March 14th, 2007:

Shell performed well in 2006. Our financial position is strong and we posted record income of $26.3 billion, returning $16.3 billion to shareholders. We built on our achievements of 2005 by focusing on delivery and growth, laying solid foundations for our future.

Our strategy of more upstream, profitable downstream is on track. We made good progress in rejuvenating our diverse portfolio. Our upstream exploration efforts are paying off. We invested large stakes in major integrated long-life projects that will generate cash for decades to come. Downstream, we added to our growth portfolio, especially in China. read more

In this, my first message to shareholders, I would like to share with you some of the impressions I have gained since I became Chairman of Royal Dutch Shell plc in 2006.

The energy business, as I am seeing first-hand, is at the heart of some of the most important economic, environmental and social issues facing the world. Reliable and affordable supplies of energy are essential for economic growth and for raising living standards amongst the world’s poorest people. Equally, as the growing concern over climate change shows, providing those energy supplies in a way that minimises the impact on the environment is one of the greatest
challenges we all face. read more

By Stephen Voss

March 13 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, relied on the advancement of its gas-to-liquids project in Qatar for more than half of the gain in its proven reserves last year, the company’s annual report showed.

Shell, based in The Hague, had proven oil and gas reserves equal to 11.807 billion barrels of oil at the end of 2006, including its share of equity-owned investments, up from 11.466 billion barrels at the end of 2005, according to the report, filed with regulators today. read more

By Benoit Faucon
Last Update: 6:35 AM ET Mar 14, 2007

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Royal Dutch Shell PLC expects oil prices to stay robust in 2007 but see them trending lower this year than in 2006, the company said Tuesday in its annual report.

In its report to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said “we expect oil prices, on balance, to remain robust in 2007 with ongoing geopolitical tensions.”

But without major supply disruptions, prices “may trend lower than in 2006” because of potentially slower economic growth, along with stronger supply growth and higher capacity levels from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Shell added. read more

March 14, 2007
Steve Hawkes

The oil major proposes easier bonus targets as Jeroen van der Veer pockets £2.5 million for 2006

The oil giant Shell is altering its bonus structure to make it easier for main board directors to scoop bigger payouts, it emerged today.

The news came as the group’s annual report for 2006 showed that Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive, took home more than £2.5 million last year, up 6 per cent.

Shell is proposing to modify its bonus structure so that Mr van der Veer and his board colleagues can receive more for “overall above-target performance” in any one year. read more

SHELL TO STAY: A Nigerian schoolboy walks past the logo of Dutch oil giant Shell near Warri in the volatile Niger-Delta region. Despite incessant attacks on its facilities and personnel by militants Shell is staying in the oil-rich region. (REUTERS)
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March 14, 2007: LAGOS, Nigeria —  Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell said Wednesday it has no plans to leave Nigeria’s oil-rich but volatile Niger Delta, despite incessant attacks on its facilities and personnel by militants. read more

By Benoit Faucon
Last Update: 6:35 AM ET Mar 14, 2007

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Royal Dutch Shell PLC has reiterated a warning about the risks it faces from possible sanctions being imposed on Iran, as pressure intensifies in the U.S. against foreign companies investing in the Islamic republic.

The U.S. State Department last week warned that international companies investing in Iran face an increasing business risk given heightened chances for harsher sanctions amid efforts to halt Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program. read more

Royal Dutch Shell Plc Annual Report and Form 20-F for year ending December 31, 2006

Extract from page 135

Included in legal provisions at December 31, 2006 is $0.5 billion in respect of a class action for alleged losses relating to the 2004 recategorisation of certain hydrocarbon reserves (see Note 32).

(Extracts from pages 146 to 148 inclusive , includes Note 32)

Groundwater contamination

Shell Oil Company (including subsidiaries and affiliates, referred to collectively as SOC), along with numerous other defendants, has been sued by public and quasi-public water purveyors, as well as governmental entities, alleging responsibility for groundwater contamination caused by releases of gasoline containing oxygenate additives. Most of these suits assert various theories of liability, including product liability, and seek to recover actual damages, including clean-up costs. Some assert claims for punitive damages. As of December 31, 2006, there were approximately 69 pending suits by such plaintiffs that asserted claims against SOC and many other defendants (including major energy and refining companies). In 19 of the suits, plaintiffs allege aggregate compensatory damages of approximately $1.25 billion and aggregate punitive damages of approximately $3.35 billion. No amount of monetary damages has been claimed in the other 50 suits. Management of the Shell Group considers the amounts set forth by plaintiffs in these pleadings to be highly speculative and not an appropriate basis on which to determine a reasonable estimate of the amount of the loss that may be ultimately incurred, for the reasons described below. Therefore, no financial provisions have been established for this group of cases. From time to time, individual oxygenate matters are resolved and provisions are taken when appropriate.  Reasons for the determination that amounts claimed by plaintiffs in their pleadings are not an appropriate basis on which to ascertain a reasonable estimate of the amount of the loss that may ultimately may be incurred can be summarised as follows: read more

By  Hassan Hafidh

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) has expressed its willingness to the Iraqi government to invest in Iraq’s gas fields and to set up a pipeline that would connect these gas fields to Europe via Turkey, a senior Iraqi oil official said Tuesday.

“There are attempts by Shell to open talks with the Iraqi government to develop Iraq’s vast gas fields,” the senior official at the Iraqi Oil Ministry told Dow Jones Newswires.

He said that Shell held serious talks with Iraq on development of gas fields during the government of former Iraqi prime minister Ayad Allawi. “Now the company is trying to revive these talks.” read more

Author: Jim Ensom

Nigerian troops have been fighting militia fighters in swamps around a Royal Dutch Shell PLC oil platform that militants attacked on 11 March 2007, the third assault on Shell oil facilities in less than a week in the troubled region.

Shell confirmed the attack on the Benisede oil platform in the southern oil-rich Niger Delta and said some of its staff had been injured and taken to hospital.

Militants have carried out attacks on oil and gas facilities in the Delta and the UK government believes that armed groups may be planning further attacks on oil and gas industry targets in the Delta, and other non oil and gas industry targets and individuals throughout the country. On 18 December 2006 two bombs exploded in Port Harcourt, one in a Shell residential compound and the other at Agip’s headquarters.  Further attacks are possible. As a result Shell have evacuated all dependants from the residential compound in Port Harcourt.  Other companies have followed suit.
 
According to the UK Foreign Office, there is an ongoing high risk of politically or financially motivated kidnapping, especially in the Niger Delta.  In nine separate incidents 22 British nationals were kidnapped between January and November 2006, one of whom was killed.  On 23 January 2007, a British national and a US national were taken hostage while driving to work in Port Harcourt. read more

EXTRACT: Ms. Pelosi endorsed toughening American sanctions on Iran by stripping the executive branch of the power to waive the sanctions. Her position would effectively establish a trigger to deny companies such as Royal Dutch Shell access to the American financial markets if they continued to work with Iran.

THE ARTICLE

Engel Emerges as Key Hawk
By ELI LAKE
Staff Reporter of the Sun
March 14, 2007
 
WASHINGTON — Two Democratic congressmen from New York City quietly intervened with the speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, to preserve President Bush’s authority to use military force in the gathering showdown with Iran. read more

EXTRACT: Jill Davis, spokeswoman for Royal Dutch Shell, which plans to commercially produce oil shale in the Piceance Basin, said it’s highly unlikely the company will release information about its long-term water consumption and oil production because such information is speculative.

By BOBBY MAGILL
Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Commercial oil shale, tar sands and increased natural gas development are likely coming to the northern Colorado Plateau, and the state is struggling to figure out how much water all that drilling will suck from the Colorado River. read more

Published: Mar 14, 2007

A WOMAN who sued two North Sea oil giants for pounds 800,000 over her husband-to-be’s death has settled out of court.

Jacqueline Ogilivie took on Shell and services firm Wood Group after a gas leak on an oilrig killed her partner, Keith Moncrieff.

Up to 2.5 tons of gas suffocated the Wood Group technician, 45, and colleague Sean McCue, 22, while they inspected a leaking pipe on Shell’s Brent Bravo platform.

It later emerged a temporary patch had been placed on the leak for nearly a year before the tragedy in September 2003. read more

By Carola Hoyos in Vienna
Published: March 14 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 14 2007 02:00

Saudi Arabia, the most powerful member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, has told Angola, its newest entrant, not to assume it will be able to expand production past 2m barrels a day.

This is a blow to the world’s biggest oil companies, which have already paid Angola billions of dollars for the right to explore and produce its oil.

For all but Royal Dutch Shell, the west African country is one of the most important new oil frontiers of the past five years. read more

CEO’s Part-Time Stint in Middle East
Is Move to Cash In on 3-Year Boom
By ANA CAMPOY, RUSSELL GOLD and CHIP CUMMINS
March 14, 2007; Page A8

Halliburton Co.’s chief executive joins the swelling ranks of Westerners hoping more face time in the Middle East will help them cash in on the region’s investment surge and bustling oil-field activity.
 
The oil-field services company’s announcement this weekend that Chief Executive David J. Lesar would set up an office in Dubai and spend a portion of the year there is a grand gesture intended to pick up business in the region. Mr. Lesar follows others who are courting increasingly powerful government and national-oil company executives from the Middle East and Asia. The three-year surge in oil prices and the region’s vast reserves have helped turn Dubai, a semi-autonomous state and part of the United Arab Emirates, into an oil boomtown. read more

(Michael Stravato for the New York Times
Chevron has leased the 1.2-million-square-foot tower that used to be Enron’s headquarters and plans to move in this year.)

By KRISTINA SHEVORY
Published: March 14, 2007
HOUSTON — The good times are back.
 

Galvanized by the record profits at energy companies, this city, the center of the country’s energy industry, has shaken off the effects of the Enron implosion six years ago and is enjoying its strongest resurgence in more than 20 years, business officials and real estate developers say. read more

Wednesday 14 March 2007

Pipe dreams I was interested to read the excellent article by Owen Bowcott (Pipe dreams and distrust) about the proposed Irish gas project.

As an environmentalist and resident of Ireland since 1993, I have felt utterly disgusted at the way both Shell and the Irish government have behaved regarding the proposal to bring in gas from the Atlantic via Rossport, County Mayo. I have visited several times and seen where and what is proposed. This is a scenic part of the west of Ireland coast, much of it designated as special areas of conservation. [Residents] have suddenly been besieged by the forces of the multinationals backed by the government, without proper consultation and with scant regard for environment, culture or way of life. Without consulting the community, engineers went straight to households telling them where test pits were to be dug on their land. When meetings were held, the message was of money for nothing and lots of jobs – all for having a harmless gas pipeline running past their houses to a refinery hidden in the forestry plantation. read more

By George Onah
Posted to the Web: Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Port Harcourt—IN a renewed effort at reducing maternal and childhood mortality and morbidity the Shell Petroleum Development Company has embarked on major turn around maintenance and upgrading of 27 health facilities in the six Niger Delta states.

The rehabilitation and provision of health care infrastructure is part of the company’s community health care scheme which involves cottage hospitals and health centres and other medical outlets. read more

By Benoit Faucon
12:07am 03/14/2007

LONDON (MarketWatch) — A total of 37 workers for Royal Dutch Shell PLC, most of them contractors, lost their lives in 2006, one more than in 2005, as violence escalated in the Niger Delta, the company said in its annual report published Tuesday.

According to the annual report, two employees and 35 contractors lost their lives at work in 2006, with 17 of these deaths occurring in Nigeria. By contrast, three employees and 33 contractors lost their lives while working for Shell in 2005. read more

Gordon Hamilton, CanWest News Service

VANCOUVER — Most Canadian oil and gas companies have failed to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, putting themselves and their investors at risk of the kind of eco-campaigns that targetted forest companies or the multibillion-dollar lawsuits launched against tobacco companies, says a new sustainability report.

Head in the Oil Sands, a 25-page report by the $2.2-billion Ethical Funds Co., reveals only three of 50 publicly-traded oil and gas companies tracked by the fund have decreased greenhouse gas emissions while increasing production. read more

March 14, 2007
Carl Mortished, International Business Editor

Royal Dutch Shell and a group of Turkish companies have joined forces to bid for a licence to produce natural gas in Iraq and pipe it to the Turkish Mediterranean oil port of Ceyhan.

Talks have taken place with the Iraqi oil ministry regarding a plan to build a gas pipeline that would link Iraq to Turkey and join with Turkish projects to export Central Asian gas nto Europe.

The pipeline was discussed at a meeting last Friday in Istanbul between Iraqi, Turkish and US officials, according to Hilmi Guler, the Turkish Energy Minister. Shell’s partners are believed to include TPAO, the Turkish state oil company; Botas, Turkey’s pipeline operator, and Tekfen, a construction group. read more