Greenpeace shuts UK Esso (XOM.N) stations, HQ
Date: 25-Feb-03
Country: UK
Esso is a unit of U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil.
About 300 Greenpeace volunteers began targeting stations from dawn yesterday, removing power switches that controlled pumps and locking pump nozzles together, a spokesman for the lobby group told Reuters.
"We've found a way of stopping power to the pumps. We've just shut down our 100th garage and shut down their headquarters," the spokesman said.
"This is in response to their fuelling of the Iraq crisis and their funding of groups in Washington that are aggressively advocating an attack on Iraq as well as their stance on global warming."
Esso spokesman David Eglinton confirmed the station closures and said staff were being told to stay away from the company's headquarters in Leatherhead, southern England, because activists had got onto the glass roof and were posing a safety problem.
But he firmly denied the lobby group's claims that the company was pushing for military action in Iraq.
"People have every right to express their views but it is ludicrous to suggest that ExxonMobil is in any way encouraging a potential war on Iraq," he said.
"The Iraq situation is entirely a matter for governments, not companies to resolves."
He said the company had not made inquiries or had any discussions with U.S. President George W. Bush's administration or any other government regarding military action to gain access to Iraqi oil.
Greenpeace said the protest would continue throughout the day but no more of the company's 1,300 British petrol stations would be targeted.
Instead, members would be packaging up the power switches they had removed from 100 stations around the country and posting them to ExxonMobil executives in Texas.