A major Japanese bank, the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), has been forced to withdraw from financing the East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). This has been claimed as a win by the #StopEACOP coalition of over 260 civil society organisations.
The 900-mile-long heated pipeline, a project of French oil company Total and Chinese oil company CNOOC, threatens to displace thousands of families and farmers from their land and rip through numerous sensitive biodiversity hotspots.
350.org say that SMBC’s withdrawal ‘could delay the planned pipeline project even further, and eventually stop it from happening’.
Here in the UK, Stop Cambo’s campaign to halt the development of the Rosebank oil and gas field in the North Sea went international on 10 May when protesters from Scotland joined others in Norway to protest at the AGM of Equinor, the company that owns Rosebank.
#StopRosebank said: ‘We really ruined Equinor’s day. Their AGM – a day to celebrate the company – turned into hours of brilliant actions, viral interventions in Norway and [the British] parliament and very bad publicity for Equinor and the Norwegian government.’