May 5th, 2007:

May 06, 2007

Text of report in English by Iranian Mehr news agency in English

Oil giants rush to purchase Iran blocks documents

Tehran, 5 May: Fourteen oil giants have so far purchased the tender documents of 17 Iranian oil blocks, said a National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) official here Saturday.

Hossein Roshandel, NIOC deputy director for exploration affairs, added 62 information packages have been purchased.

The Anglo-Dutch Shell, Frances Total, Brazils Petrobras, Malaysias Petronas, Spains Repsol, and Austrias OMV were among the bidders, said the official, however refusing to name the purchasers. read more

Sunday May 6, 2007

Whatever his future, Lord Browne is the man who turned BP from a two-pipeline company into a world leader, writes Oliver Morgan

That there is no room for sentiment in the City has rarely been more starkly illustrated than by the departure last week of Lord Browne of Madingley from the chief executive’s suite at BP. ‘It makes no difference,’ said one senior fund manager. ‘From our perspective, Tony Hayward [Browne’s replacement] has been running things for some time anyway.’ read more

Press Association
Sunday May 6, 2007 1:33 AM

Gunmen have seized a British oil worker from a rig operating off the Nigerian coast in a dawn attack.

The attackers who boarded the Trident 8 rig left 23 other people on board unharmed, said Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for Houston-based Transocean Inc. He said the worker was a subcontractor on the rig that was working for Nigerian oil company ConOil.

The latest abduction brings to 22 the number of people seized in armed attacks within 36 hours in Nigeria’s troubled southern oil region, where militants seeking greater control of the region’s wealth and criminals kidnapping for ransom have stepped up attacks in recent days. read more

(Former colleagues say Lord Browne regarded his sexuality as a private matter and they never questioned him about it)

By Sylvia Pfeifer, Sunday Telegraph
Sunday 6 May 2007

He was the Sun King: the brightest star in British business, a global power and an adored confidant of prime ministers. Then, last week, he managed to lose both his job and his reputation. Sylvia Pfeifer tells the remarkable story of John Browne

On Monday evening Lord Browne of Madingley, then still chief executive of BP, gathered a few close friends for dinner at his home in Chelsea. read more

NORVAL SCOTT

CALGARY — Calgary is set to remain a key hub for Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s North American exploration and production operations, contrary to speculation that the company plans to move most management to Houston after completing its takeover of Shell Canada Ltd.

According to accounts from a company meeting in late April, Adrian Loader, director of strategy and business development with Royal Dutch Shell, said both Calgary and Houston will be “business centres” for the energy giant’s exploration and production division. Mr. Loader will assume executive authority for Shell Canada on June 6, based in Calgary. read more

WASHINGTON: Support is growing in the United States and Russia for action that would require European companies to curb business in Iran as a means of pressuring Tehran to end its nuclear programmes, US and other diplomatic sources said on Thursday.

US-led efforts to discourage international banks from doing business with Iran have proven effective but many Iranian industrial sectors – including automotive, chemical, telecommunications and energy – benefit from the heavy involvement of European and other foreign companies, they said. read more

By Michele Batchelor

(Bloomberg) — Shares of PetroChina Co., the nation’s top oil producer, surged after the company announced China’s biggest discovery in half a century.

The stock climbed 14 percent, pushing the market value to HK$1.82 trillion ($233 billion) and overtaking OAO Gazprom and BP Plc to become the world’s No. 3 oil company after Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. The deposit in Bohai Bay has about 7.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent, according to Beijing-based PetroChina’s statement yesterday. read more

By Jim Efstathiou Jr.

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. Congress and oil and natural- gas producers are set to clash over proposals to resolve a mistake which exempts some companies from more than $10 billion in government royalties on Gulf of Mexico drilling leases.

Leases issued in 1998 and 1998 by the U.S. Minerals Management Service omitted price thresholds that would require royalty payments when oil and gas prices rise. The House of Representatives in January passed a bill that would force producers to fix the leases or bar them from future drilling contracts, a solution oil companies say violates the sanctity of valid contracts. read more

By Megan Murphy

(Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s U.K. unit filed a $190 million negligence lawsuit against Total SA over a 2005 fuel depot fire north of London.

Shell claims that Total and the depot’s operator, Hertfordshire Oil Storage Ltd., allowed one of the tanks on the site to overflow, creating a dangerous “vapor cloud” that later ignited. The blaze, at the Buncefield Terminal in Hemel Hempstead, eventually engulfed more than 20 tanks, damaging pipeline systems owned by Shell and other energy companies. read more

Wood Mackenzie: Keeping up with world demand will be challenging for decades

Vol. 12, No. 18  Week of May 06, 2007
By Allen Baker

The supply of LNG for the world market will be tight for years or decades to come, even with huge new liquefaction facilities being constructed or planned in Qatar, Nigeria and elsewhere, according to a top consultant in the field.

The LNG industry “seems to have developed an obsession with LNG supply,” Frank Harris says.

His conclusion: That obsession is justified.

“The big challenge facing the LNG industry in the foreseeable future is actually getting access to sufficient gas reserves, or enough gas supplies to feed growth,” Harris told the LNG15 conference in Barcelona, Spain, on April 24. Harris is head of global LNG for Wood Mackenzie, the prominent energy consulting firm based in Edinburgh, Scotland. read more

Published: 04 May 2007

Shell’s sparkling set of first-quarter results will have made for painful reading over at BP. But at least they demonstrate that there is life after death for accident-prone oil majors. Three years ago, Shell looked like a busted flush.

A reserves reporting scandal had wiped billions off its market value, cost the company’s three top executives their jobs and placed a huge question mark over the company’s very future. Assailed by litigious shareholders on one side and angry regulators on the other, it was by no means obvious that Shell could claw its way back. read more

Last Updated: 1:48am BST 05/05/2007

A round-up of headlines from across the financial sectors, provided by Bloomberg News

• Shell filed a £95m negligence lawsuit against Total over a 2005 fuel depot fire in Hertfordshire.

• Royal Dutch Shell said it may sign multiyear contracts for liquefied natural gas shipments to India because increased demand has revived confidence in the market.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/05/05/cxbloom05.xml

By MIchael Harrison, Business Editor
Published: 04 May 2007

Royal Dutch Shell added to the woes of its arch-rival BP yesterday by shrugging off lower oil prices and a fall in production to deliver record profits of $6.9bn (£3.5bn) for the first quarter of the year.

The 14 per cent profit increase compares with a 17 per cent slump in BP earnings for the first three months and took the markets by surprise since most analysts had assumed that Shell would also report a decline. Stripping out one-off gains, profits increased to $6.56bn, some 16 per cent ahead of analysts’ forecasts. read more

Saturday, 5 May, 2007, 08:39 AM Doha Time
 
SINGAPORE: Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, said it may sign multi-year contracts for liquefied natural gas shipments to India because increased demand has revived confidence in the market.

Shell aims to secure long-term supplies for its $600mn terminal in western India in the next 12 months, said Peter de Wit, executive vice president for global businesses at Shell Gas & Power International.

The terminal would switch partially from spot cargoes that kept the plant operating at no more than one-third of capacity in two years since starting. read more

Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum (RDS.A: NYSE)
By Bear Stearns ($71.45, May 4, 2007)

WE HAVE UPGRADED our recommendation on Royal Dutch Shell from Underperform to Peer Perform.

We interpret Shell’s consistent operating and financial results as an indication that the company restructuring and its new management team are having a positive effect. Recovery from the reserves setbacks is underway. Management credibility has been restored, in our opinion, and the team’s focus has shifted away from reparation, to building the business through its high-quality asset portfolio. read more