June 12th, 2006:

Tuesday, June 13, 2006. Issue 3430. Page 7.
Reuters

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — Royal Dutch Shell sees no delay in its efforts to work out details of a complicated asset swap with Gazprom despite a budget overrun at one of the projects, Shell’s chief executive said Friday.

Gazprom said this week that the negotiations might last beyond 2006 after Shell reported a sharp increase of the estimated investment to develop the Sakhalin-2 project on Sakhalin Island, in the Far East. The project will be the world’s largest liquefied natural gas project. read more

Financial Post/National Post: Ottawa firm signs with Shell

Emily Mathieu
Published: Monday, June 12, 2006

Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell is in negotiations with a Canadian ethanol producer to purchase an innovative renewable fuel product.

“Shell is in discussion with Iogen, exploring options to develop large-scale production,” said Andy Corrigan, a Shell spokesperson.

Ottawa-based Iogen Corp., a biotechnology company whose major investors are Royal Dutch Shell, Petro-Canada, Goldman Sachs and Co. and the Canadian government, developed the process for cellulose ethanol. read more

Mon Jun 12, 2006 9:42 AM EDT
 
TORONTO (Reuters) – Shell Canada Ltd. (SHC.TO: Quote) said on Monday that completion of scheduled maintenance at its Athabasca Oil Sands Project will be delayed beyond its previously announced eight weeks as extra work is needed.

Shell Canada, which owns 60 percent of the massive project, said the turnaround should now start in late June, building to fully integrated production rates by mid-July.

The Athabasca Oil Sands Project is a joint venture of Shell Canada, Chevron Canada (CVX.N: Quote) and Western Oil Sands (WTO.TO: Quote), with the latter two each owning 20 percent. read more

Last Update: 5:14 AM ET Jun 12, 2006

LAGOS (MarketWatch) — The Nigerian government is demanding the payment of royalties on Bonga field, the deepwater block operated by Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, or Snepco, a senior government official said Friday.

“The royalty due to the government has to be paid,” Tony Chukwueke, head of the Department of Petroleum Resources, regulator of the Nigerian oil and gas industry, said on the sidelines of an industry event. Chukwueke said the government had been in discussions with the operator of the field. read more

Mon Jun 12, 2006 2:25 AM ET

KUALA LUMPUR, June 12 (Reuters) – Malaysian state oil company Petroliam Nasional Bhd. (Petronas) expects its Gumusut oilfield to come onstream by 2011, Chief Executive Hassan Marican said on Monday, with daily production estimated at 150,000 barrels.

A joint venture of exploration and development arm Petronas Carigali, Royal Dutch Shell and U.S. oil firm ConocoPhillips said in March 2004 it had hit oil at Gumusut, in deepwater block J off the eastern state of Sabah. read more

By RUSSELL GOLD
June 12, 2006; Page A8

Several energy companies are making big bets that new tanker terminals for importing natural gas along the East Coast won’t be built, a turn of events that could put upward pressure on consumer heating and electricity bills there.

Several years ago the industry geared up to build several liquefied-natural-gas, or LNG, terminals along the East Coast as the declining cost of liquefying and transporting natural gas from around the world on tankers made the projects more economical. But stiff community opposition threatens most terminal plans, experts say.
 
As a result, several companies plan to build natural-gas pipelines to bring gas to the region over land from other parts of the country. “We don’t see realistically eastern U.S. LNG facilities being built. It is just really tough to get things constructed from an environmental and permitting standpoint,” says Martha Wyrsch, president of Duke Energy Gas Transmission, a unit of Duke Energy Corp. It announced earlier this month that it would partner with CenterPoint Energy Inc. to build a 1,600-mile gas pipeline from Texas to Pennsylvania. The companies haven’t disclosed how much the pipelines would cost. read more

June 12, 2006
William Rees-Mogg
 
SOME TIME in the mid-1960s, when I was working on The Sunday Times, I had an unexpected invitation to have lunch with the chief executive officer of the Irish Dairy Board. It was accompanied by the information that he was a hero of Irish rugby, had played 29 times for the Ireland team, and was promoting Kerrygold, the board’s brand of butter. I knew little about the butter market or Irish rugby, so naturally I accepted. In any case, the lunch was to be held at the Connaught Hotel, which then served the best English food in London.
I was swept off my feet by the best salesman I have ever met. In this order, I became convinced that Kerrygold was the most creamy, golden butter ever produced, coming fresh from cows that had personally kissed the Blarney stone, that Ireland had just entered on an economic renaissance that would spread far beyond the dairy industry, and that one of the leaders of the renaissance would be my young interlocutor, Tony O’Reilly. 
 
Since that lunch our paths have crossed only occasionally, though we served together on the board of the old GEC in the early 1990s. After 40 years one does not remember many business lunches, but I certainly remember that one. I am not sure about the market share of Kerrygold, but all the other forecasts, unlikely as they sounded at the time, have come true. Ireland now has a higher per capita income than the United Kingdom; Ireland has been the great economic success story of Europe. Tony O’Reilly is said to be the first billionaire Irishman. He ran the Heinz empire, very successfully, for 20 years. He now has his own, highly profitable, global business that stretches from newspapers to Wedgwood china. read more

Smart regulation is now urgent for reasons even big corporations understand

Larry Elliott, economics editor
Monday June 12, 2006

The cream of British business lobbied Tony Blair last week. Executives from Vodafone, Unilever, BAA, John Lewis Partnership, Tesco, Shell and eight other companies demanded urgent action from the prime minister.

Nothing new in that, you may think. Business is forever bending the ear of ministers, and often gets what it’s looking for. What was different in this case was that the blue-chip companies were not seeking lower taxes or a bonfire of red tape, but immediate steps to tackle climate change. read more