The news last week that a US coastguard report showed that the oil giant Shell tried to tow one of it's rigs from Alaska to Seattle for tax avoidance reasons, despite warnings, is a new moral low for the company.
The rig broke free of its tow in terrible weather and crashed into the coast:
"The US Coastguard said on Thursday that the grounding of a Shell oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Alaska in 2012 was in part driven by tax-dodging.
Shell believed the rig would have qualified as taxable property on January 1 2013 if it was still in Alaskan waters.
The Kulluk Rig broke away from its tow in late December 2012 after it ran into a vicious storm — a fairly routine winter event in Alaskan waters.
Multiple attempts to maintain tow lines failed and the vessel ran aground on New Year’s Eve just off Kodiak Island.
Several days before the tow initially broke, the master of the tow vessel Aiviq sent an email to the Kulluk’s tow master expressing concerns about the conditions.
“To be blunt I believe that this length of tow, at this time of year, in this location, with our current routing, guarantees an ass kicking,” said the email.
It is Shell who need a good 'ass kicking' for putting tax avoidance before people and planet!!
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