January 8th, 2007:

Firstly, I took issue with your comment that:

Sakhalin II costs doubled to an admitted $20 billion, thereby ruining Shell’s reputation for competent project management.

The fact remains that Shell’s reputation for competent project management does not lie in ruins, and were a poll run across the oil and gas industry tomorrow it would reveal that despite the Sakhalin II project, Shell is still regarded as one of the most competent OPCOs in the world. This is not to say that Shell’s reputation and credibility has not been damaged to some extent, perhaps to a great extent, as a result of their management of the Sakhalin II project, and I have at no point claimed this. The sources you link to simply confirm that Shell’s reputation has been damaged; in none of them does it say that Shell’s reputation lies in ruins. read more

Last Updated: 08/01/2007  12:36
Kath Kyle

Protesters continued their action against the Shell-sponsored Corrib gas project this morning as work restarted there after the holidays.

Shell to Sea spokesman Dr Mark Garavan told ireland.com: “Around 70 people were at the construction site this morning to register their opposition to the pipeline and gas processing facility being sited here. There were around 50 to 60 gardaí present.

“Shell to Sea is committed to continuing the protest using the courts, campaigning and public meetings to win our case. The Rossport Five book is also selling well and helping to raise awareness of our campaign.” read more

08 January 2007

From Tim Newman

Rather than trying to discredit what I wrote by telling your readers I work for Shell Exploration & Production, you’d have been far better responding to the comment itself, i.e. by saying exactly why you disagree with what I have written.

Instead you have made a rather catastrophic blunder in assuming I work for Shell, and I do not. I have no connection whatsoever with Shell and I never have done. I am simply an oil and gas professional, albeit a rather outspoken one, who lives in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk and disagrees with your assertion that Shell’s reputation for competent project management lies in ruins following the Sakhalin II project. read more

Bloomberg News, International Herald Tribune, Reuters, The Associated Press Published: January 8, 2007

WARSAW: A Russian oil pipeline carrying supplies across Belarus to Poland and Germany has stopped operating in an increasingly bitter trade dispute between Moscow and Minsk, Polish officials said Monday.

Simon Vainshtok, head of Transneft, the Russian state-owned oil pipeline monopoly, accused Belarus of siphoning Russian oil from the pipeline.

“On Jan. 6, the Belarussian side, without warning anyone, unilaterally started illegally siphoning off oil from the Druzhba pipeline designed solely for the transportation of oil to consumers in Western Europe,” Vainshtok said, according to Russian news agencies. read more

RoyalDutchShellPlc, Europe’s largest oil company by market value, will produce 2.5 per cent fewer barrels of oil equivalent by 2010 than forecast by UBS after handing over half of its stake in Russia’s Sakhalin-2 venture to OAOGazprom, the investment bank said.

Shell’s production in 2010 is estimated to be 3.93 million barrels of oil equivalent a day, down from a previous forecast of 4.03 million barrels, UBS said in a note Friday. The impact in later years is even more material, UBS said.

Shell and Japanese partners Mitsui& Co. and MitsubishiCorp. agreed Dec. 21 to sell half of their stakes in Sakhalin-2 to state- run Gazprom in return for $7.45 billion in cash. The agreement gives Gazprom a 50 per cent stake, while the holdings of Shell, Mitsui and Mitsubishi drop to 27.5 per cent, 12.5 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively. read more

Russian President Vladimir Putin, shown at an Orthodox Christmas service yesterday, has invoked the fragile habitat of the grey whale in a dispute with Royal Dutch Shell over oil. (Photograph by Reuters)

A shrewd battle for control of oil in the Pacific could be all the grey whale needs to survive, writes Mike Blanchfield. Published: Monday, January 08, 2007

With tens of billions of petrodollars floating in limbo, there are no runaway winners in the long and nasty battle over who will ultimately control the lucrative oil and gas deposits around Russia’s remote Sakhalin Island. read more

Source:  (08 January 2007)

The shares of the company closed at Rs 895.95. Total volume of shares traded on BSE was 486,388. (Friday).

EXTRACT: They cite pollution related to Shell’s activities in the Niger delta and Myanmar villagers’ accusations that forced labour was used to build a pipeline for Total SA, which paid to settle a lawsuit based on the claims, as examples of an industry that is fundamentally unsuitable for ethical investment.

THE ARTICLE
 
UK: January 8, 2007

LONDON – Oil majors are courting multi-trillion-dollar socially responsible investment (SRI) funds but they face continuing scepticism from investors.  read more

By Catherine Elsworth
Last Updated: 1:32am GMT 08/01/2007

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is investing in companies that could be causing ailments in the very people it helps to treat in the developing world, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times.

The world’s largest philanthropic organisation, established by the Microsoft billionaire and his wife in 2000, pours hundreds of millions of dollars into polio and measles immunisation and research worldwide, including areas such as the Niger Delta. read more

January 08, 2007
Elizabeth Colman
 
With its ramshackle and expensive public transport, overpriced homes and costly office space, London already faces a challenge in selling itself as a corporate base.

Now tax, once a plus point for Britain, is emerging as a negative and accountants are advising foreign companies against basing their headquarters in Britain in favour of countries with a lower corporate tax burden. 
 
Many Swiss cantons fully exempt foreign holding companies from tax on non-Swiss profits. The Netherlands also operates a lenient regime on the repatriation of foreign dividends, a factor that heavily influenced Shell in moving its corporate headquarters to The Hague. When Experian, the credit analysis group, demerged from GUS, it moved to Dublin, which taxes profits at 12.5 per cent. COLT Telecom chose Luxembourg as its holding company location. read more

By BOBBY MAGILL The Daily Sentinel
Sunday, January 07, 2007

The sprint to coax oil from solid rock officially has begun for three energy companies hoping they hold the technological key to America’s energy independence.

But before shale oil can flow from the Piceance Basin with the ferocity of Saudi Arabian black gold, the three firms must jump many regulatory hurdles, prove their technology economically viable and convince the public they can do it all with minimal environmental harm.

Environmentalists are eager to see the firms’ in-situ oil shale experiments proceed so they can illustrate to Congress that shale oil production could have environmental consequences serious enough to merit changing federal law. read more