June, 2007:

Headline: The Power of Perception

Consumers are flooded by corporate marketing campaigns linking to social issues. 

Indeed, the public now expects just about every company to be allied with a cause, according to Carol Cone, whose brand-strategy firm recently conducted a survey on cause-related marketing.  The best corporate reputation belongs to Microsoft Corporation, according to one of the oldest and most respected indexes from Delahaye.  It’s top spot is cemented by its well-publicized philanthropy. read more

By Greg Walters

June 29 (Bloomberg) — OAO Gazprom, Russia’s natural-gas export monopoly, may form a joint venture with the oil company OAO Rosneft to develop the Sakhalin-3 offshore oil and gas project, Gazprom Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said.

Gazprom and state-controlled Rosneft agreed in late 2005 to bid jointly for oil and gas fields at home and abroad. Both companies are already active in hydrocarbon projects off Russia’s Sakhalin Island, north of Japan.

“Everything is going forward,” Medvedev said on the sidelines of Gazprom’s shareholders’ meeting today in Moscow, where the company is based. “There will be joint ventures. We’re thinking about Sakhalin-3 and other projects, including offshore projects.” read more

By Chika Amanze-Nwachuku, 06.30.2007

Malabu Oil and Gas, a company owned by former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Chief Dan Etete yesterday disclosed that it had filed a preliminary objection to a suit brought by Royal Dutch Shell against the Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL245) re-allocated to it by the Federal Government. It said it would resist moves by Shell to “continue to act as clog in its (Malabu) efforts to develop and realise the full potential of the oil block.’’

Shell had gone before an Abuja Federal High Court  to challenge the decision of the Federal Government to re-allocate the oil block to Malabu. read more

By Joe Carroll and Greg Walters

June 29 (Bloomberg) — OAO Gazprom, the Russian energy company that seized control of $8.5 billion in projects from Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc, doesn’t expect to buy a stake in Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Sakhalin-1 oil and gas development.

Deputy Chief Executive Officer Alexander Medvedev told shareholders at a meeting in Moscow that plans for Gazprom to buy the natural gas output of the project won’t entail taking an ownership stake in the $17 billion venture. Gazprom said on June 26 that it wants to buy all the gas produced at the offshore Sakhalin-1 project to uphold the Moscow-based company’s monopoly on Russian gas exports. read more

Saturday, June 30, 2007
 
Shell Canada will proceed with an environmental assessment of its proposed new refinery near Sarnia, Environment Minister Laurel Broten has announced.

The Minister has approved the company’s terms of reference, which is a work plan for an environmental assessment. It outlines the steps and studies Shell will undertake to identify environmental and cumulative effects and describes the methods that will be used for assessing the effects.

“The terms of reference is just the first step in the environmental assessment process, which Shell has volunteered to undertake,” Broten said. “An EA will inform us if the refinery can be designed and constructed in a manner that respects the environment.” read more

(The following is a reformatted version of a press release issued by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection and received via electronic mail. The release was confirmed by the sender.)

June 29, 2007

STATE FILES LAWSUITS SEEKING COMPENSATION FOR DAMAGES POLLUTERS CAUSED TO NATURAL RESOURCES

TRENTON – The state has filed approximately 120 lawsuits that could result in hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation from polluters who have harmed New Jersey’s natural resources, including numerous manufacturers and marketers of the gasoline additive MTBE, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Lisa P. Jackson announced today. read more

June 29, 2007 04:10 PM
 
Recently the National Geographic magazine published a feature piece on the Niger Delta “Curse of the Black Gold: Hope and Betrayal in the Niger Delta“. For those familiar with the issues of the Niger Delta there was really nothing that has not been reported by human rights environmental activists and Human Rights Watch over the past 15 years. What is new and cause for concern is the article “Nigeria and the United States: Convergent Interests” published by the Center for International Policy. A few months back I was contacted via my blog by a US contractor called Carol Chapital asking if I was willing to assist on a project in Nigeria.  read more

Water table below Bakersfield refinery remains contaminated
BY STACEY SHEPARD, Californian staff writer
e-mail: sshepard@bakersfield.com | Friday, Jun 29 2007 11:15 PM
Last Updated: Friday, Jun 29 2007 11:18 PM

Shell Oil shut down a soil cleanup operation at the Rosedale Highway refinery two years ago and hasn’t restarted it despite repeated requests from the state, according to documents obtained from the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board.

Shell said the shutdown was temporary while it searched for a new power source to run the system after selling the facility to Big West of California, a subsidiary of Flying J, in March 2005. read more

NSB issues challenge
By Alan Bailey
Vol. 12, No. 26  Week of July 01, 2007

The clock continues to tick toward Shell’s planned start for its summer 2007 drilling program at its Beaufort Sea Sivulliq prospect, which is on the western side of Camden Bay off Alaska’s North Slope.

But on June 25, in a new twist in the regulatory process, the North Slope Borough asked the commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources to formally review a June 19 proposed finding by DNR’s Permitting Office of Project Management and Permitting, which had deemed Shell’s program consistent with the Alaska Coastal Management Plan. read more

Published: Jun 30, 2007

AS COMPETITION FURTHER stiffens, Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. is planning to add another 50 stations to its nationwide network and give existing ones a facelift.

The oil firm hopes to increase its 33-percent share of the retail market.

Sammy de Guzman, Shells vice president for retail, said the oil firm would seesaw from the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the retail market, giving up the top slot one month and regaining it the next.

This cycle, he said, has been going on for a long time, and Shell now wants to further strengthen its position in the market. read more

By Ed Crooks
Published: June 30 2007 03:00 | Last updated: June 30 2007 03:00

Royal Dutch Shell and Statoil, Norway’s nationaloil company, have dropped ambitious plans for a demonstration project to capture carbon dioxide emitted by a power station and inject it under thesea, saying it was technically feasible but not commercially viable.

The Statoil-led project would have taken carbon dioxide from a gas-fired power station in Norwayand injected it into an oilfield for enhanced oil recovery.

Statoil said the extra oil that could be recovered was “too low to justify the necessary investments in the field.” read more

By Neil Hume and Robert Orr
Published: June 30 2007 03:00 | Last updated: June 30 2007 03:00

EXTRACT

Royal Dutch Shell enjoyed further gains. Up 2.6 per cent on Thursday after Morgan Stanley said the company was undervalued by £60bn, shares in the energy group gained a further 1.1 per cent to £20.83 thanks to a rising crude price and positive comments from Credit Suisse.

Reiterating its £22 target price, the broker said there could be $25bn (£12.5bn) of disposals in the pipeline as the company continues its restructuring programme. read more

Nick Fletcher
Saturday June 30, 2007

Oil companies were also in focus as the crude price hovered around $71 a barrel. Royal Dutch Shell, which Morgan Stanley reckons could be undervalued to the tune of a whopping $120bn, added 29p to £20.34. Credit Suisse chipped in yesterday, raising its earnings forecast by 2% for 2008 and suggesting the company has about $25bn (£12bn)of possible disposals to come.

BP was 4p better at 603p. Days after announcing plans for a bio-ethanol plant in Hull with Du Pont and AB Foods, BP announced a biofuels joint venture with D1 Oils. The deal includes the option for BP to buy up to 16% of D1 at an average price of 251p a share. D1 added 23.75p to 264.75p. But later news that there were problems with the CATS gas import pipeline operated by BP took some of the shine off the oil company’s shares. read more

By Yvette Essen
Last Updated: 2:48am BST 30/06/2007

Royal Dutch Shell was the subject of a second bullish note in as many days. Credit Suisse repeated its outperform rating on the shares, saying: “ We believe that management still has more options to maximise shareholder value and that the shares look too cheap.”

Raising its earnings-per-share estimates by 2pc in 2008 and 3.5pc in 2009, the broker predicted up to $25bn (£12.5bn) of possible disposals are still to come which, if they are executed well, “could drive the shares closer to fair value, improve operational efficiency and allow staff to be redirected to growth areas”. read more

June 30, 2007

Up 1.60%

BP A consortium led by the UK oil giant will be investing $5 billion (£2.49 billion) to develop the Skarv and Idun oil and gasfield in the Norwegian Sea. BP holds a 24 per cent stake in the project. Partners include Statoil, Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil Corp and Norsk Hydro. Meanwhile, BP unveiled a venture with D1 Oils, with BP to ramp up the planting of Jatropha curcas trees, used to make biodiesel.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/article2008444.ece read more

SANTO DOMINGO. – Shell’s representatives in the Dominican Petroleum Refinery’s (Refidomsa) governing board have prevented the Government’s attempts to know the figures on fuel purchase costs and marketing since 2004.

The members that represent Shell in the governing board rejected the first attempt to control Refidomsa’s purchase and fuel sales in a meeting in October, 2004. According to the data collected by the newspaper Listin Diario, that first attempt was raised in a session headed by then president Arístides Fernandez Zucco. read more