May 10th, 2007:

C.W. Nevius

Thursday, May 10, 2007

It has become almost a regular stop for San Francisco tourists. Once they’ve seen the Golden Gate Bridge and the Transamerica Pyramid, they can drive down Harrison Street to see the most amazing sight of all.

Regular gas for $4 a gallon.

Actually, it is higher than that. At Bob Oyster’s Shell station at Sixth and Harrison, regular is $4.33 a gallon, plus is $4.43, and “V-Power” is $4.53. Motorists can be seen rolling their eyes as they drive by. Just another example of a greedy station owner, sticking his customers for all they are worth? read more

By Zaidi Isham Ismail
[email protected]
May 11 2007

GULF OF MEXICO: OIL and gas giant Royal Dutch Shell plc is expected to announce a major gas development project in Malaysia.

Shell media spokesman Adam Newton said the project is part of the group’s long-term commitment plan in the Asia-Pacific region which includes Malaysia, Brunei and China.

“We have been in Malaysia and Brunei for the past 70 years and we are here for the long term to help the development of the upstream sector of Malaysia’s oil and gas industry,” Newton told Business Times yesterday. read more

Associated Press: 05.10.07, 5:59 PM ET
 
The Energy Department said Thursday it awarded a Royal Dutch Shell PLC subsidiary a contract to add 8.7 million barrels of oil to the nation’s emergency stockpile of crude oil.

The company’s Shell Trading Co. unit will provide 50,000 barrels per day over six months starting in August, the government said.

Shell is to provide the oil supplies as in-kind exchange for royalty payments that Shell would otherwise owe the government for offshore drilling. read more

Thu May 10, 2007 8:48 PM BST

WASHINGTON, May 10 (Reuters) – The U.S. Energy Department said on Thursday it awarded Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research) Shell Trading unit a contract to deliver 8.7 million barrels of royalty-in-kind oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The Bush administration wants to boost the reserve to have a bigger oil cushion that could handle supply emergencies. The oil will come from energy companies that turn over a portion of the crude they drill on federal offshore leases as royalty fees in lieu of making cash royalty payments. read more

Having developed a taste for activism, Pirc found itself challenging corporate beasts including Shell, British Gas and Hanson over issues such as pay and strategy.

THE ARTICLE

By Sundeep Tucker
Published: May 10 2007 22:37 | Last updated: May 10 2007 22:37

She might not manage billions of dollars or fight to join company boards but Anne Simpson is arguably the world’s most important shareholder activist.

While the likes of Carl Icahn and Eric Knight are prepared to use their positions to engineer battles with individual companies, she operates at the pinnacle of a global movement whose victories have enabled activists to ply their trade. read more

By Catherine Belton in Moscow
Published: May 10 2007 19:01 | Last updated: May 10 2007 19:01

The gavel will come down on Friday on the last asset belonging to former Russian oil giant Yukos, symbolically ending the company’s existence after a tortuous four-year legal battle with the Kremlin. In a bankruptcy auction, the shiny Moscow skyscraper built by Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Yukos’s jailed founder, will be sold in a final victory for Vladimir Putin’s increasingly autocratic presidency.

“This is the last rites,” says one western insider who once advised Mr Khodorkovsky. “It was inevitable once they attacked that the Kremlin would not stop until they got the lot.” read more

 May 10, 2007, 12:52 pm

Posted by Mark Gongloff

You might think a gas station charging more than $4 for a gallon of gasoline is trying to gouge consumers. In fact, Bob Oyster’s Shell station at Sixth and Harrison in San Francisco, which charges $4.33 a gallon for regular unleaded, is trying to gouge a big oil company, according to a San Francisco Chronicle profile today.

Oyster is apparently angry with Royal Dutch Shell’s U.S. division for raising his rent and forcing him to jack up gas prices. To fight back, he jacked prices way up — the Chevron station down the street charges 70 cents per gallon less for regular — hoping to run the station out of business. read more

17:48 | 10/ 05/ 2007 

MOSCOW, May 10 (RIA Novosti) – Unitex has bought Yukos’ oil sale companies for 12.46 billion rubles (about $483.5 million) at an auction for the assets of the bankrupt oil firm, a RIA Novosti correspondent reported Thursday.

Yukos, once Russia’s largest oil company, was declared bankrupt August 1, 2006, after three years of litigation with tax authorities over the company’s tax arrears.

Unitex, affiliated with Russia’s largest independent natural gas producer Novatek, was admitted to the auction along with Neft-Aktiv (a subsidiary of Russia’s state-controlled crude producer Rosneft), TNK-Yugra (a structure of Russian-British joint venture TNK-BP), Versar, and Shell-Neft (a subsidiary of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell). However, Neft-Aktiv and Versar failed to register for the auction. read more

Daniel Litvin
10 May 07

Extractive sector stakeholder engagement – the big lessons from derailed projects

Crises faced by Shell over the Sakhalin project in Russia and by Asia Energy in Bangladesh illustrate the strategic importance of understanding stakeholder views in all their complexity

Societal pressures have the potential to impact on shareholder value in all sorts of industries. But nowhere is this starker than in the extractive sector.

Consider briefly just two of the numerous crises faced by resource firms over the last year resulting from shifting stakeholder attitudes. read more

By Megumi Yamanaka

May 10 (Bloomberg) — Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K., the Japanese refining unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, said its first quarter profit dropped 72 percent as an unexpectedly mild winter cut demand for fuels such as kerosene.

Net income fell to 5 billion yen ($41.7 million) for the three months ended March 31, compared with 17.9 billion yen a year earlier, the Tokyo-based company said in a statement to the stock exchange. Sales declined 3.6 percent to 728 billion yen.

Demand for oil products made by Showa Shell and rival Nippon Oil Corp., Japan’s biggest refiner, has fallen as temperatures in January averaged the highest since 1899 and as customers shift to cleaner-burning fuels such as natural gas on environmental concerns. Japan’s sales of gasoline and other fuels fell 5.2 percent in the year ended March, according the trade ministry. read more

Thu May 10, 2007 1:46 PM BST

MOSCOW, May 10 (Reuters) – A little-known firm called Yunitex outbid Royal Dutch Shell and BP’s Russian venture TNK-BP at an auction for over 500 petrol stations of bankrupt oil firm YUKOS on Thursday.

The mystery company, which faced fierce competition from the two rivals during an auction lasting more than 20 minutes, paid 12.46 billion roubles ($484.3 million) for the network, a 62 percent premium on the starting price of 7.7 billion roubles.

© Reuters 2007. All Rights Reserved. read more

RBC, 10.05.2007, Moscow 15:57:17.Five companies have been admitted for an auction for bankrupt Russian oil company YUKOS’s refined oil product retail enterprises: TNK-Yugra, Versar, Shell-Neft, Unitex, and Neft-Active (representing the interests of Rosneft). A total of six bids have been placed. Promregion Holding also submitted a bid for participation in the auction, but later revoked it.

According to the latest data, only three bidders registered for trading: TNK-Yugra, Shell-Neft, and Unitex. Representatives from the other two companies admitted to take part in the auction, Neft-Active and Versar, did not show up. read more

Henry K. Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, May 10, 2007

Shell Oil has agreed to pay nearly $3 million in penalties for excessive carbon-monoxide emissions from its Martinez refinery in March, Bay Area air-quality regulators said Wednesday.

On March 9, three carbon-monoxide boilers shut down, causing excess emissions of about 925 tons of carbon monoxide (CO) over the course of a week, in violation of federal regulations, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

As part of an out-of-court settlement with the district, Shell must pay $2.85 million in penalties, said the air district, which has also restricted the refinery’s production limits and operations until it receives an incident report on the emissions. read more

AMSTERDAM (Thomson Financial) – Royal Dutch Shell PLC shareholder ABP, one of the largest Dutch pension funds, will not confirm or deny media reports it will vote against the appointment of ABN Amro CEO Rijkman Groenink as a Shell non-Executive director at next Tuesday”s annual meeting.

Dutch newspapers reported the claim earlier, citing documents obtained by reporters.

ABP spokesman Thijs Steger said he could not discuss the content of that document, and told Thomson Financial News that “it was a discussion paper and at the moment there is no decision”. read more

05.10.2007
 
ABUJA (Thomson Financial) – A Nigerian court temporarily stopped the sale of two oil blocks in dispute between the government and Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell’s Shell Petroleum Development Co Nigeria Ltd.

‘The OMLs (oil mining leases) should not be sold until I give my ruling on the preliminary objection… I repeat, OMLs 13 and 16 or whatever you call them should not be sold until I deliver my ruling on the 17th of May,’ Binta Murtala-Nyako, a judge of the Federal High Court, said. read more

Brunei Shell has chosen SkyTrac Systems to provide flight following and SATCOM for its fleet of S92 helicopters. In addition to SkyTrac’s proprietary software, Brunei Shell will utilize SkyTrac’s new SkyWeb product, which allows any host computer with internet access to securely display flight following data.

Captain Stephen A. Fincken, Helicopter Fleet Replacement Project Leader (SAV/5) Brunei Shell Petroleum Company, commented “It was important to us to find a one-stop solution, without compromising our stringent computer security policies here at Shell. SkyTrac Systems was willing to provide us with a global, turnkey solution. They also worked closely with our installer to ensure a reliable hardware environment.” read more

10/05/2007 10:29
 
Abuja – A Nigerian court on Wednesday temporarily stopped the sale of two oil blocks now in dispute between the government and Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria Limited.

“The OMLs should not be sold until I give my ruling on the preliminary objection… I repeat, OMLs 13 and 16 or whatever you call them should not be sold until I deliver my ruling on the 17th of May,” Binta Murtala-Nyako, a judge of the Federal High Court, said. read more

By Sheila McNulty in Houston

Increasing state ownership and rising resource nationalism are emerging as the main long-term threats to global oil supplies, says a report for the industry by an energy consultancy.

The report by PFC Energy highlights the shift in power towards state-controlled national oil companies. Multinationals own or have access to less than 10 per cent of world oil resources.

Resource nationalism, which is limiting access for international oil companies, and the national oil companies’ failure to reinvest profits in production, are limiting outlay required to replace existing resources, which are being substantially depleted. read more

Aine Ryan,
Published: May 10, 2007

The parish priest of Kilcommon in Co Mayo, Fr Michael Nallen, has called for an independent body to undertake “a root and branch” examination of the overall design of the Corrib gas project.

He was making a closing submission on the final day of the Environmental Protection Agency’s oral hearing into the issuing of an integrated pollution prevention control licence for the north Co Mayo project.

“These people are really terrified; they’re conscious of a changing climate and see the Bellanaboy site [ of the proposed refinery] as unsuitable. read more

By Carola Hoyos, chief energy correspondent
Published: May 10 2007 03:00 | Last updated: May 10 2007 03:00

This year alone three of Europe’s biggest energy groups have announced they are considering investing billions of dollars in Iran’s giant gas fields.

But a non-binding memorandum of understanding signed late last month by OMV, the Austrian energy group, and similar recent accords with Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol, of Spain, do not necessarily mean those companies are about to sink large sums into Iran and incur the wrath of Washington, which is trying to isolate Tehran over its nuclear ambitions. Instead, these are ways companies are trying to keep their options open until the international diplomatic situation improves or Iran forces them to stop procrastinating. read more

By Robin Knight | 09 May 2007 | 09:56 AM ET

There are increasing worries that Nigerian oil production could fall even further at the end of the month if militants succeed with threatened attacks, planned to coincide with the handover of power from President Matthew Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo to his successor on May 29, sources and traders in the energy industry said Wednesday.

One source, who works in Nigeria, fears that militants “certainly have a chance” of halting the majority of production, if at least temporarily. read more

EXTRACT: Royal Dutch Shell, in a famous example, had to revise its oil reserves downward to comply with SEC guidelines.

THE ARTICLE

By SHAI OSTER
May 10, 2007

BEIJING — Investors in PetroChina got a big lift Friday. An announcement of the company’s discovery of a vast oil field caused the shares to spurt 14% in Hong Kong that day.

But there is reason for caution about how much of a long-term boost the find will give.

Late last Thursday, the listed unit of state-owned China National Petroleum Corp. said it had discovered 1.02 billion metric tons, or about 7.33 billion barrels of oil equivalent, of crude oil and natural-gas reserves in northeastern China’s Bohai Bay. read more

Nigeria’s oil-rich coast supplies the country with 90% of its foreign earnings, yet for years its wealth has been siphoned off by the government and oil companies. Now a rebel army is attempting to ’emancipate’ the region by blowing up pipelines and kidnapping foreign workers. Chris McGreal meets the fighters

Thursday May 10, 2007

Somewhere in the Niger delta, a score of fit young men grasp colonial-era British rifles, Kalashnikovs and a couple of heavy machine guns. Gun posts face the water to guard the rudimentary military camp with its wooden barracks, cookhouse and the only generator for miles. An attack is unlikely to come from any other direction. read more

By Russell Hotten
Last Updated: 2:23am BST 10/05/2007

Two reports into the causes of a huge oil spillage at BP operations in Alaska blame the company’s cost-cutting and management culture for the accident.

The reports, commissioned by BP, echo criticism of the company after an explosion at its Texas City refinery in 2005 which led the company to set aside £1bn in compensation.

A US Congressional Committee is reviewing the reports as part of an investigation into the March 2006 spillage at Prudhoe Bay, in which at least 200,000 gallons of oil leaked onto the tundra. According to the Reuters news agency, a source in Congress said the reports talk of “top-down cost-cutting…without any risk analysis”. read more

PAUL ROGERSON, City Editor May 10 2007

CORPORATE governance consultancy Pirc has recommended Royal Dutch Shell investors vote against the company’s remuneration report at its annual meeting on Tuesday.

The adviser claims that awards under the company’s bonus plans are “potentially obsessive” and performance targets are insufficiently taxing.

Pirc pointed out Royal Dutch Shell does not disclose the performance conditions attached to outstanding share awards. It added: “Taking the LTIP (long-term incentive plan) and the deferred bonus plan in conjunction, vesting targets are not sufficiently challenging in light of the level of the award. We also have concerns over the vesting scale and the small size of the comparator group.” read more

May 9, 2007, 10:13PM
© 2007 The Associated Press

MARTINEZ, Calif. — Shell Oil Products has paid nearly $2.9 million in penalties and restricted production at its Northern California refinery following a March equipment failure that sent 925 tons of excess carbon monoxide into the air, regulators said Wednesday.

The pollution-causing emissions escaped the refinery in Martinez over the course of a week after three boilers that simultaneously produce steam and control the plant’s carbon monoxide output shut down, said Karen M. Schkolnick, a spokeswoman for the Bay Area Air Quality Management District. read more

05/09/07 5:15 PDT

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District announced today that the Shell Oil refinery in Martinez has paid $2.8 million to settle a series of violations of the Federal Clean Air act and local air district regulations that occurred in March.

Beginning on March 9, the refinery released an estimated 925 tons of carbon monoxide over a seven-day period, according to the air district.

No one was injured as a result of the incident and no off-site impact was detected, according to Shell and the air district. read more