May 8th, 2007:

GM is the first auto maker to join the group, which added several other new members today, including oil giant ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell’s U.S. subsidiary, insurance company American International Group and tractor maker Deere. Founding members of the group include BP’s BP America, Duke Energy, General Electric and DuPont.

GM and auto makers have resisted efforts to raise fuel-economy standards for their vehicles, saying the costs of compliance would be crippling and arguing that the burden of fighting carbon emissions should be shared throughout the economy. read more

May 8, 2007, 3:03PM
© 2007 The Associated Press

LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell PLC Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer, angered by the high level of casualties at the company in 2006, has made the issue a priority this year, according to the company’s annual sustainability report issued Tuesday.

A total of 37 workers for Shell, most of them contractors, lost their lives on the job in 2006, one more than in 2005.

According to data provided by Shell, most of the workers who died were killed in car accidents, drownings or were victims of violence in the Niger Delta. read more

By Ben Moshinsky 
8-May-2007 

Shell has been accused of ignoring the rule of law in Nigeria, with one of the company’s own former lawyers leading the legal fight.

Peter Roderick was a lawyer at Shell between 1985 and 1991 and is now the co-director of the Climate Justice Programme at environmental charity Friends of the Earth.

Friends of the Earth is trying to stop Shell using gas flaring in Nigeria to burn off unwanted by-products of oil production. Gas flaring can cause high rates of leukemia and asthma and can damage vegetation through acid rain. read more

Associated Press 05.08.07, 4:00 PM ET

Royal Dutch Shell PLC Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer, angered by the high level of casualties at the company in 2006, has made the issue a priority this year, according to the company’s annual sustainability report issued Tuesday.

A total of 37 workers for Shell, most of them contractors, lost their lives on the job in 2006, one more than in 2005.

According to data provided by Shell, most of the workers who died were killed in car accidents, drownings or were victims of violence in the Niger Delta. read more

Updated: 12:37 p.m. ET May 8, 2007

DETROIT – General Motors Corp. on Tuesday became the first automaker to join a business coalition dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that are tied to global warming.

The nation’s biggest automaker joined the United States Climate Action Partnership along with 13 other newcomers including Dow Chemical Co. and PepsiCo Inc.

The partnership is an alliance of big business and environmental groups that in January told President Bush that mandatory emissions caps are needed to reduce the flow of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases into the atmosphere. read more

EXTRACT: The acquisition of 50 percent plus one stock in Sakhalin Energy Investment Co. for $7.45 billion accounted for much of the value of deals in that sector.  

May 08, 2007

The M&A Intelligence analytical group has calculated the volume of merger and acquisition deals that included Russian companies in the first quarter of the year. The researchers found that the value of the deals had more than quadrupled in comparison with the same period of last year. The hydrocarbon and energy sectors have significant volume at present, but the potential for dramatic growth was noted in banking. read more

Primary Anti-Government Group Claims Attacks, Terminal Exports 200,000 Barrels Per Day

LAGOS, Nigeria, May 8, 2007

CBS/AP) The main militant group in restive southern Nigeria said Tuesday that it has bombed three major oil pipelines.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta said in a statement from an e-mail address frequently used by the group that it had attacked three major pipelines in Bayelsa state.

“Fighters of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta attacked and destroyed three major pipelines. … We will continue indefinitely with attacks on all pipelines, platforms and support vessels,” the statement promised. read more

Tue May 8, 2007 4:32 PM IST
 
LONDON (Reuters) – An environmental group said on Tuesday it would file complaints to three European regulators about a Royal Dutch Shell Plc advertisement that says the oil major uses waste CO2 to help grow flowers.

Friends of the Earth Europe said Shell advertising that its Pernis refinery near Rotterdam pipes CO2 to nearby greenhouses is misleading because only a fraction of the CO2 emissions are used in this way.

The environmental group said it would file complaints with advertising regulators in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. read more

By Julie Ziegler and Mathew Carr

May 8 (Bloomberg) — Three pipelines operated by a unit of Eni SpA and an export terminal in the Nigerian state of Bayelsa were shut down after an attack by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.

The attacks closed the Brass export terminal, a facility run by Eni’s Agip unit that pumps about 200,000 barrels a day, Bayelsa state spokesman Ekiyor Welson said. Two of the pipelines were in the Akasa region, the other in Brass, according to a statement from MEND. The attacks cut off power at the Brass terminal, the statement said. read more

A Turkish oil company would be violating international law if it went ahead with plans to explore for hydrocarbons in a sea area already claimed by Cyprus, the island’s energy minister said on Tuesday.

The company, TPAO, has opened a tender for seismic studies on a 4,000 km (2,485 mile) area in the Mediterranean, apparently falling within an offshore area Cyprus plans to open for exploration.

Cyprus, which has been at loggerheads with Turkey for decades, has said it is still checking the report, which appeared on TPAO’s website on Sunday. read more

Judy Hua
HONG KONG
08-May-07

CHINA POWER INTERNATIONAL, helmed by the daughter of former Premier Li Peng, plans to spend up to US$4 billion by 2010 developing renewable energy as Beijing pushes to clean up its air and water and whittle down its reliance on imported resources.

To help bankroll the investment one of the largest planned investments in renewable energy ever announced by a corporation the company is studying listing shares on mainland stock exchanges, Chief Executive Li Xiaolin told reporters yesterday. read more

Total SA needs 4,000 workers for bitumen upgrader near Edmonton
DAVID EBNER

May 8, 2007

CALGARY — Total SA took the first step yesterday toward building a multibillion-dollar bitumen upgrader near Edmonton, a construction project that will require 4,000 workers – about what it took to build the iconic Hoover Dam.

Huge oil sands projects have become almost commonplace, but their enormous scale is still impressive. Each effort requires a work force that would populate a small town.

In the 1930s, it took an average of 3,500 workers – and a peak contingent of 5,200 – to build the Hoover Dam near Las Vegas, one of the largest construction projects undertaken to that date. read more

8th May, 2007: Shell: Meeting the Energy Challenge Sustainably

Royal Dutch Shell has released its tenth report on its environmental and social performance. The Shell Sustainability Report 2006 www.shell.com/envandsociety describes the company’s efforts to help meet the global energy challenge: providing more energy to raise living standards; keeping energy supplies secure; and doing both in environmentally and socially responsible ways.

It describes how, through its people, investment and technology, it is:
finding more oil and natural gas providing a diverse range of suppliers of natural gas developing substitutes for oil in the transport sector and alternative sources of electricity improving the environmental performance of its operations and products. read more

2007-05-08 09:13:53

LONDON (Thomson Financial) – Royal Dutch Shell and BP PLC’s Russian joint venture TNK-BP are preparing bids for one of the last remaining assets of bankrupt oil giant Yukos, including around 500 gas stations, Russian dailies Vedomosti and Kommersant reported.

Tuesday, 08 May 2007 
Áine Ryan

THE GARDA Ombudsman Commission is due to begin work tomorrow, May 9, on a series of complaints about Garda behaviour over recent months during clashes at the proposed Corrib gas refinery in Bellanaboy.

The Garda Complaints Board has confirmed that three senior officers will investigate the 16 complaints, filed by 15 individuals in relation to alleged incidents involving over 20 gardaí. 

The majority of the complaints will be dealt with by Det Supt Michael Jackson, but Garda Commissioner Noel Conroy has also appointed Chief Supt Paul Hargadon of Garda Headquarters and Chief Supt Gerry Mahon, head of the Clare division, to investigate two complaints that relate to Supt Joe Gannon of Belmullet Garda Station. read more

EXTRACT: …Royal Dutch Shell, which simplified its processes during the year by ditching joint auditor KPMG, cut its Sarbanes-Oxley costs by $17m.

Robert Lea, Evening Standard
8 May 2007

The audit fee bonanza enjoyed by the Big Four accountants over the past four years has continued into the current annual reporting season but there are signs the boom may be dramatically slowing.

The Evening Standard can reveal that amid top-level calls for the major accountancy firms to reveal the profits they are making from auditing, the 10 most lucrative listed company audit contracts in the UK yielded a record £196m in fees last year, nearly 9% higher than in the previous year. read more

By Jim Efstathiou Jr.

(Bloomberg) — Johnnie Burton, the top U.S. official overseeing Gulf of Mexico oil and gas drilling, will retire effective at the end of this month, Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said.

“I respect your decision to return to your family and to the West we both love,” Kempthorne wrote in a letter accepting Burton’s resignation, according to a release from the department.

Burton served as director of the Minerals Management Service during the disclosure of an error that may allow oil and natural gas driller to avoid more than $10 billion in government fees. While the mistake occurred before President George W. Bush appointed her in 2002, an investigation revealed that Burton failed to take swift action. read more

By CLAUDIO GATTI and JAD MOUAWAD
Published: May 8, 2007

Chevron, the second-largest American oil company, is preparing to acknowledge that it should have known kickbacks were being paid to Saddam Hussein on oil it bought from Iraq as part of a defunct United Nations program, according to investigators.

The admission is part of a settlement being negotiated with United States prosecutors and includes fines totaling $25 million to $30 million, according to the investigators, who declined to be identified because the settlement was not yet public. read more

By Carola Hoyos, Financial Times
Published: May 08, 2007

When in his 2006 state of the union speech George W. Bush singled out America’s dangerous addiction to Middle East oil, Arab leaders, European politicians and oil industry executives scratched their heads in bemusement.

In fact, the US – the world’s biggest consumer of oil and gas – still gets most of its oil from the Americas, home of four of its top five sources of supplies: its own oil fields, and those of Canada, Mexico and Venezuela. Saudi Arabia, its fourth largest supplier, is the only exception. read more

By Bernard Simon in Toronto, Financial Times
Published: May 08, 2007

The mood in Canada’s oilsands is less celebratory than one might expect from an industry in the throes of north America’s biggest resources boom since the Klondike gold rush more than a century ago.

The bitumen-like oilsands deposits, located in north-eastern Alberta, have attracted investors, big and small, from around the world. By last year, the oilsands contributed 46 per cent of Canada’s crude oil output, nearly double their share a decade earlier. read more

By Ed Crooks, Financial Times
Published: May 08, 2007

The case for ethanol in the US was encapsulated, effectively if tactlessly, in a poster campaign by Missouri farmers last year.

Pictures of the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia and a local farmer were juxtaposed, with the tagline: “Who would you rather buy your gas from?”

That same argument, in essence, was what lay behind president George W. Bush’s declaration in this year’s State of the Union speech: “For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil.” read more

By Sheila McNulty in Houston, Financial Times
Published: May 08, 2007

When hurricanes Katrina and Rita cut through the Gulf of Mexico in 2005, they left a string of damaged oil and gas assets in their wake. Among the hardest hit were the refineries that are based along the Gulf to process oil brought in from the ocean, writes Sheila McNulty.

The US was forced to step up imports of refined products from abroad to make up the shortfall until the refineries were repaired.

“What the hurricanes did was sharpen the focus of the world on how short refining capacity is in the world,” says Bruce Smith, chief executive of Tesoro, a US independent. read more

By Sheila McNulty in Houston, Financial Times
Published: May 08, 2007

Gulf of Mexico prospects are so valuable these days that the companies exploring and producing them have started offering the rights to name some of them to employees as a special treat.

In the past year, Dawn Marie Yates, who works in information technology for Chevron, won that right by bidding the highest amount of money in an auction to raise money for the United Way charity.

Ms Yates paid $501 to put her name on a prospect for Chevron, one of the largest leaseholders in the deepwater Gulf: “It made me feel a lot closer to the action,” she says. read more

(The Hague, Netherlands)—William C. Lowrey was named general counsel of Shell Oil Co., an affiliate of this group of energy and petrochemical companies, effective July 1. Mr. Lowrey, 54, will succeed Catherine A. Lamboley, 56, who will retire from the post and as senior vice president and corporate secretary. No plans have been announced regarding a successor to the corporate secretary post. Mr. Lowrey is associate general counsel for Shell Trading and Shell Gas & Power. No succession plans for those posts have been announced. read more

EXTRACT: News of BP’s safety breaches follows repeated warnings to Shell, a rival North Sea operator, about the poor state of its oil platforms. Critics fear that some of the long-established oil infrastructure in the North Sea is being neglected because it is coming to the end of its commercial life.

THE ARTICLE

Terry Macalister
Tuesday May 8, 2007

BP is facing fresh questions about its safety record after being given a series of deadlines by the Health and Safety Executive to address problems on North Sea installations that are potentially putting workers at risk. read more

EXTRACT: In another dispute over advertising, Friends of the Earth has complained about a Shell advert, showing a Shell refinery spewing out flowers rather than smoke, which suggests that the oil group uses all of its waste CO2 to help grow flowers. FoE claims that less than 0.5% of the carbon output is recycled in such a way.

THE ARTICLE

Dan Milmo
Tuesday May 8, 2007

EasyJet has taken Virgin Trains to the advertising watchdog in a fight over which mode of transport has the strongest green credentials. read more

Tue May 8, 2007 6:48 AM BST
 
MOSCOW, May 8 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell plans to bid when Russia’s official receiver auctions off the filling station network of bankrupt oil firm YUKOS, the Vedomosti daily said on Tuesday, quoting sources.

Shell declined to confirm the report.

“Russia is a strategic region for Shell’s growth both in the upstream and in the downstream. We are continuously assessing opportunities for growth, including in the retail sector,” said Maxim Shoob, Shell’s spokesman in Moscow. read more