Throughout history, countless companies have thrived and prospered into vast empires of wealth and success. Many of these companies have kept their original core values in making decisions to expand its wealth, but several have not had a clean record on their conquest for money and power. A good example of a company that has put aside their core beliefs for the sake of making a profit is an oil company known to all as Chevron.
The mission statement for Chevron shows the world a pure, ethical, moral side of Chevron. The mission statement is as follows, “At the heart of The Chevron Way is our vision … to be the global energy company most admired for its people, partnership and performance. Our vision means we: safely provide energy products vital to sustainable economic progress and human development throughout the world; are people and an organization with superior capabilities and commitment; are the partner of choice; earn the admiration of all our stakeholders – investors, customers, host governments, local communities and our employees – not only for the goals we achieve but how we achieve them; deliver world-class performance.” (https://www.chevron.com/about/the-chevron-way)
Chevron deeply supports its core values such as integrity, trust, diversity, ingenuity, partnership, protection people and the environment, and high performance. It is stated under their definition of integrity that they are honest with others and themselves and that they meet the highest ethical standards in all business dealings. Trust to them is crucial in their beliefs when dealing with colleagues and partners.
With these simple words being the center of the way they want their company ran, it begs the question,”Is there something they are hiding from us?”. The simple answer is yes. In 2014, a judge named Lewis A. Kaplan ruled in favor of Chevron in a case involving an oil spill they were responsible for in Ecuador. The oil spill devastated thousands of Ecuador citizens, ruining rainforests and killing wildlife. Chevron, knowing they were fully responsible for this tragedy, bribed the judge in control of the case to alter the rightful ruling to charge Chevron approximately $9 million USD to help fund restoration efforts to bring their country back to its former beauty. A U.S spokeswoman for the Ecuadoreans, Karen Hinton, said she was shocked and called it a “a sad day for the U.S. justice system.” (latimes.com)
It is sickening to believe that a company that distinguishes themselves on integrity and trust would commit such a heinous act of selfishness and greed. Yet it has been all swept under the rug to mask the true evil that lies in the heart of Chevron. They advertise them leading projects to help restore the environment and helping feed children who have nothing eat to brainwash the viewers into misconceiving them as a kind and trustworthy company. It is apparent that this tactic of misleading people to help business has worked in their favor, but it is also obvious that all respect should be withdrawn from the idea of conducting business with them or purchasing their product.
This is not the only incident in Chevron’s history that can be looked at as vile and misleading. There has been an ongoing fight to stop Chevron oil drilling in many Indonesian cities due to the fact that it damages ecosystems around them. Citizens began protests against Chevron in Riau, Indonesia often taking the form of massive protests against the company, with protestors at times numbering in the tens of thousands. Chevron has employed brutal measures to quiet protests, including using Indonesia’s security services against their people, bringing charges of human rights abuse, violence and intimidation. Also in 2010, local communities in the Rumbai Coastal area complained that their houses were continually flooded due to the overflow of a Chevron waste ditch. The coordinator of the Rumbai Community and Rumbai Coastal area reported this to the police on February 27, 2010. The community has suffered from serious skin problems, but Chevron has not paid any attention. For two days, the demonstrators cut off the gate to the oil field on land the company had seized for exploration and exploitation. They hung a banner urging Chevron Pacific Indonesia to leave immediately and they set up a tent in the middle of the road, stopping all vehicles that attempted to go into the location. The demonstration was conducted peacefully, although hundreds of police were equipped with rifles and hand guns. “Chevron has seized 130 hectares of our land since 2003, even though there are 65 claimants’ letters for the land,” said Masran Djasid, coordinator of community. “There are still 130 out of 600 hectares for which the company has not yet provided compensation. But Chevron has built dozens of oil pumps. Since 2005 Chevron has not displayed any goodwill. In fact, the community conducted a demonstration and sent a complaint to the Head of the District, the Governor, and even the National Parliament. But there has been no solution and the company has been violating its own map.” Currently, the Executive Agency for Upstream Oil and Gas is investigating the land conflict between the villagers of Rantau Bais and Chevron. “The legal department of BPMIGAS is studying the conflict. And, in fact, we suspect that there is some land that has not been paid for yet,” said Elan Biantoro, Head of Public Relations for BPMIGAS. According to the company, Chevron has paid one million dollars for compensation for an area of 457.19 hectares, which consisted of 296 claimants. The company rejected 65 claimants because they were not included the 457.19 hectares. Since Chevron has not responded to the community’s concerns, the community organized another blockade on November 25, 2010. Arifin Ahmad, Secretary of the Peasant Group Rantau Bais Terpadu, said, “We are forced to blockade the road again because so far Chevron has not been willing to pay compensation for our land.” “If there is no change in Chevron’s position, we will stay here.” On October 2011 the attorney general’s investigation started an investigation against Chevron for corruption. In fact Chevron Pacific Indonesia appointed two Indonesian contractors, Green Planet and Sumigita, to do the bioremediation work, which entails removing or neutralizing contaminants in soil or water. Prosecutors said the companies were not qualified and did not have the proper permits, and that the cleanup was unnecessary because the area was not sufficiently contaminated. Prosecutors claimed Chevron staff had violated Indonesia’s anticorruption laws because the company would have qualified for reimbursements of nearly $10 million from the government under a cost-recovery program and therefore would have created losses for state coffers. Ironically, in 2011 Chevron received an award from the Ministry of Environment for the high quality of its bioremediation project in Sumatra. During the initial trial, a number of Indonesian agencies, including the Ministry of Environment, the Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities, and the Supreme Audit Agency all testified that Chevron’s employees had not broken any laws. Defense lawyers for Chevron Pacific Indonesia rejected the prosecution’s claims and said that its scientific analysis had confirmed that the soil was sufficiently contaminated to warrant bioremediation. They called into question the credibility of the state’s expert witness on bioremediation: T. Mulya Lubis, a defense lawyer, said the prosecutors had “a clear conflict of interest with their witness. If there was any violating, it should be a civil case that would be dealt with through mediation and arbitration, not criminalization.” The National Commission on Human Rights also prepared a 400-page report on the case, in which it said the rights of the defendants had been violated: the defendants had been held for more than two months without charges being brought against them. In May 2013, the anti-corruption court convicted the two directors of Green Planet and Sumigita of corruption and sentenced them to five and six years in prison. The criminal prosecution of local Chevron employees has sent a wave of fear through Indonesia’s oil and natural gas sector, which is increasingly reliant on the technical expertise and investment. The Chevron case drew an unusual amount of attention in Indonesia, partly because multiple Indonesian government agencies, as well as the country’s independent Supreme Audit Agency, had gone on record saying that no laws were broken.
To this day, Ecuador is still fighting for justice and Indonesian citizens are still protesting Chevron drilling, but nothing has come from either. Chevron has done nothing to right their wrongs and has relied on crooked government officials to cover up their sloppy mishaps. It is surprising that no one has been able to get through to them that they are completely responsible for their mistakes. It is not right to impede on other countries’ land with so many people in protest, but they continue to do so. They need to right their wrongs to uphold their moral standards and until then they deserve no respect.
Work Cited
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/40/Chevron-Corporation.html
https://www.chevron.com/about/the-chevron-way
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-chevron-ecuador-20160808-snap-story.html