron will have a hard time claiming that the court itself is defective. "We chose Canada to go first because it's a country that has a great tradition of upholding foreign decisions and because its judiciary as a whole is well respected around the world," Ecuadorean attorney  Pablo Fajardo  said Thursday, speaking through an interpreter. He also warned that his legal team would probably file a similar s...

Kevin Mooney: Trial lawyers typically have the upper hand in litigation built around environmental charges, but they are taking a beating at the hands of Chevron Corp. in U.S. federal courts. Through its discovery efforts, the company has acquired documents that belong to the lawyers for plaintiffs in Lago Agrio, Ecuador that includes evidence of potentially unlawful collusion. Consequently, Chevron has filed an amended RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) complaint that reinforces the case against attorneys and consultants who have orchestrated the anti-corporate campaign. Chevron is defending itself against allegations that it is responsible for alleged environmental damage in the Amazon region of Ecuador. The litigation began in New York back in 1993, but the case was moved to Ecuador a decade later. Although Chevron has never operated in Ecuador, it purchased Texaco Petroleum in 2001, which was the subject of the initial suit. Plaintiffs accused Texaco of ...

Chevron: Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) today announced a new oil discovery at the Moccasin prospect in the deepwater U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The Keathley Canyon Block 736 Well No. 1 encountered more than 380 feet of net pay in the Lower Tertiary Wilcox Sands. The well is located approximately 216 miles off the Louisiana coast in 6,759 feet of water and was drilled to a depth of 31,545 feet. "The Moccasin discovery underscores the importance of the deepwater Gulf of Mexico as a source of domestic energy for the United States and as a focus area for Chevron's worldwide exploration portfolio," said George Kirkland, vice chairman, Chevron Corporation. "Moccasin is an important addition to our queue of high-quality opportunities around the globe." Chevron began drilling the Moccasin well in March 2010. That activity was stopped in June 2010 when the U.S. government imposed a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling resumed in March 2011...