November 25th, 2007:

By Ed Crooks in London
Published: November 26 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 26 2007 02:00

StatoilHydro, the Norwegian national oil company, has begun a two-year drilling programme in Arctic waters to determine the potential of Norway’s share of one of the world’s few remaining unexplored oil prospects.

It also hopes to co-operate with Russian companies such as Gazprom to find oil and gas further into the Arctic, including areas disputed between Russia and Norway.

Helge Lund, StatoilHydro’s chief executive, has called for an international framework to protect fragile communities and environments in the Arctic, to enable development to go ahead without unacceptable damage. read more

Niraj Shah & Helen Schuller – www.egoli.com.au

Monday, 26 November 2007

Royal Dutch Shell shed 1.6% on news it had dropped a deal to buy a 51% stake in the Ukrainian gas assets of UK oil explorer, Regal Petroleum. The news saw Regal’s shares plunge 14.1%.

http://livenews.com.au/Articles/2007/11/26/MarketWatch__Overnight_26112007

November 25, 2007
Edited by Louise Armitstead
IT’S panto season and Prufrock’s favourite Widow Twanky is back.

Frank Timis, the thrice-convicted former chairman of Regal Petroleum, has returned to scupper the fortunes of the company he founded – again.

With Timis’s reputation as one of the most unpredictable and irregular of company directors, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that he effected a boardroom coup moments after Regal announced a miraculous deal with Shell. Obviously, Shell then ran a mile. read more

By Lucian Kim

Nov. 25 (Bloomberg) — OAO Gazprom’s Sakhalin-2 offshore project had a “small release” of oil into the Pacific Ocean after equipment was damaged during severe weather, project operator Sakhalin Energy said.

“We think the spill is less than 10 liters,” company spokesman Jim Niven said in a phone interview from Yuzhno- Sakhalinsk today, citing preliminary estimates. There is no oil slick, only a thin “sheen” of oil on the water surface, he added. Officials are at the scene to prevent a further release of oil and investigate the exact cause, Niven said. read more

By Benoit Faucon
Last Update: 12:06 PM ET Nov 25, 2007

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Oil production at the OAO Gazprom led Sakhalin-2 project was suspended last week for the rest of the year after severe weather conditions damaged a buoy, the Gazprom venture operating the project said Sunday.

The project normally produces 80,000 barrels a day of oil, but the production has been interrupted earlier than expected, said a spokesman for the venture, Sakhalin Energy Investment Co. Ltd.

In a statement on its Web site, Sakhalin Energy said that oil production was suspended due to severe weather conditions at the Vityaz complex. read more

Shell reserves fraud discovery documents published on Sunday 25 November 2007

The first item, Exhibit 186, is email correspondence on 3 January 2004 from Frank Coopman, Chief Financial Officer, Shell Exploration and Production B.V. to Curtis Frasier of Shell International, which was copied to John Darley, SIEP-EPT. This was sent just 6 days before the Shell reserves fraud was announced to a stunned world. Frank Coopman made it plain that the “independent” Group reserves auditor, Anton Barendregt (*a retired former Shell employee who acted as the Group reserves Auditor on a part-time basis) was in fact “not completely independent”. read more

AP – 25.11.2007 14:09

Nigerian troops clashed early on Sunday with armed militants in the Niger Delta oil region near a natural gas facility run by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, a military official said. The latest encounter between troops and militants in rising violence in the troubled region occurred in Soku, in the southern swamps of Rivers state, where Shell runs a natural gas gathering facility, military spokesman Maj. Sagir Musa said. No details were yet available on casualties or the impact of the clash on oil and gas operations, he said. read more

A “very serious” fire on a North Sea oil platform with 159 people on board has been extinguished.

A major rescue operation had been launched to evacuate crew from the Thistle Alpha platform after smoke and flames were seen after 0800 GMT.

Seven helicopters and an RAF Nimrod aircraft were alerted and helicopters began carrying those on board to other platforms in the area.

The fire was extinguished by 1045 GMT. All crew were said to be safe.

The Thistle Alpha is 120 miles north east of Sumburgh in Shetland. read more

EXTRACT: Silva said more than 12,000 former workers and residents in areas near the banana plantations are in litigation in courts in the United States, Nicaragua, Ecuador and Colombia, with U.S. companies accused of manufacturing, selling and spraying Nemagon, even though its perils were known since 1958. The product was banned in the United States in 1979. The litigants are claiming a total of nearly $17 billion in reparations against food industry corporations such as Dole Food Co., Chiquita Brands and Del Monte, and against Shell Oil, Dow Chemical and Occidental Chemical, the petrochemical companies that manufacture the pesticide, Silva said. read more

By John Donovan

Shell internal email correspondence proves Walter van de Vijver, Chief Executive of Shell EP, warned Philip Watts about “aggressive” reserves bookings and other matters in August 2002:

Walter van de Vijver to Phil Watts:

“I feel strongly that we should stop talking to analysts about things we have not delivered yet…”:

“With aggressive historical proved reserves booking, massive investment in Nigeria with increasing risks, few material discoveries, ROACE pressures, we just need to be very careful.” read more

November 25, 2007
Grant Ringshaw

OIL giant Shell is considering selling stakes in two offshore Nigerian oil and gas projects to CNOOC, the Chinese state-controlled company, in a deal worth about $900m (£437m).

Shell holds stakes of 49.8% in each of the projects. Bankers said that CNOOC is likely to view the operations as prize assets as the Chinese group seeks to expand its interests in Africa aggressively.

Analysts said that the potential deal shows that Shell is prepared to take hard decisions. It has had a troubled time in Nigeria, where its interests in the delta region have been attacked by militants. read more