Widow gives ConocoPhillips her husband's ashes

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Widow gives ConocoPhillips her husband's ashes
By PAM EASTON
Associated Press

A New Jersey widow of a ConocoPhillips refinery worker gave a box she said contained her husband's cremated remains to the company's chairman during an annual shareholder's meeting in Houston today.

Betty Ann Kearney said she was frustrated in finding answers for why her husband, Bill Kearney, died of esophageal cancer in 2002 at age 49.

"My husband gave the refinery his life, and I am here to give you my husband's ashes," Kearney said before walking up to ConocoPhillips Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jim Mulva and handing him a black box with red print that read "Bill's Ashes."

"Mrs. Kearney, it is difficult in a way for me to respond to what you have just done," Mulva said, setting the box on a table near the podium from which he addressed shareholders. "Your husband was a valued member of our refinery."

Mulva said the company asked The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to investigate its Linden, N.J., refinery last year after Kearney first brought her concerns to the company. He said the federal agency could find no link between the cancer rate of employees and the refinery.

"From our point of view, what we have done is done everything we can," Mulva said. "We have done all of the homework we can."

Unsatisfied, Kearney claimed that almost three dozen refinery workers in their 40s or 50s have died since 1992.

"Tell me why my husband is dead," she said. "Tell me why I'm raising my children alone."

Mulva said the company would continue to review data from the plant but said he believes some people Kearney listed as dead are still alive. He offered to meet with the widow following the shareholders' meeting.

Kearney said a company representative met with her after the meeting, but she remained dissatisfied.

Before the question-and-answer period in which Kearney confronted Mulva, he and three others were elected to the ConocoPhillips board of directors. In addition to Mulva, shareholders elected Norman R. Augustine, Larry D. Horner and Charles C. Krulak to three-year terms.

Shareholders also voted to hire accounting firm Ernst & Young and narrowly rejected a motion to change the way directors are elected to the company's board to a majority system instead of a plurality vote.

Given the split among shareholders, Mulva said there would be more discussion about changing the way directors are elected. The measure to keep the current election process in place passed with 50.65 percent of the vote.

Nearly all shareholders present, 90 percent, also voted Thursday not to place compensation limitations on company executives.

Mulva told shareholders that ConocoPhillips plans to invest $3 billion from 2006 through 2010 to increase its ability to refine heavy, sour crude. He said feedstock will become heavier and more sour over time, and the company wants to plan ahead to increase its ability to process it.

Heavy sour crude has more sulfur and is heavier than light sweet crude, which is easier to refine because it doesn't have as many elements that must be filtered out during processing. Mulva said Canada, Mexico and Venezuela increasingly export heavy crude.

"It obviously has traded at a discount to the light, sweet crude," Mulva said.

Mulva said that discount has historically been several dollars per barrel, but more recently the savings have increased to $15 to $20 a barrel.

Over five years, Mulva said the $3 billion investment would allow the company to process 41 percent of the heavier crude compared to 28 percent now.

"We see very attractive returns for our business," he said. "We feel that we are at somewhat of an advantage because of our refining position in the lower 48 (states). ... We can move that heavy oil through existing pipeline structure and infrastructure directly into our refineries."