Unocal was one of the key players in the CentGas consortium, which attempted to build the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline to run from the Caspian area, through Afghanistan, to the Indian Ocean, at a time after the Taliban siege of Kabul in 1996.

Henry L. Brandon, Union's vice president of international development wrote a "contract of work" arrangement, which was a first for Indonesia.

In a speech on Indonesian Independence Day in August 1961, then president Sukarno talked at some length about "production sharing", which included language written into the contract by Union executives.

[13][14] Following a vote in the United States House of Representatives, the CNOOC bid was referred to President George W. Bush, on the grounds that its implications for national security needed to be reviewed.

[15] Unocal was one of the key players in the CentGas consortium, an attempt to build the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline to run from the Caspian area, through Afghanistan and probably Pakistan, to the Indian Ocean.

In the 1980s, CIA chief Bill Casey had revived the agency's practice of gaining intelligence from traveling businessmen.

Marty Miller, one of Unocal's top executives, conducted negotiations in several Central Asian countries from 1995, and voluntarily provided information gained on these trips to the CIA's Houston station.

Also near was the Pakistani consulate, which housed officers from [the Pakistani military Inter-Services Intelligence, the] ISI.In 1997, Robert Oakley [ex-US ambassador to Pakistan, now on Unocal's ad hoc advisory board] advised Miller to reach the Taliban by working through Pakistan's government [then led by Benazir Bhutto].

He also suggested that Unocal hire Thomas Gouttiere, an Afghan specialist at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, to develop a job training program in Kandahar that would teach Pashtuns the technical skills needed to build a pipeline.

Intelligence "whistleblower" Julie Sirrs claimed that anti-Taliban leader Ahmad Shah Massoud told her he had "proof that Unocal had provided money that helped the Taliban take Kabul [in 1996]".

[19] And French journalist Richard Labeviere said, referring to the later 1990s, "The CIA and Unocal's security forces ... provided military weapons and instructors to several Taleban militia[s] ..."[20] US State Department officials openly promoted the pipeline, and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger served as a Unocal consultant.

[19] The Taliban and Unocal were in negotiations in Texas to discuss arrangements for the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan in 1997[21] although it faced competition with from the Argentine Bridas Corporation.

[23] The company suspended work on the project following the U.S. cruise missile strikes on Afghanistan in response to the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings[24] and completely pulled out in December 1998 citing low oil prices and a need to cut costs in addition to regional instability.

To clean up the massive spill, the crew had to excavate enough soil to fill a football field up to 60 feet (18 m) high.

Locals had noticed a strange sheen on the ocean surface, and dead seals and sea lions began washing up onto the beach.

Unocal has been actively cleaning up the site since the mid-90s, receiving praise from the Sierra Club for their habitat restoration work.

EarthRights International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Paul Hoffman, Hadsell & Stormer, and Judith Brown Chomsky served as co-counsel to the plaintiffs.