LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) – Oil majors may be past the worst of the coronavirus-induced crash, but the recovery is likely to be long and arduous. Royal Dutch Shell, Chief Executive Ben van Beurden on Thursday said the $122 billion company’s sales fell by nearly two-thirds in the second quarter, as crude prices collapsed during lockdowns. The pandemic will leave a legacy of rising debt, diminished investment and uncertain demand. Juicy investor payouts are the natural sacrifice.read more
Energy venture NAM says it does not want to use Groningen gas field in 2022
AMSTERDAM, July 30 (Reuters) – NAM, a venture of Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil that operates gas fields in the Netherlands, said on Thursday it did not want to use the Groningen gas field in 2022 and had asked the government to approve this.
The government, which has been ordering production cuts at the field due to seismic risks in the region, had asked NAM to keep the field available as a resource in 2022 in case of a cold snap, NAM said, adding that it was opposing this request.read more
The oil major has shown it can play the markets like a commodity trader. But investors can’t trust that bumper oil-trading profits are repeatable.
Sharp swings in the crude price have been an unmitigated pain for the oil industry, right? Not entirely. The silver lining has been a lucrative environment for the oil majors’ trading operations. This was on stark display in the second-quarter performance of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. But it creates a challenge for investors. How do you value this unpredictable and opaque source of income?read more
Speaking on a conference call, Mr van Beurden said designs to restructure and streamline the firm are now being drawn up, meaning it “will end up, probably, with fewer people”.
Shell, which posted second quarter losses of $18.1billion, currently employs around 83,000 people worldwide, with “really difficult decisions” already being made such as voluntary severance programmes and freezing bonuses to reduce costs.read more
Sam Meredith@SMEREDITH19Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday reported a sharp drop in net profit for the three months through to the end of June, following an unprecedented period of energy market turmoil and significantly weaker oil and gas prices.
The Anglo-Dutch company reported adjusted earnings of $638 million for the second quarter of 2020. That compared with net profit of $3.5 billion over the same period a year earlier and $2.9 billion in the first three months of 2020.
Analysts had warned that “Big Oil” companies, referring to the world’s largest energy majors, were likely to report “horrendous” second-quarter results as coronavirus lockdown measures coincided with an unparalleled demand shock.
The ongoing economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic had prompted Shell to announce that it expected to incur write-downs of up to $22 billion in the second quarter.read more
Shell has posted losses of $18.1billion (£14bn) for the second quarter of 2020 as oil, LNG and gas prices remain depressed.
The energy major took an impairment charge of $16.8billion (£12.9bn) – $22.3bn pre-tax (£17.2bn) -as it wrote down the valuation of assets due to the downturn and Covid-19.
Shell’s second quarter results compare to a profit of $3.1bn (£2.39bn) in the same period last year, while revenues have dropped to $32.5bn, compared to $60bn in Q1 2020 and $90.5bn Q2 2019.read more
LONDON, July 30 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell said on Thursday its second-quarter writedowns include the OPL 245 licence for an offshore oilfield in Nigeria which it holds alongside Eni and which is at the centre of an ongoing corruption court case in Italy.
Italian prosecutors have asked for oil majors Eni and Shell to be fined and some of their present and former executives, including Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi, to be jailed in a long-running trial over alleged corruption in Nigeria. All the defendants have denied any wrongdoing.read more
Sodexo to chopper ‘scabs’ in preparation for union strike
28 July 2020
Lego model of the Prelude FLNG at Shell House on Wellington Street, Perth.
CONTRACTOR Sodexo has made a last-ditch effort to prevent the impact of a union strike across Shell Australia’s Prelude floating LNG vessel offshore Western Australia, by helicoptering in alternative staff ahead of the protected action set to commence on Thursday.
The Australian Workers Union and Maritime Union of Australia, in a coalition known as the Offshore Alliance, have organised a strike, more commonly known as a ‘protected action’ when undertaken as part of enterprise bargaining, from this Thursday, of more than 60 caters, cooks, and cleaners across the Prelude FLNG.read more
Anti-graft groups query Nigerian Justice Minister on OPL 245 assets recovery
27 July 2020: Henry Uche
Nigeria’s Minister of Minister and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, has been asked to give full disclosure of recovered assets linked to the OPL multi-billion dollar oil scam.
In a statement delivered by the Chairman of Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre) Mr Olanrewaju Suraj, the charge came after the Corner House, Global Witness, Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA Resource Centre) and Re-Common, launched a global campaign through a letter to the AGF Malami for transparency in the assets recovered from the scam. In the petition, the groups raised 25 critical questions for Malami.read more
Major fossil fuel and utility companies as well as financial institutions have contributed to law enforcement organizations for years, according to a report published Monday.
THE GUARDIAN: Big corporations accused of driving environmental and health inequalities in black and brown communities through toxic and climate-changing pollution are also funding powerful police groups in major US cities, according to a new investigation.
Some of America’s largest oil and gas companies, private utilities, and financial institutions that bankroll fossil fuels also back police foundations…
Shell is one of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world, and is currently building a huge ethane cracker plant near Pittsburgh, which advocates warn could turn Appalachia into the next so-called Cancer Alley – a corridor of Louisiana refineries, where Shell is also a major polluter. Shell is a “featured partner” of the New Orleans police foundation and a sponsor of the Houston police’s mounted patrol.read more
Royal Dutch Shell is expected to announce a record quarterly loss next week as the oil industry counts the cost of the toughest quarter in its history.read more
Shell’s plan to use Scottish forests for carbon offsetting is “greenwashing”, Government officials warned before accepting £5million for the scheme to go ahead.
The team at Forestry and Land Scotland (FLS) said that the money was “small beer” for the oil giant and said that they were at risk being “worked over by Shell’s formidable PR machinery”.read more
Italian prosecutors have requested a 10-year jail sentence for Dan Etete, a former Nigerian petroleum minister, over alleged fraud in the controversial Malabu Scandal.
Reuters reports that the prosecutors proposed eight years in prison for both Claudio Descalzi, former chief executive of Eni and Paolo Scaroni, his predecessor.
They also proposed a seven-years-and-four-months jail term for Malcolm Brinded, Shell’s former head of upstream.read more
Shell and Total are being urged to put their money where their mouth is after a new report showed the pair are still investing much more in hydrocarbons than renewable energy.
Findings from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) revealed around 90% of the oil and gas majors capital expenditure continues to be on fossil fuels.
It estimates that both firms need to shift at least half of their total spend, around $10bn per annum, from oil and gas exploration to acceleration of renewable strategies.read more
A hulking Russian pipe-laying vessel called the Akademik Cherskiy can be seen off Germany’s Baltic coast these days,marine tracking sites say, apparentlywaiting for the chance to complete the final stretches of a massive undersea pipeline that will carry natural gas directly to Germany from Russia.
The Trump administration, though, is trying to keep the pipeline, known as Nord Stream 2, on ice. Last week, the State Department moved to potentially impose economic penalties on investors and other business participants in the project, an expansion of existing sanctions.read more
Listen and read proof in audio and transcript form of Shell CEO Ben van Beurden’s cover-up tactics in the OPL 245 Nigerian corruption scandal. The instruction given by him in the covertly recorded call to CFO Simon Henry was at odds with Shell’s claimed core business principles. Cover-up and obstruction, instead of transparency and integrity, says Shell critic John Donovan
JOHN DONOVAN TV DOCUMENTARY INTERVIEW
SHELL EXECUTIVES AT THE CENTER OF A SCHEME TO STEAL $1.3 BILLION FROM NIGERIA’S PEOPLE
SHELL ADMITS DEALING WITH NIGERIAN MONEY LAUNDERER – BBC NEWS
SHELL, ENI AND NIGERIAN OFFICIALS IN OPL 245 CORRUPTION SCANDAL
INVESTIGATION OF OPL 245 NIGERIAN OIL CORRUPTION SCANDAL
DUTCH EARTHQUAKES CAUSED BY SHELL/EXXON
SHELL KILLS FOR OIL IN NIGERIA
ESTHER KIOBEL SUES SHELL FOR COMPLICITY IN HUSBANDS MURDER
ESTHER KIOBEL: EVIL OIL GIANT SHELL COLLUDED IN THE EXECUTION OF MY INNOCENT HUSBAND
SHELL LIED ABOUT CLEANING UP OIL IN NIGER DELTA
SHELL SPIES INFILTRATED NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT
LEGO DROPS SHELL OVER GREENPEACE OIL SPILL VIDEO
SHELL ARCTIC DRILLING ACCIDENTS
SHELL KNEW ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE DECADES AGO
ABANDONED BY SHELL: KEITH MACDONALD & FAMILY, VICTIMS OF RADIOACTIVE CONTAMINATION AT WORK
ROYAL DUTCH SHELL FOUNDER SIR HENRI DETERDING, NAZI FINANCIER
JOHN DONOVAN PROMOTIONAL GAMES FOR SHELL AND OTHER CLIENTS
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON. EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
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