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January 14th, 2007:

The Moscow Times: Greens Praise EBRD’s Sakhalin Move

The Moscow Times Whale protest

Nick Cobbing / Friends of the Earth
Environmentalists staging a mock funeral for a Western Gray Whale outside the EBRD’s London office in 2004.

Monday, January 15, 2007. Issue 3574. Page 7.
By Tom Bergin
Reuters
   
 
LONDON — The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development said it had decided not to invest in the Shell-operated Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project after state-owned Gazprom agreed to become majority owner.

Environmental campaign groups welcomed the bank’s pullout Friday, and said they would now focus their pressure on commercial banks and government lenders considering loans to the project. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

AFX News: Nine South Korean hostages released in Nigeria

14 January 2007
 
LAGOS (XFN-ASIA) – Nine South Koreans and one Nigerian taken hostage by armed men in southern Nigeria were released late Friday afternoon, a spokesman for the government of the southern state of Bayelsa said.

“They released all 10 of the hostages. All are in good health. No ransom was paid”, spokesman Welson Ekiyor said.

Ekiyor said the release of the men had been secured by Joshua Benamaisia, a local chief who heads up “a state vigilante outfit” called Bayelsa Volunteers. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

ShellNews.net: Shell’s new boss in Russia: Putin the Great, Energy Tsar

The Forbes article below was published in June 2006. It paints a very revealing picture of Shell’s new controlling “partner” in the Sakhalin II project in Siberia. Not Gazprom, but in reality Vladimir Putin, the ruthless “Energy Tsar” who planned and created Gazprom in its current predatory form.  Gazprom is described in the article as “scandal-prone” and a “clumsy beast, wounded by its own history of cronyism and corruption”:  characteristics it shares with Shell. Gazprom has strong links the Russian security services – Putin is a former KGB Colonel.  Shell was closely linked with the British Secret Service for many years (and probably still is). So there is a good deal of common ground. Nonetheless, Jeroen van der Veer and his colleagues could be forgiven for feeling slightly apprehensive when having tea and biscuits with their new Russian boss.    read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Time Magazine: Oil’s Vital New Power

EXTRACT: …a new East-West contest… as consequential as the nuclear-weapons face-off of the past: the battle for energy supplies… Shortly before Christmas, Russian President Vladimir Putin forced Royal Dutch Shell to cede control of Sakhalin II, the world’s biggest oil and gas project, to the state-owned giant Gazprom, opening the North Pacific island’s vast resources to Asian markets.

THE ARTICLE

By Vivienne Walt/Baku

In the control room of Azerbaijan’s sprawling oil terminal near the capital, Baku, Bala Mirza sits peering at a fuzzy map on a computer monitor. The outline of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey looks like little more than a jumble of hills and farming towns. But for the engineer, 41, what lies underground has rocked his world: a new 1,100-mile oil pipeline, which in recent months has tied this tiny country on the edge of the Caspian Sea to the huge Western market. “There is a lot of oil and a lot of money,” says Mirza, who spent 14 years earning about $10 a month working on a creaking old Soviet oil rig. “And because there is a lot of money, our lives will surely improve.” read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Petroleum News: Bush lifts moratorium: Bristol Bay will probably be part of MMS 2007-2012 lease sale schedule

Alan Bailey
Petroleum News
Week of January 14, 2007

In a not entirely unexpected move on Jan. 9 President Bush lifted the moratorium on oil and gas leasing in the North Aleutian planning area, an area that includes the outer continental shelf of Alaska’s Bristol Bay and the southeastern corner of the Bering Sea. The president’s action should enable the U.S. Minerals Management Service to include two North Aleutian lease sales in its 2007 to 2012 leasing program.

The president also lifted the moratorium on leasing in the central Gulf of Mexico. The federal government is increasing the royalty rate for most new offshore deepwater federal oil and gas leases outside Alaska to 16.7 percent. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

The Montreal Gazette: Why did oil companies start collecting so soon?

Sunday 14 January 2007
Page 16

Before Quebec has even imposed its new “green tax,” oil companies stand accused of slapping a surtax on their clients, charging an extra 1.3 cents a litre for gasoline since Jan. 1. Talk about jumping the gun.

A law passed in December envisions passing along to the oil industry part of the cost of implementing the government’s “green plan.” But this surcharge has not yet come into effect.

But this week, a Montreal woman, Catherine Savoie, alleged in court that four companies have colluded illegally to bump up gas prices so they would not be caught short whenever the government does impose the surcharge. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

The Independent: Green shoots: Lord Oxburgh, Chairman, D1 Oils

Can crop-powered cars make a difference in the fight to stop climate change? The ex-chairman of Shell thinks so

By Tim Webb

Even though the plastic nametag on his rucksack identifies him as “Ron”, Lord Ox- burgh is very much a scientist of the donnish variety. Pen neatly secured in the top pocket of his dark-green shirt, wearing grey slacks and a tie bearing a coat of arms, he has the air of a professor rather than a company director.

But tomorrow the former chairman of Shell will continue his transformation from Big Oil man to green champion when he becomes the new chairman of biofuels company D1 Oils. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Alaska Journal: Officials square off over Long Island Sound LNG terminal

EXTRACT: Broadwater Energy, a consortium of Shell Oil and TransCanada Corp., wants to build the floating liquefied natural gas barge in New York waters about 10 miles south of New Haven and nine miles off Wading River, Long Island.

THE ARTICLE

Web posted Sunday, January 14, 2007

By Stephen Singer
Associated Press Writer

NEW LONDON, Conn. — Strong opposition by Gov. M. Jodi Rell to a proposed natural gas terminal on Long Island Sound kicked off a hearing Jan. 9 as the public had its first chance to comment on a draft report by federal energy regulators. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.