{"id":47015,"date":"2026-03-04T12:05:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:05:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=47015"},"modified":"2026-03-04T12:05:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:05:51","slug":"shell-ceo-we-need-to-keep-extracting-oil-to-stop-extracting-oil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/03\/04\/shell-ceo-we-need-to-keep-extracting-oil-to-stop-extracting-oil\/","title":{"rendered":"Shell CEO: We Need to Keep Extracting Oil to Stop Extracting Oil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"The<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The sun sets over container ships and oil platforms off the coast of Huntington Beach, California on January 12, 2021. (Photo: Leonard Ortiz\/MediaNews Group\/Orange County Register via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben van Beurden\u2019s doubling down on fossil fuels came a month after he was directly confronted over his company\u2019s role in the climate emergency.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Andrea Germanos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nov 04, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Declaring that \u201ccash comes from our legacy business,\u201d the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell has asserted that continuing the company\u2019s oil<\/a> operations is necessary to help it transition away from non-oil energy operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben van Beurden made the remarks in an interview with the BBC<\/em> published online Thursday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIf we have to build a hydrogen plant from a wind farm that we build in the North Sea for a billion dollars, that is not going to be funded by a hydrogen business–it will be funded by the oil and gas business,\u201d van Beurden told the outlet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X post: https:\/\/x.com\/KetanJ0\/status\/1456208164916011016?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1456208164916011016%7Ctwgr%5Ef1e2bfaca7585cbfdba559e2f6db53fb331a3149%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2F2021%2F11%2F04%2Fshell-ceo-we-need-keep-extracting-oil-stop-extracting-oil<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The executive also pushed back against climate activists\u2019 demands<\/a>, as well as scientific studies<\/a> and international warnings, against pursuing new oil fields–like the proposed extraction in the Cambo oilfield off the coast of Scotland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy would you say: Let\u2019s not get our oil and gas demands from our own resources but let\u2019s import from somewhere else, probably with a larger carbon footprint,\u201d he said, adding that such a move \u201calso will not help the carbon footprint of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Van Beurden made similar comments at an energy conference last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cUpstream, integrated gas, and the mature businesses like marketing and chemicals, they have to provide the cash for the future,\u201d he said<\/a> at the online Energy Intelligence Forum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cInvesting in these businesses is going to be needed to keep them the strong cash engines that they currently are,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cupstream needs to be a strong cash engine into, and probably through, the 2030s, and we need to invest to keep it there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related Content<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Climate<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

‘Landslide Victory for Climate Justice<\/a>‘: Court Rules Shell Must Cut CO2 Emissions 45% by 2030<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Corbett<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those remarks came just a week before he was confronted at the TED Countdown forum in Edinburgh, Scotland by a local climate activist over his company\u2019s links to human rights<\/a> abuses in Nigeria, pursuit of new fossil fuel operations, and its appeal of a May court ruling that said Shell must decrease its carbon emissions 45% by 2030.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope you know that as the climate crisis gets more and more deadly, you will be to blame,\u201d said<\/a> activist Lauren MacDonald.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

BBC<\/em>\u00a0noted in its reporting that Shell \u201cplans to spend four times as much on oil and gas development as on renewables next year.\u201d The company announced plans earlier this year to hit net zero emissions by 2050, with a reliance \u201cheavily on carbon offsets<\/a>\u201d–a scheme climate activists denounce as harmful greenwashing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrea Germanos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andrea Germanos is a senior editor and staff writer at Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The sun sets over container ships and oil platforms off the coast of Huntington Beach, California on January 12, 2021. (Photo: Leonard Ortiz\/MediaNews Group\/Orange County Register via Getty Images) Ben van Beurden\u2019s doubling down on fossil fuels came a month after he was directly confronted over his company\u2019s role in… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47015"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47016,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47015\/revisions\/47016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}