The New York Times

Shell, the Oil Giant, Will Sell Renewable Energy to Texans

The European oil company has been expanding into green energy even as many U.S. energy giants have kept their focus on fossil fuels.

By Clifford Krauss and Ivan Penn: June 7, 2022 Updated 3:13 p.m. ET

HOUSTON — Shell said on Tuesday that it would begin selling electricity generated from renewable sources to residents and businesses in Texas, a move that brings the European oil company’s shift to green energy to the U.S. market.

The announcement underscores a widening gulf between the strategies of European and U.S. oil companies as elected leaders and consumers demand that the energy industry do more to tackle climate change. European businesses including Shell, BP and TotalEnergies are seeking to expand into renewable energy, electric vehicle charging and other fast-growing businesses as U.S. companies like Exxon Mobil and Chevron mostly keep their focus on oil and gas while investing in capturing carbon from industrial plants and biofuels.

Shell, which already has electricity businesses in nine countries, plans to double the amount of electricity it sells by 2030. The company, which is based in London, is Europe’s largest oil and gas business by revenue and has operations in more than 70 countries, including gas stations, refineries and oil and gas fields. read more

Forbes

Forbes Global 2000: Shell Becomes Europe’s Top Public Company As Oil Price Boom Drives Profits

David Dawkins: Forbes Staff: MAY 12, 2022

Petrol and energy giant Royal Dutch Shell has reclaimed its spot as Europe’s top-ranked public company on the Forbes Global 2000 ranking, pushing German car giant Volkswagen AG back down into second place.

The London-based Anglo-Dutch giant, with its distinctive yellow and red branding seen across Europe’s gasoline forecourts, is valued at $211 billion this year, a rise of nearly 40% over the year and over double the value of second-placed Volkswagen AG.

In May, Shell reported its highest ever quarterly profits for the first three months of 2022 at $9.13 billion, following a sharp rise in oil prices further heightened by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February and the punitive sanction regime placed on Russia thereafter. Having fallen to 324 on the list of 2000 listed companies last year, Shell has shaken off its pandemic blues and returned to the 16th spot globally in 2022. read more

English translation of extracts from a Forbes article published in German on 1st March 2022. 

FORBES

CAN SHELL GREEN?

In the public perception, Shell is an industrial giant – now Fabian Ziegler, Chairman of the Management Board of Deutsche Shell Holding GmbH since spring 2020, wants to make the company greener.

Will the Swiss succeed in pulling off the coup so vital to the group’s survival?

Text: Matthias Lauerer
Photo: Deutsche Shell Holding GmbH

1st March 2022

Is Shell on its way to a carbon-neutral future? Will this be a reimagined world, where green hydrogen, e-mobility and decarbonization have become a reality? Or do they prefer to greenwash to perpetuate the dirty old business model on which the global economy hangs? read more

DutchNews.nl

Funding pot for quake-hit Groningen houses emptied on first day

January 11, 2022

A €220m funding pot to strengthen homes weakened by gas production in Groningen ran dry on the first day following a flood of applications.

Long queues formed in towns and villages in the northern province on Monday at council offices where people could claim up to €10,000 per household for renovations.

The money is intended to help people in the northern province improve their homes, many of which have been damaged by earth movements caused by 50 years of gas extraction in the Slochteren gas field. read more

Forbes:

Want To Stop Climate Change?

Buy Big Oil Stock

Jeroen Kraaijenbrink: Contributor: Leadership Strategy: 3 JAN 2022

EXTRACTS

In an age in which stock trading is no longer reserved to Wall-Street and a climate crisis is becoming a reality, sustainability-driven shareholder activism was bound to happen. And we see it happening, with increasing impact—especially in Big Oil, responsible for the largest share of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“Thanks to the votes of institutional investors for the Follow This climate resolutions, Shell, Equinor, BP, Phillips 66, and Chevron have reluctantly set climate ambitions covering Scope 3 already.” And, as Follow This announced in their recent investor briefing, they will file no less than eight climate resolutions in 2022, at Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, Occidental Petroleum, ExxonMobil, and Marathon Petroleum. read more

Forbes

One Foot On The Dock: Why Breaking Up Shell May Be Just The Beginning

Activist investor Dan Loeb made headlines this week with his move (through his Third Point LLP) to take a stake in Royal Dutch Shell and then argue that it should be broken up into two entities.

His proposal is to spin out what he calls the “legacy business” and an “energy transition business” (the latter to include LNG, renewables, and energy marketing). His argument is that the company is currently satisfying few stakeholders (shareholders, ESG advocates, etc) by trying to do everything under one roof. read more

Forbes

Shell Energy Takes On GOTO, Pure Planet, Daligas and Colorado Customers

Published: Oct 21, 2021, 11:20am

Ofgem, the energy market regulator, has appointed Shell Energy Retail to take on the customers of failed energy firms GOTO, Pure Planet, Daligas and Colorado Energy. Domestic customers will be moved onto a Shell Energy tariff that is limited by Ofgem’s energy price cap, which currently stands at £1,277 a year for households using an average amount of energy. Once the transfer is completed, customers are free to switch without penalty. read more

Forbes

What If Shell Followed Volkswagen’s Example In The Fight Against Climate Change?

Forbes

Big Oil’s Bad Week

The world’s largest integrated oil and gas companies are the so-called supermajors or more commonly “Big Oil.” In order of descending market capitalization these companies are ExxonMobil XOM -0.3%, Chevron CVX +0.8%, Royal Dutch Shell, TOTAL SE, and BP.

Last week three members of the Big Oil club were each dealt blows regarding the status quo of their businesses.

The Shell Decision

The lawsuit was filed in 2019 by Milieudefensie, the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth. More than 17,000 Dutch citizens and six environmental groups joined the lawsuit, which argued that Shell’s business practices violated the “unwritten standard of care” that required it to protect Dutch residents. read more

Shell’s $12 Billion Prelude LNG Barge Drifts Toward A Finale

Prelude’s future darkens as losses mount.

Tim Treadgold: Contributor: Asia: April 26, 2021

Prelude or finale, that’s a question some observers are starting to ask about a $12 billion ship called Prelude which was supposed to revolutionize the liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.

Built by Royal Dutch Shell, Prelude is designed to move from one offshore gasfield to another, avoiding the need for costly offshore structures and pipelines to shore-based gas processing facilities. read more

Oil And Coal Firms Guilty Of ‘Great Deception’ Through Greenwashing, Say Climate Lawyers

A team of U.K. lawyers today released what they say is new evidence showing that the world’s biggest fossil fuel companies are systematically “greenwashing” their image to make the public believe they are taking concrete steps to combat climate change. In reality, the lawyers say, the firms are committed to increasing the sale of fossil fuels, which will inevitably generate more greenhouse gas emissions. read more

Shell Plans To Double Down On Strengths As A Retailer In New Net-Zero World

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell’s plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050, unveiled last month, focuses heavily on selling low-carbon electricity, biofuels and hydrogen directly to households and electric vehicle owners.

The strategy marks a contrast with that of other European oil majors, who in their own plans to reach net-zero emissions have vowed to accumulate vast amounts of renewable power generation capacity in the form of wind and solar assets. read more

Oil Giant Shell Victimized In December 2020 Hack

In December of 2020 hackers targeted a specific piece of hardware, Accellion’s File Transfer Appliance, with previously-unreported vulnerabilities. Once they breached the vulnerable servers the hackers began exfiltrating data.

Shell’s breach notice states that some of the files stolen “contained personal data and others included data from Shell companies and some of their stakeholders.” That tracks with what other victims of the attack reported — victims that include law firm Jones Day, Bombardier, Qualys and grocery chain Kroger. read more

Why The Oil Industry’s $400 Billion Bet On Plastics Could Backfire

Scott Carpenter: Senior Contributor: Energy Sept 5, 2020Key takeaways:

• Oil companies plan to invest $400 billion into new petrochemical plants, betting that demand for plastic will keep growing.
• Authors of a new report say the industry and other forecasters fail to consider that large majorities favor legislation to curb plastic use and waste and that governments are acting.
• Plastics impose a cost of $1000 per tonne — through CO2 emissions, air pollution, and collection costs. Calls to shift those costs onto producers through taxes are growing.
• Outside experts said the long-term outlook for plastics demand remains uncertain and will depend on consumer preferences and government actions.

The COVID-19 pandemic and accelerating green growth around the world have eviscerated many of the oil industry’s dogmas: that renewables would suffer from high costs, that governments would slow-walk environmental commitments, that investors would continue to reward long-term bets on oil with generous market values.

But one nugget of wisdom has survived everything the market has thrown at it, and now oil companies like ExxonMobil and Shell are wagering billions on it: that the world’s demand for plastics is still growing, with no end in sight. read more

Big Oil Asset Write-Downs Are Not The End Of The Oil Age

Tilak Doshi: Contributor Energy: Aug 23, 2020

Climate change activists have long lobbied for divestment from fossil fuel-producing companies. They have largely failed in this quest. This year, the steep falls in the value of the large oil and gas companies, however, occurred with a rapidity that astonished market watchers. Within weeks, the coronavirus pandemic and the oil market-share battle between Saudi Arabia and Russia launched after the collapse of the OPEC+ talks in early March led to unprecedented falls in Big Oil equity. read more

By John Donovan

Successive Royal Dutch Shell CEO’s cannot say that they were not warned time and again in chilling terms about the Prelude “experiment”, the description used in a Forbes article published today.

The links below are to a series of articles, initially triggered by a well-placed whistleblower directly involved in the Prelude project. Includes articles by Mr Bill Campbell, the retired distinguished Shell Global Safety Consultant and another retired Shell guru with a track record of spotting potential pitfalls in major Shell projects. read more