Shareholders' Revolt Fails to Dent BP

The controversial subject of oil and tar sands – naturally occurring mixtures of sand, clay and bitumen – has been in the news recently with BP the latest oil company to receive scrutiny from its shareholders over its investment in an oil sand project in northern Alberta, Canada. BP has yet to commit to an investment of £6.5 billion into the so-called "Sunrise" oil sands project but, nevertheless, a coalition of investors has tabled a resolution forcing Chief Executive, Tony Hayward, to defend the investment at the AGM on 15th April.

Bitumen is heavy and extremely viscous oil that is notoriously difficult and expensive to extract and process into useful products such as petroleum and diesel. In fact the involvement of BP and its rival, Royal...