November, 2007:

Thursday 29th November 2007

Letters to the Editor

Madam, – Your reprinting (“Shell To Sea Protests Too Much”) of Fr Kevin Hegarty’s Mayo News column of November 20th, without  acknowledgment, is also interesting in its timing, especially as your recent poll result showed an 84 per cent vote in support of Shell To Sea’s arguments. Perhaps it is Fr Hegarty himself who is protesting too much?

The Government’s first duty is to protect its citizens. This duty has consistently been breached, thoughtlessly and casually, during the current Corrib Gas controversy. Expert advice has been set aside; five men have been unjustly jailed, a community has been divided, a beautiful landscape defaced and the security forces of the State undemocratically employed in the protection of a profit-led corporation whose activities will provide 15 years of gas, at no discernible profit to the State, for Irish citizens in counties well beyond Mayo’s borders. read more

Wednesday, 21 November 2007 

“To use a phrase beloved of Shell to Sea supporters, there is no ‘community consent’ for the badgering of the Gardaí as they seek to maintain the rule of democratic law at the gates of Bellanaboy”

Second Reading
Fr Kevin Hegarty

Last Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency granted an operating licence for the Corrib gas refinery at Bellanaboy. It attached stringent conditions, which Shell must obey, to its approval. Shell to Sea reacted to the news with predictable negativity. Last April, when the agency held a lengthy oral hearing on the proposed refinery, I heard many Shell to Sea supporters praise its officials for the courtesy of their manner and the thoroughness of their approach. read more

North Sea is “on a knife edge”

08:50 – 29 November 2007

The Health and Safety Executive could press for a prosecution if the probe into the Thistle Alpha fire reveals defects – despite the fact no one was killed or injured in the blaze on Sunday.

The undertaking from HSE chief Geoffrey Podger was given yesterday shortly before Prime Minister Gordon Brown stressed the UK Government’s commitment to safety in the North Sea and flatly rejected First Minister Alex Salmond’s call for responsibility to be devolved to the Scottish Government. read more

Critics, however, claim that the government seems to play the environmental card when it suits Russia’s interests. The $20 billion Sakhalin-II gas project in Russia’s Far East, for example, came under fire in October 2006 when the Natural Resources Ministry threatened to halt the undertaking unless Russian environmental laws were adhered to.
 
Russia has also been criticized for bulldozing environmental concerns as it engages in the massive transformation of the Black Sea resort of Sochi ahead of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
 
The foreign companies involved in the massive Sakhalin-II project — Britain’s Royal Dutch Shell and Japan’s Mitsui and Mitsubishi — faced huge fines for their environmental failures relating to the construction of an 800-kilometer gas pipeline, a liquefied natural gas plant, two oil platforms, and an oil terminal.
 
Environmentalists supported the claims that damage was being done to the environment, but the move was also widely seen as a clear sign that Moscow wanted to take over the foreign-led venture.
 
Eventually, the three companies sold off about half of their joint stake in Sakhalin-II to Gazprom, Russia’s state-run gas monopoly.
 
“Starting in 1997, ecologists began campaigning against this project,” explains read more

Edited by Simon Goodley
Last Updated: 1:22am GMT 29/11/2007

More on the fall-out at Regal Petroleum, the oil explorer that surprised the City last week when it gave the top job to former Royal Dutch Shell executive, David Greer.

The company had just signed what looked like a cracking deal with Shell – an agreement that the City viewed as part of Regal’s rehabilitation after a share price collapse in 2005 when it struck water, not oil – but the sudden management changes spooked everybody. read more

Thursday, November 29, 2007

ROYAL OAK — The 2007 Shell Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, a collection of images from the world’s largest and most prestigious wildlife photography competition, makes its North American premiere at the Detroit Zoo’s Ford Education Center on Dec. 13.

The exhibition features 107 photographs dramatically displayed as illuminated large-format color transparencies.

The winning images were chosen from a record 32,318 entries by photographers of all ages from more than 55 countries. read more

By Dino Mahtani in London and Matthew Green in Lagos
Published: November 29 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 29 2007 02:00

Royal Dutch Shell is privately negotiating the sale of its stake in two offshore oil licences in Nigeria, with China’s state-controlled offshore company and Nigeria’s largest fuel retailer among the front-runners for the acquisition.

Sources familiar with the situation said CNOOC, China’s leading offshore producer, and African Petroleum, controlled by one of Nigeria’s top business oligarchs, were considering making bids for the acreage that could reach up to $1bn (£483m). read more

Wednesday, 28 November 2007

Safety is on  a “knife-edge” in some parts of the North Sea oil industry, MPs have been warned.

The message from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) came after two platform fires north east of the Shetland.

HSE chief Geoffrey Podger said prosecutions would be considered as part of the investigations, which would be a matter for the procurator fiscal.

Aberdeen South MP Anne Begg described the claims as “quite a damning indictment of lack of investment”. read more

By John Marone, Kyiv Post Staff Writer
Nov 29 2007, 00:21
 
Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has pulled out of a $410 million preliminary agreement to buy a majority stake in the Ukrainian assets of a small, controversial energy company.

Shell was the first multinational to get a foothold on the Ukrainian hydrocarbons market two years ago and has been expanding aggressively ever since. Last week, it appeared as if Shell had taken a major step expanding further into Ukraine. But within days, Shell announced it had withdrawn from a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Regal Petroleum, a UK-based producer of oil and gas that is listed on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange. read more

November 29, 2007
Carl Mortished, World Business Editor

Brazil reaped a billion-dollar harvest yesterday with a frantic sale of oil and gas exploration concessions, despite a boycott of the auction by the major multinationals.

The first sale of exploration acreage by Brazil since the discovery of the Tupi field excited keen interest, generating bids worth $1.14 billion (£550 million) for 117 blocks – but the removal of 41 blocks from the auction by the Government kept the heavy-hitters on the sideline. read more

Shell confidential reserves fraud discovery documents published on 28 November 2007 

Exhibit 132: SPDC Restatement 1998-2002: Confidential (9 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex132_419_7.pdf

Exhibit 133: Note for Discussion: Group Investor Relations: Strategy and Plan to 2004: Every page marked “Confidential” (20 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex133_419_8.pdf

Exhibit 134: 2002 Executive Summary: Most Confidential: Signed by Walter van de Vivjer (12 pages) read more

November 28 2007: 11:06 AM EST

Love it or hate it, argues David O’Reilly in an interview with Fortune’s Geoff Colvin, the world is going to run on oil for several more decades.

By Geoff Colvin, Fortune senior editor-at-large

(Fortune Magazine) — Oil companies are blamed (unjustly) for high gas prices, loathed for profiting from them, and criticized for their environmental record. So it’s no wonder that most industry CEOs have made themselves scarce. Chevron’s David O’Reilly is the exception. He regularly talks to reporters and appears on television to answer questions about Chevron and the industry. read more

EXTRACT: The recent experience of Royal Dutch Shell in being pressured out of a key oil and gas project it had pioneered in Sakhalin has had a dampening effect on foreign investment in other energy infrastructure projects and akin areas essential to broad scale development.

THE ARTICLE

By George H. Wittman
Published 11/28/2007 12:07:35 AM

It is clearly a retrogressive, though not entirely unexpected, path that Vladimir Putin appears to be carving out for the Russian political economy. The major infrastructure giants of the natural gas monopoly, the principal pipeline developer, and the oil cartel have been returned primarily to state control. And this is only part of the story. read more

By DAVID WINNING and RENYA PENG
November 28, 2007

Chinese offshore-oil producer Cnooc Ltd. wants to buy assets in the prolific oil-producing region of the Caspian Sea but isn’t interested in Russia because the risks are too high, a senior company official said.

Yang Hua, chief financial officer, added the Caspian Sea to a list of target regions where Cnooc is looking to build its core business, putting it alongside Africa and the Asian-Pacific region for the first time.

The Caspian Sea contains the Kashagan oil field, which was the world’s largest oil discovery for 30 years when it was found, and the region is ringed by major oil producers, including Kazakhstan, Iran and Azerbaijan. read more

By Grant Smith and Alexander Kwiatkowski

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose in New York trading as OPEC ministers countered reports the group is planning to raise production at a meeting next week.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries currently has no plan to raise oil output when it meets next week in Abu Dhabi because the market is well supplied, Qatar’s oil minister said today. Libya’s top oil official said the group is unable to increase production any further.

“I have not been informed of any plan,” Qatar’s Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said in a telephone interview today. “It seems to be that the market has reacted to physical supply as it has already dropped at the beginning of winter time.” read more