Conoco tops lobby league

The third-largest US oil producer ConocoPhillips, which last year abandoned a project for Abu Dhabi's Shah sour gasfield, spent US$16.8 million [Dh61.7m] last year on lobbying politicians.

A US firm that last year abandoned a project for Abu Dhabi's Shah sour gasfield spent more on lobbying US politicians than any other oil and gas firm in the same period.

The third-largest US oil producer, ConocoPhillips, spent US$16.8 million [Dh61.7m] last year, 68 per cent more than the next-biggest lobbying spender in the sector, according to US government figures.

ConocoPhillips had signed up with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company for a project estimated to be worth between $10 billion and $12bn to process 1 billion cubic feet of sour gas a day into fuel and sulphur.

When the US company exited the project in April, the same month it abandoned plans for a refinery in Saudi Arabia's Yanbu industrial city, it said it was shifting its strategy from downstream projects to oil and gas exploration.

In October, ConocoPhillips said it planned to sell $10bn of assets over the coming two years to reduce its debt.

Overall, oil and gas producers spent more than $111m lobbying Congress last year. Other top spenders on lobbying included Chevron ($10m), ExxonMobil ($9.9m), and Royal Dutch Shell ($8.1m). BP came in sixth, spending more than $5.1m in the year in which it also battled the fallout from its Gulf of Mexico oil spill.