Amazon Watch an earlier court's dismissal on the basis of "forum non conveniens." Thus, legal proceedings were started in Ecuador in 2003. Amazon Watch supports the Ecuadorian plaintiffs by publishing a press kit alleging that Chevron (corporate successor to Texaco) should be held accountable for the dumping of of toxic waste water into a region of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest inhabited by more than 30,000 people – purported to be one of the largest oil related contaminations ever, far exceeding that of the Exxon Valdez disaster. A 2011 decision in Ecuador ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion. Ecuador's Supreme Court in 2013 affirmed
Oil shale in Israel company envisioned bringing bitumen by pipeline from the Ashdod refinery and returning product along the same corridor. However, the plan was not implemented, and Hom Tov subsequently ceased to operate. In July 2011, Israel Energy Initiatives, a subsidiary of Genie Energy, received a one-year extension of its three year exclusive license to explore oil shale resources on in Israel's Shfela region. The project is suspended. In May 2011, the Russian energy company Inter RAO announced that it had received a license to develop oil shale resources in the Negev desert. The company was said to be planning an oil extraction