Over 1,000 people representing more than 100 tribes are gathered along the Cannonball River by the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to resist the construction of the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline. It’s been described as the largest unification of Native American tribes in decades. On September 3, the Dakota Access pipeline company attacked Native Americans with dogs and pepper spray as they resisted the construction of the $3.8 billion pipeline on a sacred tribal burial site. Saturday was also the first day of a two-week call for actions against the financial institutions that are bankrolling the $3.8 billion Dakota Access pipeline project. A new investigation has revealed that more than two dozen major banks and financial institutions are helping finance the Dakota Access pipeline. The investigation was published by the research outlet LittleSis. It details how Bank of America, HSBC, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase and other financial institutions have, combined, extended a $3.75 billion credit line to Energy Transfer Partners, the parent company of Dakota Access.
Hugh MacMillan talking:
It’s 30-plus, all told, on the order of 10 billion, that is backing the Energy Transfer family of companies. And really, this is a slice of the much larger fracking pie for these banks. These banks have succeeded in equating energy security in this country—in, more precisely, North America—with widespread fracking. And this action—you know, I think we can look forward to a history that is kind to the Sioux in helping us question whether that’s a good idea.
behind this pipeline is—it’s a joint venture of joint ventures. It’s typically opaque. You have—the key players are a Energy Transfer family of companies. You have Marathon, you have Phillips 66, and you have Enbridge. Enbridge and Marathon both—both bought in just a month ago for $2 billion.
the banks have set aside some $7.75 billion for the Energy Transfer family of companies. And through work with Rainforest Action Network, we also know that $2.5 billion has been provided specifically for this pipeline by some 17 different banks.
Dakota Access, LLC, is a joint venture of Phillips 66 and a joint venture of two members of the Energy Transfer family—Energy Transfer Partners and Sunoco Logistics. Enbridge and Marathon Oil have bought into this, this joint venture. Together, they now have about a 37 percent stake in the pipeline, in the Dakota Access pipeline.
they are banking on this company and banking on being able to drill and frack for the oil to send through the pipeline over the coming decades. So they’re providing the capital for the construction of this pipeline.
I’ve got a list of the 17 banks that are specifically providing financing for this project. And it’s also coupled together with a Energy Transfer—Energy Transfer Partner project to convert an existing pipeline that would connect to the south end of the Dakota Access pipeline and run oil all the way down to the Gulf Coast, where there are refineries and also export infrastructure.
Citibank is the bank that’s been running the books on the project, and that’s the bank that beat the bushes and got other banks to join in. So, we have Wells Fargo, BNP Paribas, SunTrust, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi, Mizuho Bank, TD Securities, ABN AMRO Capital, DNB First Bank—and that’s actually a bank based in Philly; it’s not the DNB Bank based in Norway, which is actually provided several hundred million to the Energy Transfer family separately—and ICBC London, SMBC Nikko Securities and Société Générale.
Energy Transfer and Sunoco Logistics, which own the Dakota Access pipeline. So they have the largest share, and they’ve spearheaded the effort. So, what we published in LittleSis was the 30-plus banks that have provided general financing for Sunoco Logistics and Energy Transfer Partners. Through working with Rainforest Action Network, we were able to—who has access to Bloomberg Terminal, we were able to determine these 17 banks that I just listed, who are providing the direct financing for the Dakota Access project and, in addition, for an Energy Transfer Partners project to extend this pipeline on down to Texas. So, collectively, this pipeline would run from near the Canadian border on down to the Gulf Coast of Texas over 1,800 miles.
if you ask Morgan Stanley, they said a year ago that the oil producers are getting into prison shape—and without irony. So, you know, this is a long-term—these are long-term investments from the banks. There’s fully the—they fully expect the United States to maximize its production of oil and gas through widespread fracking.
“prison shape”. They explain that “Some prisoners”—and I quote—”contrive clever equipment in workouts that result in fitness levels that surpass the traditional gym shape.” And so they’re speaking in—they’re drawing an analogy to prisoners getting in good shape, drawing an analogy from that to oil and gas companies, fracking companies, learning how to do things more cheaply and more efficiently.
I think it’s important to see the forces behind this particular pipeline as the same forces behind numerous other pipelines across the country, both for—both to support fracking for tight oil as well as fracking for shale gas, all toward maximizing production of oil and gas, when the science is clear that we need to maximize what we keep in the ground. Our current policy has not made that switch. And if you look at the Department of Energy’s Quadrennial Technology Review published a year ago, you’ll see, under clean energy technologies, permeability manipulation is included, along with improved understanding of well integrity and improved understanding of injections and how they’re causing earthquakes, such as occurred over the weekend. in Oklahoma. The Quadrennial Technology Review speaks of a future mastery of the subsurface toward maximizing production.
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Hugh MacMillan
senior researcher at Food & Water Watch. He’s the author of the recent investigation, “Who’s Banking on the Dakota Access Pipeline?”
— source democracynow.org