January 4th, 2008:

January 5, 2008
Carl Mortished: Tempus

Banks are in trouble, retailers are wounded and builders could soon be bust. Only the oil companies seem to be making money, selling fuel that consumers will continue to buy – at any price?

It is too late to profit from the oil-price surge with a punt on a speculative oil exploration company – except for those who believe that the price will continue its steep climb. But to believe that, it is also necessary to believe that the average American is impervious to the cost and will fill up his car at any price. That was not true in 1980 and is unlikely to be true today. read more

(The Times article below by Martin Waller openly ridicules Jeroen van der Veer, the Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc)

The Times: A word in your Shell-like — it’s all gibberish

January 5, 2008
City Diary Martin Waller

An e-mail arrives. It is from Shell, the subject of embarrassing leaks this week about plans to sack 3,000 people and outsource the IT functions. It is the internal e-mail setting out the official version of events to staff. Pass by the fact that it is virtually illiterate. In it, Jerome K. Jerome, sorry, Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Shell, explains that the outsourcing of jobs “is an excellent example of a function driving towards top quartile”. This translates as, you’re sacked, but we still get our bonuses. I am reliably informed that this is how people within Shell do talk to each other. As in “as Shell’s businesses implement their strategies to achieve ‘More Upstream, Profitable Downstream’ and top quartile, there has been an equal drive in the functions as well”. read more

4th January 2008, 15:00 WST
 
Chevron will work to secure government approval for a 50 per cent expansion of the Gorgon liquefied natural gas project over the next twelve months, the company has announced.

The venture will over the next year start initial engineering work for the delayed project and consider early site preparation work, Scott Walker, a spokesman for Chevron’s Australian unit, said today in an e-mail.

He declined to say when the venture will commit to building the plant.

The Gorgon partners, including Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell got final environmental approval from the Australian government to build two LNG processing units in northern WA in October. read more

Eric Watkins
Senior Correspondent

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 4 — Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s China subsidiary has acquired a 55% equity stake and operatorship in a coalbed methane project in China’s Shanxi Province.

Shell China Exploration & Production Co. said it received approval from the Chinese Ministry of Commerce to acquire Verona Development Corp.’s majority stake in a 30-year production-sharing contract covering the North Shilou Block, an area of 1,015 sq km in the eastern part of the Ordos basin. read more

January 3, 2008
By Lawrence Walsh

More than 3,000 Royal Dutch Shell staff and contract IT workers are waiting their find out their fates as the European oil giant is moving closer to outsourcing much of its IT operations.

Shell executives decided to slash thousands of IT positions in favor of outsourcing as part of a massive corporate restructuring designed to reduce pretax operating costs by at least $500 million annually, Shell spokesperson Alexandra Wright said in a telephone interview with Baseline. read more

04 January, 2008 01:00:00 EJIOFOR ALIKE

As Royal Dutch Shell embarks on a worldwide restructuring to cut jobs and costs, Shell Nigeria has increased the salaries of its expatriate staff by 30 percent.

Nigeria is the group’s largest oil and gas operational area outside the United States and the European North Sea.

Indeed, the company is set to start full restructuring on April 1.

Investigation has revealed that the increase in expatriates’ benefits, which is part of the restructuring exercise, is aimed at attracting the best foreign manpower and balancing the company’s expatriation system. read more

Rosalie Marshall, IT Week, 04 Jan 2008

In a major move to cut costs Royal Dutch Shell has announced plans to outsource the majority of its information technology division, but industry commentators have warned that if the oil company ignores the new trend to direct sourcing, the firm will not be make the most of its revamp.

Shell’s 4200 person IT department will be cut by around 3000 staff, industry sources have said. Of these positions, 1700 belong to Shell staff and the rest to contractors.

The news was leaked through an article published on royaldutchshellplc.com, an anti-Shell site often used by Shell staff to air discontent with the company. The web site cited a leaked email from the vice president of Shell’s IT infrastructure, Goh Swee Chen, who named the three outsourcing companies that Shell had selected: EDS, At&T and T-Systems. read more

Jobs could be hit by moves to streamline an oil giant’s global operation.

Shell is shedding thousands of jobs worldwide to cut costs and Aberdeen could be affected.

Around 300 information technology jobs will go in the UK.

The move is also expected to see a number of finance jobs axed.

In future the work will be concentrated in six global centres.

The only one in Scotland is in Glasgow, where jobs are increasing from 440 to 550.

Today a Shell spokeswoman refused to comment on where staff jobs might go. read more

By DAVID WINNING
January 4, 2008

BEIJING — Vast coal reserves in Asia are gaining attention as major energy consumers such as China and India grapple with the reality of oil prices around $100 a barrel and the risks they pose to their economies.

Multibillion-dollar facilities that convert coal to oil are being studied across Asia, while utilities are shelving plans to build power plants that use natural gas or fuel oil because prices of those fuels track the cost of crude.

Crude-oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange are more than 50% higher than they were a year ago and are within sight of an inflation-adjusted peak of $102.81 a barrel set in early 1980. read more

3 januari 2008 | door Jolein de Rooij

Shell schrapt een deel van zijn ict-activiteiten en besteedt een ander deel uit aan Oost-Europa. Deze stap is onderdeel van een jarenlange offshoring-trend binnen het concern. In 2003 startte Shell het besparingsprogramma IT Vision. In 2001 verzelfstandige de oliemaatschappij zijn softwareontwikkeling.

Het offshoren van ict-activiteiten is geen nieuw beleid binnen Shell. Een woordvoerder zei in 2004 al tegen Computable: “Wij willen onze it-infrastructuur rationaliseren: minder applicaties, beheerd door minder mensen en tegen lagere kosten. Uiteindelijk moeten alle Shell-kantoren wereldwijd standaard it-diensten kunnen afnemen.” read more

Van onze verslaggever Wouter Keuning
gepubliceerd op 03 januari 2008 02:51 , bijgewerkt op 02:51

Amsterdam – De geruchten dat Shell 3200 banen gaat schrappen en uitbesteden om kosten te besparen, worden steeds hardnekkiger. Het zou voornamelijk om banen bij de ict-divisie van het bedrijf gaan. Of er ook banen verloren zullen gaan in Nederland is nog onduidelijk. Shell heeft wereldwijd 108 duizend werknemers in dienst.

Britse media meldden eerder al dat een mail van Goh Swee Chen, de vice-president van de ict-divisie van Shell was gelekt naar de website royaldutchshellplc.com, die het bedrijf kritisch volgt. In de mail stond dat drie bedrijven waren benaderd voor de uitbesteding van het werk: AT & T, EDS en T-systems. In 2008 moeten de contracten worden getekend. read more

Thursday, January 03, 2008; Posted: 11:06 PM
 
TOKYO, Jan 04, 2008 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) — RDS/A |

Mitsubishi Corp. (TSE:8058) will obtain rights to the Dunlin fields in the North Sea from Royal Dutch Shell Plc and other owners.

The acquisition will be conducted jointly with U.K. energy developer Fairfield Energy Ltd. Mitsubishi will hold 30 per cent of the rights, with the remainder set to belong to the British firm.

The transfer will be completed by March, after the partners obtain the U.K. government’s approval and consent from other parties. The acquisition price has yet to be disclosed. read more

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

Jan. 4 (Bloomberg) — Woodside Petroleum Ltd., operator of the North West Shelf venture, said the restart of domestic gas production at the Karratha plant in Western Australia has been delayed by “technical and mechanical issues.”

Output of gas for the Western Australian market is expected to restart later today, with the resumption of liquefied natural gas production after that, Laura Hammer, a spokeswoman for Woodside, said today by telephone from Perth. Australia’s second-biggest oil and gas producer, had previously said domestic gas output should resume late yesterday. read more

By Samantha Zee

Jan. 3 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, said it plans maintenance turnarounds at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery between mid-January and early March.

There is “the possibility of higher than normal flaring the third week of January and third week of February,” because the turnarounds involve shutting down and restarting process units at the refinery, Shell said in a statement on its Web site today.

The company has “put procedures in place to minimize flaring at all times,” the statement said. Refinery spokesman Dave McKinney confirmed in an e-mail that the turnarounds will begin in mid-January. read more

01.03.08, 4:43 PM ET
(In U.S. dollars)
By Jeffrey Jones

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – World oil prices have broken the magic $100 a barrel mark but Canadian oil producers will have to wait for much of their own fast-growing but lower-quality production to fetch such a lofty sum.

More than 40 percent of western Canadian oil is classified as heavy, and so it is slapped with varying price discounts to benchmark West Texas Intermediate to account for the extra processing it requires and other market forces. read more

By Josephine Moulds
Last Updated: 1:32am GMT 04/01/2008

Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Jeroen Van der Veer has warned against setting higher targets for emissions reductions.

The chief executive of Europe’s largest oil company said the European Union’s target of a 20pc reduction in emissions between 1990 and 2020 could be achieved.

“If research and technology co-operate on development, you should be able to realise such an evolutionary step in 10 to 20 years.”

But Mr Van der Veer said raising the target to 30pc or 40pc – as proposed by Germany and the Netherlands – could damage the cause. read more

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January 04, 2008

UNITED NATIONS DAY FOR INDIGENOUS PEOPLES’

PRESS RELEASE

This January 04, 2008, Ogoni people around the world celebrate a day declared by the United Nations as “United Nations Day for the rights of the indigenous peoples.” In recognition of Ogoni cultural values and environment, the National Union of Ogoni Student’s, USA celebrate today with our parent body – The Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), and over 300 other indigenous groups around the world. read more