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Worst-Case Scenario for Oil Sands Comes to Life, WikiLeak Docs Show

Worst-Case Scenario for Oil Sands Comes to Life, WikiLeak Docs Show thumbnail

As environmentalists began ratcheting up pressure against Canada’s tar sands three years ago, one of the world’s biggest strategic consulting firms was tapped to help the North American oil industry figure out how to handle the mounting activism. The resulting document, published online by WikiLeaks, offers another window into how oil and gas companies have been scrambling to deal with unrelenting opposition to their growth plans.

The document identifies nearly two-dozen environmental organizations leading the anti-oil sands movement and puts them into four categories: radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists—with how-to’s for managing each. It also reveals that the worst-case scenario presented to industry about the movement’s growing influence seems to have come to life.

The December 2010 presentation by Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, a global intelligence firm based in Texas, mostly advised oil sands companies to ignore or limit reaction to the then-burgeoning tar sands opposition movement because “activists lack influence in politics.” But there was a buried warning for industry under one scenario: Letting the movement grow unopposed may bring about “the most significant environmental campaign of the decade.”

“This worst-case scenario is exactly what has happened,” partly because opposition to tar sands development has expanded beyond nonprofit groups to include individual activists concerned about climate change, said Mark Floegel, a senior investigator for Greenpeace. “The more people in America see Superstorm Sandys or tornadoes in Chicago, the more they are waking up and joining the fight.”

Since the presentation was prepared, civil disobedience and protests against the tar sands have sprung up from coast to coast. The movement has helped delay President Obama’s decision on the Keystone XL pipeline—designed to funnel Canada’s landlocked oil sands crude to refineries on the Gulf Coast—and has held up another contentious pipeline in Canada, the Northern Gateway to the Pacific Coast.

The Power Point document, titled “Oil Sands Market Campaigns,” was recently made public by WikiLeaks, part of a larger release of hacked files from Stratfor, whose clients include the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry lobby. It appears to have been created for Calgary-based petroleum giant Suncor Energy, Canada’s largest oil sands producer.

The company told InsideClimate News that it did not hire Stratfor and never saw such a presentation. Suncor is mentioned 11 times in the document’s 35 pages and all of Stratfor’s advice seems to be directed at the energy company. For example, one slide says, “Campaign ends quickly with a resolution along the lines Suncor had wanted.” In several emails released by WikiLeaks, Stratfor employees discuss a $14,890 payment Suncor owes the company for two completed projects, though no details were provided.

The presentation is the latest in a series of revelations that suggest energy companies—which for most of their history seemed unfazed by activists—have been looking for ways to dilute environmentalists’ growing influence.

Earlier this year, TransCanada, the Canadian energy company behind the Keystone XL, briefed Nebraska law enforcement authorities on how to prosecute demonstrators protesting the 1,200-mile project. In 2011, Range Resources, an oil and gas company, allegedly hired combat veterans with experience in psychological warfare to squash opposition of natural gas drilling.

“The Stratfor presentation isn’t a complete surprise,” said Scott Parkin, a senior campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network and volunteer organizer for Rising Tide North America, both grassroots environmental groups. “As opposition has grown, coal, oil and gas companies are all starting to put more money into responding—from surveillance to protection to public relations.”

Who Is Targeted

For each of Stratfor’s categories of environmental activist—radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists—the presentation explains how their campaigns are structured and how the fossil fuel industry could deal with them.

Three grassroots organizations—Rising Tide North America, Oil Change International and the Indigenous Environmental Network—were labeled radicals. Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network were classified as a cross between radicals and idealists. Sierra Club, the nation’s largest environmental group, Amnesty International and Communities for a Better Environment, among others, were labeled idealists. Several mainstream environmental groups, including the National Wildlife Federation, World Wildlife Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Ceres, a nonprofit that organizes businesses, investors and public interest groups, were called realists.

It then lays out tactics the groups would use to push for change. They include holding demonstrations outside annual meetings and marketing events, generating fear of oil spills and other environmental disasters, targeting CEOs and their families, collaborating with other green groups, and splitting the fossil fuel industry on the issue by praising companies working with activists and publicly shaming those that aren’t.

The presentation says that while environmental groups are publicly fighting to stop the expansion of the oil sands, their “real demand” is for fossil fuel companies to adopt a “global code of conduct”—a set of best practices not required by law, but that take into consideration things like greenhouse gas reduction policies and human rights.

The Power Point also describes all the ways fossil fuel companies like Suncor could choose to react to green groups’ campaigns, such as limiting contact with the organizations, intentionally delaying negotiations, developing its own environmental initiatives to overshadow activists’ demands, or simply not responding. It provides the pros and cons of each public relations decision, as well as the best- and worst-case outcomes for each.

For example, Stratfor said that choosing not to respond could be useful because in 2010, “activists are not stopping oil sands’ growth and they have no power in Alberta or Ottawa. Chance of success with U.S. government is slim.” The best outcome from a no-response strategy, according to the presentation, is that green “groups move to fracturing [natural gas fracking] or some other venue to press for the first major code of conduct.”

Stratfor would not answer questions about the presentation because it has a policy not to comment on any of the WikiLeaks documents.

Several environmental groups named in the Stratfor presentation said they weren’t surprised by the consulting firm’s assessment of their work, but were disappointed, especially by its assumption that all they wanted was a code of conduct.

“The environmental community has been very united in saying that we need to stop tar sands expansion and clean up the mess already made there,” said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s international program. “That’s the only real path forward if we’re going to protect not only the health of communities on the ground in the boreal forests near the tar sands region, but also around the world from the impacts of climate change. We’re not looking for a code of conduct.”

For many, the leaked presentation provided proof that their work was having an impact, boosting their confidence to keep protesting.

“Knowing that groups like Stratfor are targeting us, surveying us, and also analyzing us shows how powerful these movements have become,” said Parkin of the Rainforest Action Network and Rising Tide North America. “Obviously this wasn’t meant for public consumption, but this doesn’t intimidate us. If anything, it emboldens us. It encourages us to push harder.”

Bloomberg



8 Comments on "Worst-Case Scenario for Oil Sands Comes to Life, WikiLeak Docs Show"

  1. rockman on Sat, 7th Dec 2013 3:01 pm 

    “Chance of success with U.S. government is slim.” A tad of an understatement IMHO. I guess they missed President Obama’s public speech when he proclaimed the import of Canadian oil was vital to the US economy and instructed all gov’t departments to expedite the approval process for the section of Keystone that would relieve the choke point at Cushing, OK. That section begins flowing next month. Max capacity 700,000 BOPD.

    “Knowing that groups like Stratfor are targeting us, surveying us, and also analyzing us shows how powerful these movements have become,”. If I were the suspicious type I might think the Stratfor report was intentionally leaked so as to offer some false sense of confidence for the various environmental groups. “Powerful”??? Certainly…so powerful that it’s projected that in 2013 more Canadian oil (mostly from the oil sands) will be exported to the US then ever before in history. IMHO the industry has successfully used the false debate over the border crossing permit of Keystone to distract from the fact that other methods have been developed to move the oil out of Alberta with a significant expansion of those systems already underway. And thus the record export of oil sands production with a huge ramp up underway. The classic military technique of depleting the enemy’s capability by generating diversionary battles that won’t have any effect on the final outcome of the war.

    Well played, oil patch.

  2. BobInget on Sat, 7th Dec 2013 9:20 pm 

    Even rockman may have overlooked Warren
    Buffet’s major Coup buying railroads just as
    Keystone opposition formed. To this day most
    Outside investors are waitin with baited breath
    For the now almost moot decision on Keystone XL. Something Stratfor also missed could also be
    Growing Environmental opposition inside Canada.

    In 2014 decisions will be made to ship bitumen
    To Asia and/or additional OS West Coast refining.
    Because of Internal enviro opposition I’m betting Suncor, Imperial, Syncrude will opt for a shorter BC pipeline. That line in itself will be no cakewalk.
    If however burdging BC populations can be sold
    On cheaper gasoline and diesel ……

    The notion of slowing oil sands development by blocking only one exit when overlooking others
    Was, I hate to say, a pipe dream.

  3. BobInget on Sat, 7th Dec 2013 9:29 pm 

    Just two words about how BP’s GOM Macondo
    Deep water oil spill leveled the playing field between so called conventional oil and “tar sands”.

    It Did.

  4. J-Gav on Sat, 7th Dec 2013 10:42 pm 

    Rockman – Go on ahead and continue to be the skeptical type – it’ll help to keep you (and others through your posts) much closer to reality. These sorts of strategies go straight back to the Romans, whose Flavian lackeys, in case no-one remembers, wrote much of the New Testament of our ‘Good Book.’ Allegory, bait-and-switch and voilà! Jesus saves! Tar sands save! Some damn thing will always ‘save,’ until it doesn’t anymore.

  5. Dave Thompson on Sat, 7th Dec 2013 10:53 pm 

    What I am seeing on the Internets is people looking at the overall numbers that the oil/fossil fuel industry puts out showing an upward trend in north America production. The part left out is that damnation in the details of conventional vs non conventional oil production. As this plays out in the years to come, non conventional oil production subsidized by conventional oil will not be sustained.

  6. geo on Sun, 8th Dec 2013 3:11 am 

    The Foggy Bottom / George Washington University Metro subway station in DC, the stop closest to the State Department, is plastered with banner ads promoting Canada as the U.S.’ “stable and environmentally responsible energy partner.” They went up sometime in the last couple of weeks. Don’t recall who the sponsor is, but very likely is the Canadian govt. They’re trying like crazy to influence the decision-makers…

  7. Repent on Sun, 8th Dec 2013 1:34 pm 

    We’re doomed with the oil, we’re doomed without it. No easy choices here.

  8. rockman on Sun, 8th Dec 2013 2:45 pm 

    Bob – I’m not sure how much the delay in the border crossing permit effected WB decision since the lack of the permit hasn’t prevented the exportation of a single bbl of oil sands production as witnessed by the record amount of exports coming from Canada today. If I had to guess I would say the increasing viability of rail transport over truck and air was a bigger factor. In fact I wonder if he isn’t as surprised as others are by the surge in oil via rail.

    J-Gav – I’ve got no problem calling the oil patch (Canadian & US) for playing the “Oh woe is me” card since it should be obvious from the FACTUAL numbers exactly what is going. You’ve probably seen others here accuse me of not being aware of the environmental impact of oil sands (as well as all oil) development. I’ve very aware of it but that doesn’t change the FACTS of what has happened, what is happening and what I think is readily predictable. To be honest I’ve about lost my patience with folks who think verbally damning any oil development for whatever reason is the same as actually hindering it. IMHO they are just following the age old method of ignoring reality by sticking their head in the sand and thus by not seeing what’s happening can pretend it isn’t.

    A surge in US oil production; more oil sands export then ever before in history; huge increase in wealth transfer from consumers to the global oil producers. And this paints a picture of oil companies shaking in their steel toed boots fearing environmentalists? LOLLLLLLLLLL

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