November 23rd, 2006:

ROMA LUCIW

Shell Canada Ltd. unveiled plans to hike its 2007 investments by 48 per cent to $4-billion, as it proceeds with the expansion of its vast oil sands project in Northern Alberta.

The Calgary-based integrated oil and gas company, facing a takeover by parent Royal Dutch Shell PLC, said Thursday it plans to spend nearly $4-billion next year, a rise of 48 per cent from $2.7-billion this year.

More than half of the $4-billion total — $2.45-billion — was allocated for the oil sands: $1.57-billion on expanding the Athabasca Oil Sands Project near Fort McMurray, Alberta; $220-million on Athabasca’s base business; $490-million on growing in-situ, where melted bitumen from underground is pumped to the surface; and $170-million on pre-development. read more

By Senan Murray
Abuja 

The death of a British oil worker and three others in Nigeria’s first attempt to use force to free hostages in its troubled Niger Delta has drawn criticism from security experts.

“Quite frankly, I think the entire operation was a fiasco,” the head of security for a major multinational oil company operating in the delta region told the BBC.

“Anyone with even the least understanding of the Niger Delta will tell you that strong-arm tactics don’t work there. read more

Tom McGhie,

23 November 2006

President Vladimir Putin came to the conclusion three years ago that Russia was sitting on a secret weapon more powerful than all its military might.

Ownership of 30% of the world’s gas supply and being the second-biggest oil producer has given him a new and powerful economic bargaining counter.

And the former KGB officer has shown that he intends to use these resources to restore pride in Russia, which suffered in the years after the downfall of communism.

The bad news for Britain is that two of our largest oil companies, BP and Shell, which between them have invested more than £10 billion in Russia, are in the firing line as Putin attempts to get Russia a larger slice of the action. But the treatment meted out to Shell and BP pales into insignificance compared with the brutal way it treated Ukraine last year. read more

Friday November 24, 2006
By Gavin Evans
 
New Zealand Refining, operator of the country’s only oil refinery, said its average profit from processing crude oil in the past two months fell 58 per cent from a year earlier.
 
Its refining margin fell to US$4.06 a barrel in September and October, down from US$9.78 a year earlier and US$10.40 in July and August.
 
“High crude and product inventories around the world in conjunction with a reduction in geopolitical tensions” contributed to the drop in margins, said a company statement to the New Zealand stock exchange.
 
The refinery at Marsden Pt is controlled by the local units of Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and BP. Those customers do not pay more than an average US$9 a barrel a year for processing under a 1996 agreement.
 
Margins for November and December are likely to average US$4 to US$6 a barrel.
 
The company said this should leave processing income for the year similar to last year’s total. read more

From John Donovan, owner of the news based website focused on Royal Dutch Shell www.royaldutchshellplc.com and a long term Shell shareholder

TO

Mr. Enery Quinones
Chief Compliance Officer
The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
One Exchange Square
London EC2A 2JN
United Kingdom

Tel: +44 20 7338 6944
Fax: +44 20 7338 7633
Email: [email protected]

Dear Mr. Quinones

RE: SAKHALIN II PROJECT

It is my understanding that a decision is pending by the EBRD on a loan in respect of the Sakhalin Energy project in Russia in which Royal Dutch Shell Plc is the lead partner and majority shareholder. read more

Thu Nov 23, 2006 7:35am ET
By Christian Lowe

HELSINKI, Nov 23 (Reuters) – The head of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) in Russia on Thursday demanded an end to months of sniping and threats by Kremlin-backed officials. “We would like to hear clear signals that international oil companies continue to be welcome in Russia,” Chris Finlayson told a business conference in Helsinki, where Russian President Vladimir Putin and European Union leaders will meet on Friday. read more

Nov 23, 2006

The High Court has reserved judgment on an application by two opponents of the route of the Corrib gas pipeline for an order that a document of Shell E&P Ireland’s lawyers can be used in proceedings against the company.

Brendan James Philbin and Breege McGarry, of Rossport, Co Mayo, claim the document – a solicitors’ attendance docket included by mistake by lawyers for Shell last year in legal documents presented to the court – shows inconsistencies between what Shell was saying publicly in court and privately to its lawyers on a number of issues, including matters related to the nature of ministerial consents for the pipeline. read more

By Dino Mahtani,West Africa Correspondent: Published: November 23 2006 02:00 | Last updated: November 23 2006 02:00

A British hostage was killed and another expatriate oil worker seriously wounded yesterday during a gunfight between the Nigerian navy and militiamen who had kidnapped seven foreign oil workers.

A Nigerian security source said the gunfight took place when a naval patrol came across militants who had taken the workers from an Italian oil facility off the coast of Nigeria’s oil-producing Delta region. read more

By Arkady Ostrovsky: Published: November 23 2006 02:00 | Last updated: November 23 2006 02:00

Afew hundred metres from Royal Dutch Shell’s ultra-modern liquefied natural gas plant on Sakhalin, a cemetery of rusting ships testifies to the Russian island’s enduring contradictions. So does the sign on a drab apartment block opposite the new headquarters for its venture there: it warns against parking underneath for fear of falling masonry from the crumbling facade.

Everything about Sakhalin is extreme. Perched north of Japan, which ruled part of the island until 1945, it is Russia’s eastern frontier. Though rich in wildlife and boasting some of the biggest oil and gas reserves in the world, the former penal colony remains one of the poorest and most neglected parts of the country. In the 1990s a quarter of its population left. read more

November 23, 2006

Petrochemical giant offers choice of career
By Martin Birchall

Although engineering students put Shell as their employer of choice, Martin Birchall finds that the global oil and gas company employs graduates in a wide range of fields 
 
IT’S been a good year for the recruitment team at Shell. The oil giant was named the employer of choice for engineering graduates at The Times Graduate Recruitment Awards 2006 and went on to achieve its highest ranking in the new edition of The Times Top 100 Graduate Employers. read more

• Shares in Global Marine Energy, a provider of equipment and services to oil companies for offshore drilling, plunged as much as 29pc after it said it had lost money on some contracts.

• Irish prime minister Bertie Ahern backed Royal Dutch Shell’s plan to build a gas terminal, delayed for more than a year by opposition from local residents in the west of Ireland.

A WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE NEWS ROUNDUP
November 22, 2006 6:16 p.m.

International oil companies may be forced to drastically alter operational procedures in the violence-wracked waters off Nigeria after a British oil worker was killed Wednesday during an apparent hostage-rescue operation by the Nigerian military.

While kidnappings of foreign oil workers have become commonplace here, most incidents have been resolved peacefully. Kidnappings have ratcheted up sharply this year. The captives are usually freed after concessions are made to various groups, either by the oil companies or the government or both. Ransoms have also increasingly been paid to win the release of hostages, according to security analysts. read more

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
November 22, 2006 4:31 p.m.

Crude-oil futures tumbled more than $1 to settle at nearly $59 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after the U.S. Department of Energy said crude oil and gasoline stockpiles both rose more than analysts had expected. Here is Wednesday’s roundup of oil and energy news:

* * *
CALIFORNIA REJECTS COAL: Southern California is gambling its future power needs on its constant sunshine, wind and the ability of engineers to effectively harness those and other alternative energy sources, the Associated Press reports. Officials in Pasadena, Anaheim and several other large cities notified the Intermountain Power Agency this week that they would not be renewing their contracts for cheap, coal-fired power. Those contracts expire in 2027. That leaves the cities two decades to secure the alternative energy sources they’ll need, from wind farms to desert solar power. read more

22.11.2006, 23.58
 
MOSCOW, November 22 (Itar-Tass) — Russia’s Rosneft company and British Petroleum (BP) Company have signed agreements on joint work in the East Shmidt and West Shmidt licensed sections of the Sakhalin-5 and Sakhalin-4 projects.

The agreements envisage 700-million-dollar investments in oil production within the next five years, Rosneft sources said on Wednesday.

The shares of the Russian and British companies in the joint implementation of the projects are 51 and 49 percent respectively, the Prime Tass economic news agency said. read more