February, 2008:

By Katherine Griffiths, Financial Services Editor
Last Updated: 1:34am GMT 27/02/2008

UBS has been accused of defrauding a client which invested in a portfolio of collateralised debt obligations.

The latest news and analysis from the banking and financial services sector
HSH Nordbank, the German sector public lender, yesterday filed a writ against UBS in New York after saying at the beginning of the week it would sue. It hopes to win millions of dollars in damages from the Swiss banking giant.

HSH said it suffered losses on a $500m (£250m) portfolio of collateralised debt obligations linked to the US residential mortgage market. The portfolio was called North Street 2002-04 and the CDOs were structured, sold and managed by UBS. read more

Oil Spikes Above $102 a Barrel As Weakening Dollar Draws Investors to Commodities

Wednesday February 27, 12:53 pm ET
By Adam Schreck, AP Business Writer 

NEW YORK (AP) — Crude prices spiked above $102 a barrel for the first time Wednesday but retreated after the government said stockpiles of crude oil and gasoline rose far more than expected last week.
 
Prices nonetheless remained within range of Tuesday’s record close as the dollar tumbled to fresh lows against the euro and U.S. economic worries drove more money into energy futures as a hedge against inflation. read more

By James Wilson in Frankfurt
Published: February 27 2008 00:39 | Last updated: February 27 2008 00:39

HSH Nordbank says alleged “fraudulent acts and wilful breaches of duty” by UBS led to a $275m fall in the value of a portfolio of credit derivatives sold to it and managed by the Swiss bank, according to a lawsuit filed in the US.

The German public sector lender accuses UBS of deliberately selecting inferior collateral as part of a complex credit default swap, enabling UBS to profit from North Street 4, a collateralised debt obligation in which HSH invested. “UBS exploited the structure for its own ends, at HSH’s expense,” the lawsuit claims. read more

18 February 2008 

EXTRACTS  

Making customers feel valued is one of the best tactics in the battle for our business. Whether it’s loyalty cards or freebies for signing up a friend, companies have all sorts of ways of grabbing your attention.

Charles Francis has been a member of Shell Driver’s Club for many years. He’s managed to accumulate 53,000 points on his loyalty card, the equivalent of £265 in Argos vouchers. Despite contacting Shell in June 2007 to redeem his vouchers, Charles has never received them. read more

By Sheila McNulty in Houston
Published: February 27 2008 16:24 | Last updated: February 27 2008 16:24

When Houston invited the US presidential candidates to the world’s energy capital to debate energy issues, it should have expected they would dither.

Energy security and climate change are not only difficult issues to confront but will cost the consumer more. So it has been no surprise to energy executives that candidates are giving little time to energy in their campaigns – with most even rejecting participation in the energy debate – despite the importance of the issue to the next US presidency. read more

By MARK SHERMAN
27 February 2008

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed inclined to reduce the $2.5 billion award of punitive damages to victims of the Exxon Valdez disaster.

Several justices indicated they think the amount approved by a federal appeals court is too high, although there was no apparent consensus about how much Exxon Mobil Corp. should have to pay for the 1989 accident in which its 987-foot tanker ran aground on a reef and dumped 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska waters. read more

27 February 2008

BP chief executive Tony Hayward has said the oil major could pump four million barrels of oil a day until 2020, without the need for any fresh discoveries.

But the company expects to exceed this with one billion US dollars (£502 million) due to be spent this year on exploration as well as through access to new sources in Libya, Oman, Colombia and Canada, Mr Hayward told City analysts.

The company’s reserves currently stand at 17.8 billion barrels and the company expects to pump 4.3 million barrels a day by 2012, he added. read more

By David Lee Smith February 26, 2008

Most investors know that ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) is the world’s highest-valued company by market cap. But few likely appreciate the three-ring circus of litigation, legislation, and negotiation the company must currently endure.

For starters, Exxon’s embroiled in negotiations and other legal maneuvering relating to its pullout from Venezuela. Exxon left after the Chavez regime put the screws to the oil company and several competitors operating in the region, including Chevron (NYSE: CVX), Total (NYSE: TOT), and ConocoPhillips (NYSE: COP). Exxon is pursuing international arbitration, and it recently acquired court orders freezing as much as $12 billion in assets of PDVSA, Venezuela’s national oil company. read more

February 27, 2008: 12:37 PM EST

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday was skeptical of Exxon Mobil Corp.’s (XOM) bid to overturn a $2.5 billion punitive damages award over the 1989 Valdez oil spill, but the justices indicated they may order the award be reduced.

At oral arguments the attorney for Exxon Mobil, Walter Dellinger, gained little traction for his arguments the award should be thrown out entirely. Instead, several justices indicated they were looking at applying a ratio of punitive damages to the compensatory damages fishermen harmed by the oil spill were awarded in the case. read more

posted on: February 26, 2008

Donald Dony: Bio & more articles

Over the last year, as oil has advanced from US $50 to $100, there have been countless academic papers on why the world’s most heavily traded commodity will likely not increase much above US $70 to $80. The main rationale? Alternative energy sources (e.g., coal, biofuels, wind, solar and uranium) will fill the gap and keep oil at a more comfortable level well below the infamous US $100 mark. While these resources can and will provide a slight buffer against the tsunami of global energy demand, our global economies are still too highly attached to fossil fuels and are not expected to shift soon. read more

Shell is looking to increase its skill pool by recruiting US seafarers.

27 Feb 2008
Rob Cockerill
gasworld.com

Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Ltd. has announced that it will begin recruiting US seafarers for the company’s growing portfolio of managed international LNG vessels, providing fresh opportunities for US mariners and expanding the company’s already impressive skill pool.

One of the first major oil producers to actively recruit US seafarers for LNG vessels, Shell is committed to securing the most qualified seafarers for its maritime fleet operations and the effort supports the company’s increasing vessel management portfolio, which was extended in November 2006. read more

February 26, 2008: 09:45 PM EST

MELBOURNE -(Dow Jones)- BP PLC (BP) said Wednesday it wants to be part of the Greater Gorgon liquefied natural gas development offshore Western Australia state, stepping pack from a previous proposal to sell its stake in the project’s gas reserves.

One option for the U.K. oil major, which doesn’t own an interest in the actual LNG project, is taking a stake in some of the infrastructure associated with the giant Gorgon development, said BP spokesman Peter Metcalfe. read more

Feb. 26, 2008, 10:31PM
By DAN JOLING
Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A tiny Alaska village eroding into the Arctic Ocean sued two dozen oil, power and coal companies Tuesday, claiming that the large amounts of greenhouse gases they emit contribute to global warming that threatens the community’s existence.

The city of Kivalina and a federally recognized tribe, the Alaska Native village of Kivalina, sued Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP PLC, seven other oil companies, 14 power companies and one coal company in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco. read more

By CHIP CUMMINS
February 27, 2008; Page A9

A Nigerian special judicial tribunal threw out appeals by two opposition candidates seeking to overturn last year’s presidential election, possibly ending months of political uncertainty in Africa’s most populous country — one of the world’s biggest oil producers.
 
The ruling, announced yesterday, provides a measure of political stability for Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua, who won the top job in the West African nation in last spring’s voting. read more

By Jad Mouawad
Published: February 27, 2008

Gasoline prices, which for months lagged the big run-up in the price of oil, are suddenly rising quickly, with some experts fearing they could hit $4 a gallon by spring. Diesel is hitting new records daily and oil closed at an all-time high on Tuesday of $100.88 a barrel.

The increases could not come at a worse time for the economy. With growth slowing, high energy prices that were once easily absorbed by consumers are now more likely to act as a drag on household budgets, leaving people with less money to spend elsewhere. These costs could exacerbate the nation’s economic woes, piling a fresh energy shock on top of the turmoil in credit and housing. read more

Last Updated: 1:06am GMT 27/02/2008

BP chief executive Tony Hayward will today set out the oil major’s future direction. The annual “strategy briefing” will provide him with another chance to stamp his mark on the company.

Investors will be watching this year’s briefing more closely than past events as the announcement will be a good guide to how Hayward intends to deliver on his promise to revive the company.

Why wasn’t the strategy set out during this month’s results announcement? read more

Publish What You Pay (London)
PRESS RELEASE
26 February 2008
Accra

Governments and companies signed up to the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) must now deliver concrete results towards making revenues and payments from oil, gas and mining transparent and accountable, said the global civil society coalition Publish What You Pay (PWYP). Seven resource-rich countries were approved as EITI candidates by the EITI Board in Accra, Ghana on Friday 22 February, bringing the total number of EITI candidate countries to 22. [1] read more

Feb. 26, 2008, 2:16PM
By SIOBHAN HUGHES
Dow Jones Newswires/AP

WASHINGTON  — A U.S. Interior Department official said today that the government may have a hard time collecting as much as $31 billion in royalty payments for leases issued in the late 1990s unless a court decision that rejected the government’s right to the payments is reversed.

The warning from Assistant Secretary Stephen Allred came at a hearing aimed at keeping visibility on disputed royalty payments for deepwater drilling. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has been pressing oil companies to make the payments, and promised to try again with legislation that would ban oil companies from participating in sales of new leases unless they pay royalties on a set of leases issued in 1998 and 1999. read more

Trunk and disorderly; elephants are a common – and sometimes
destructive – presence in the Shell compound at Yenzi

Last Updated: 3:01pm GMT 26/02/2008Page 1 of 2

‘Is that a jumbo on the runway?” I asked an expat in the passport queue next to me. We both squinted. It was! I had just arrived at Gamba Airport in Gabon and already I had spotted my first elephant.
 
He was a handsome bull, with the straight tusks typical of the African forest variety, he emerged from the trees and began to career about the grounds, heading, unnervingly, towards the runway. A couple of officials rushed to sidetrack him but moments later the roar of another plane did the job. As the aircraft touched down, its propellers whirling, the elephant trumpeted, made a volte-face and fled into the forest. read more

Morgan Stanley estimates there are trillions of petrodollars left in the pipeline

By Richard Blackden
Last Updated: 7:31am GMT 26/02/2008

The surge in the price of oil is set to unleash a tsunami of petrodollars onto financial markets, according to Morgan Stanley.

With the price of crude oil skirting the $100-a-barrel mark, strategists at the investment bank reckon as much as $2 trillion of petrodollars earned by the world’s oil exporters will need to be invested this year.

Many analysts expect oil, which first touched the historic $100 a mark in January and then closed above the level for the first time this month, to remain at lofty levels this year as a combination of higher demand from fast-growing economies such as China and dwindling supply leaves refineries struggling to produce sufficient oil. read more

Skills shortages within the oil and gas sector are making companies look inwards to nurture and retain talent

February 27, 2008
Emily Ford

Oil may be running out, but for the moment the slippery black stuff needs more hands than it can get. Companies bend over backwards to recruit skilled, talented staff. Once they find them, retaining and managing that talent is vital – however enthusiastic, not all pipeline engineers want to spend their entire careers on rigs.

“There’s a dearth of talent across the board, at every level,” says Daniel Griggs, a director at BBT, a recruitment consultancy in the oil and gas sector. Companies struggle to fill vacancies in the Middle East, he says, and drilling and electrical engineers are just two roles where there are shortages. “Within these sectors it’s particularly important to retain staff [so] there’s good career progression.” After eight years you could have “senior” in your job title, Griggs says. “If someone’s willing to commit themselves to the industry they have great prospects.” Recruiters are looking at backgrounds creatively, rather than going for a 100 per cent fit. read more

February 27, 2008

Now in semi-retirement, Roger Colmer looks back on his 40-odd years of working in the oil and gas industry

Steve Smethurst

Michael Palin is probably the only person who has clocked up as many air miles as Roger Colmer. When we managed to locate the Shell veteran, he was “locked down” some 1,700km (1,000 miles) north of Perth, Australia, waiting for a tropical cyclone to pass.

He wasn’t fazed. His expat epiphany came back in 1969, when he decided to stop being a stress engineer for an aviation company and instead spend a year teaching in Jamaica with the volunteering charity VSO. read more

Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:12am EST

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian mid-sized oil firm Tatneft (TATN3.MM: Quote, Profile, Research) hopes to set up joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) to tap heavy oil deposits in mid 2008, the Russian firm said on Tuesday.

“We would like to set up the venture this summer,” Vasily Mozgovoi, advisor to Tatneft’s chief executive, told Reuters.

He added the company believed investments would make sense if the joint venture produced in the range of 100,000 barrels per day. read more

Filed from Houston
2/26/2008 10:52:10 PM GMT
 
USA/ALASKA: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed that an air quality permit be issued to Shell Offshore that would regulate air emissions from the Kulluk floating Arctic drilling rig. Shell wants to use the Kulluk rig to explore for oil and gas in the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska.

The EPA has determined that air emissions authorized by the permit would not adversely affect the health of those in nearby Arctic communities. The “minor” permit limits emissions of any single air pollutant to 245 tons per year for activities associated with the drill site. Without the limit set by the permit, the drilling project could trigger “major” permitting, which requires a more rigorous permitting process and technology review. read more

By John Donovan

A guest on our Live Chat facility posted comments today painting a one sided picture of a benevolent Shell which bears no responsibility for the corruption in Nigeria. 

It is therefore timely to remind readers about matters of which Guest 3487 was either ignorant, or conveniently neglected to mention. 

ON-GOING OGONI U.S. CLASS ACTION AGAINST SHELL

There is on-going litigation in the U.S.A. involving extremely serious allegations against Shell.

The following are extracts from an article in the Daily Mail. read more

By Matthew Green
Published: February 26 2008 12:18 | Last updated: February 26 2008 18:20

Nigerian judges ended months of uncertainty over the fate of President Umaru Yar’Adua on Tuesday by dismissing a case calling for a rerun of last year’s presidential elections on the grounds of mass fraud.

The threat of being removed by the courts has weighed heavily on Mr Yar’Adua’s government since the April polls, which were branded “not credible” by European Union observers because of the level of cheating and violence. read more

RA Novosti: Oil in the diet of Sakhalin whales

21:06 | 26/ 02/ 2008 

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti commentator Tatyana Sinitsyna) 

Environmentalists are again sounding alarm over the future of the unique population of the Western Pacific gray whales.

This time, Exxon Neftegaz Limited (ENL), a participant in oil projects on Sakhalin, is laying a pipeline via the Piltun Bay, a key feeding area for the gray whales.

Any negative impact on this area during construction or potential oil leaks may reduce the biological yield of the local waters and lead to the disappearance of the foraging grounds. read more

12:14 | 26/ 02/ 2008 

MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Maxim Krans) – More than once Russia has confidently promised to meet the demand of European and other countries for oil and gas.

First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov has recently confirmed this at the Munich conference on security. But does Russia have enough energy resources?

Senator Gennady Oleinik, who has worked in several oil companies, is not so optimistic. Talking about the problems of Russia’s northern regions at a RIA Novosti news conference, he recalled that the North is the main national storeroom of natural resources, and a good owner should take care to keep it full. It is import to increase natural resources – at least by the amount of what has been put to use. But this is not being done now. read more

Feb 27, 2008 

THE ROVING EYE
By Pepe Escobar

While Washington, facing European Union discomfort and frank opposition from Russia and China, remains obsessed with another round of United Nations sanctions against Iran, the facts on the ground spell an overwhelming “expansion of mutual cooperation” in the energy sector between Iran and Russia.

Iran holds the world’s second-largest proven natural gas reserves, behind only Russia. Alexei Miller, chief executive of Russia’s state-run gas exporter Gazprom, recently visited Tehran and met with Iran’s Oil Minister Gholam-Hossein Nozari. The result is that Gazprom will develop “two or three” blocks of the monstrous South Pars gas field in Iran; and its daughter company, Gazpromneft, will also be part of a huge oil project in Iran. Gazprom has been in South Pars since 1997, alongside TotalFinaElf of France and Malaysia’s Petronas. read more

posted on: February 25, 2008
Miranda Marquit: Bio & more articles

With worries about oil supply from OPEC mounting, and with concerns over the increasing costs of oil exploration, some Big Oil companies are focusing their efforts on getting as much as they can out of existing oil fields. One example? BP (BP) and its efforts in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. Prudhoe Bay is the most productive oil field in the United States, but BP has run into trouble with the oil field lately, with pipeline closures and leaks in the past couple of years. read more

26.02.2008, 12.58
 
YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, February 26 (Itar-Tass) — The production of oil and gas increased 2.5 times in Sakhalin in 2007 as against 2006. In 2007, 14.853 million tonnes of oil (6.162 million tonnes in 2006) and 6.409 billion cubic metres of gas (2.186 billion cubic metres in 2006) were produced. This was reported at a meeting of the administration of the Sakhalin Region that considered the results of socio-economic development of Sakhalin and the Kuriles.

The growth of oil and gas production is caused by the project Sakhalin-1’s reaching its full capacity. Its operator, the US company Exxon Neftegaz Ltd, extracted one million tonnes of oil in the Chaivo oil field in the Sea of Okhotsk a month. read more

This Day (Lagos)
26 February 2008
Chika Amanze-Nwachuku

Indigenous oil marketing company, Oando Plc, has acquired Shell Nigeria’s 49.8 per cent stake in two oil blocks for $625.7 million.

Oando emerged the preferred bidder of the two deepwater blocks offshore Nigeria Oil Mining Lease (OML) in an international competitive bidding process. The company made an immediate payment of 10 per cent of the sum last Friday while the balance will be paid when the transaction is finalised.
 
An international newspaper had late last year reported that another Nigerian company, African Petroleum Plc, indicated interest in the oil blocks. read more

A gas flare burning at the Yuzhno Russkoye field in western Siberia. A Texas company is suing Gazprom to try to establish that it owns 40 percent of the field. (Denis Sinyakov/Reuters)

By Judy Dempsey Published: February 25, 2008

BERLIN: In a court case closely watched by investors, a Texas company is accusing Gazprom of refusing to honor an investment and property agreement in one of the biggest natural gas fields in Russia.

Richard Moncrief, chairman of Moncrief Oil International, said he had decided to use the German courts to establish what he said was a 40 percent stake worth $12 billion, in the vast Yuzhno-Russkoye field in western Siberia. The field is intended to supply the underwater Nord Stream pipeline, through which Russia will be able to supply natural gas directly to Germany and Western Europe, bypassing Ukraine, Belarus and Poland. read more

By MARK COBLEY
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
February 26, 2008

Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s main U.K. pension plan, one of the biggest in the country, is considering a first investment in hedge funds after tax-policy fears were allayed by Revenue & Customs, the U.K.’s central tax authority.

The fund with £13 billion, or about $25 billion, in assets, recently sought clarification from Revenue & Customs.

“Such clearance has only recently been obtained, and the trustees will be looking at whether we make a small investment in hedge funds as part of a portfolio diversification exercise,” Rupert Cox, new chairman of the pension plan’s investment committee, told a members’ meeting last month. read more

By Andrew Wood in Hong Kong and John Aglionby in Jakarta
Published: February 26 2008 02:00 | Last updated: February 26 2008 02:00

The price of palm oil jumped nearly 6 per cent yesterday to reach a record high on the Bursa Malaysia derivatives exchange, boosted by strong demand from China and India.

Prices have doubled in 12 months as persistently expensive crude oil stokes demand for palm oil, which is increasingly made into biodiesel. The rise in palm oil prices is also linked to the surging cost of other vegetable oils. read more

Published: February 25 2008 02:00 | Last updated: February 25 2008 02:00

Driving is as American as apple pie. At more than 9m barrels a day, gasoline accounts for almost half of US oil demand, and more than a 10th of that of the world. Capitol Hill wants to curb this. Use of biofuels, mainly ethanol, is to be expanded five-fold to 2.4m b/d by 2022. In addition, new cars must achieve 35 miles per gallon by 2020, up from 21 mpg today.

Will it make a difference in 10 years? Ethanol provides only two-thirds the energy gasoline does, and the dominant corn-based variety requires a lot of energy to make. So the extra 1.3m b/d of ethanol possibly on the market by 2017 would actually displace only 700,000 b/d of gasoline consumption. read more

By Ed Crooks, Energy Editor
Published: February 26 2008 02:00 | Last updated: February 26 2008 02:00

Investment in oil and gas in the North Sea fell sharply last year, in spite of record oil prices, as the industry found it increasingly difficult to extract Britain’s remaining resources.

Companies invested £4.9bn in 2007, down 14 per cent from the previous year, according to Oil & Gas UK, the industry association. With costs rising by about 15-20 per cent over the period, the decline in the real value of investment was even steeper. read more

Terry Macalister
Tuesday February 26 2008

Britain’s oil and gas companies including BP, Shell and British Gas have been making record profits but say they need better tax breaks if they are going to meet higher production targets in the North Sea.

The energy sector is warning that unless the government stimulates activity the UK will miss its expected production targets and have to import more fuel from abroad, which may lead to higher energy costs for homeowners and lower tax revenues for the Treasury. read more

U.S. EPA.gov (press release), DC: EPA Proposes Minor Air Permit for Shell Drilling Rig in Arctic’s Beaufort Sea

Release date: 02/25/2008

Contact Information: Tony Brown, EPA/Seattle, 206-553-1203, [email protected] or Rick Albright, EPA/Seattle, 206-553-1847, [email protected]

(Seattle, WA – February 25, 2008) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed to issue an air quality permit to Shell Offshore, Inc. (Shell), to regulate air emissions from the Kulluk floating drilling rig. Shell is planning to use the Kulluk, and its support vessels, to explore for oil and gas beneath the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) of the Beaufort Sea, north of Alaska. read more

By The Enterprise
02/26/2008: Updated 02/25/2008 11:33:54 PM CST

Royal Dutch Shell employees and officials will celebrate a two-year collaboration today that earned the company’s tank farm in Port Arthur a coveted “star site” designation from the Office of Safety and Health Administration.

Stan Mays, Shell’s external affairs adviser, said the 30 employees at the Port Arthur Products Station led a “grassroots effort” to obtain the certification, which recognizes workplaces for focusing on safety. read more

Posted : Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:05:38 GMT
Author : Shell Oil Company 
Category : PressRelease 
 
HOUSTON, Feb. 25 /PRNewswire/ — Motiva Enterprises LLC (Motiva), the company that refines and markets gasoline in the eastern and southern United States, today announced that Quik Way Retail Associates II, Ltd. (Quik Way Retail Associates), will acquire Motiva’s interest in 86 Shell-branded stations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Quik Way Retail Associates will lease 27 of these locations to 7-Eleven, Inc., and the convenience stores at these locations will be re-branded to the 7-Eleven(R) brand. All 86 sites, including those leased to 7-Eleven, will continue to sell gasoline under the Shell brand. read more

Daily Champion (Lagos)
25 February 2008
Anthony Omoh

In an effort to boost the discharge of their duties and ensure speedy services, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company has donated modern equipment to the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS).

This is coming just as the command confirmed and decried the spate of duplicate records from most applicants for the new machine readable passport also known as e-passport.
 
Receiving the equipment at the conference centre of the Lagos Command Headquarters, the Comptroller, Mr. Ayotunde Oredipe, appreciated the assistance from the company stating that the modern working tools will help the command in discharging its activities better and faster. read more

Google was the most recently-established brand in the top 50

Monday, 25 February 2008, 01:08 GMT  

Internet giant Google has been rated the number one brand in the UK, according to a survey.

The firm came top of the UK’s top 500 brands, in an annual survey conducted by research firm Superbrands and based on the views of 1,500 professionals.

Google, which replaced the BBC in the top spot, is the only firm in the top 50 to have been established after 1990.

Microsoft ranked second, followed by BP and the BBC. The list aims to establish which brands have the best reputation. read more

February 25, 2008
By Jack Yetiv: Bio & more articles

‘Where goeth the price of oil?’ is perhaps the most popular topic these days both at cocktail parties and on the business news channels—especially after last week’s record run above $101. This makes sense given the fact that just about every American is impacted by the price of oil, one way or another.

Although much ink (a fair bit of it virtual “ink”) has been spilt on this topic, the amount of disagreement on this issue remains substantial. Although nobody can predict the price of oil with great certainty, some aspects of the oil market have become clear in the past few months, giving me a fair degree of confidence in what I am about to say here. My goal here is to focus as much on where oil prices WON’T go as on where oil IS likely to be in 6 months, one year and several years down the line. read more

Posted February 25, 2008 | 06:15 AM (EST)

By Raymond J. Learsy

Earlier this month, Royal Dutch Shell, coming off the most rapacious quarter in its history with a 60% increase in earnings to $8.47 billion spurred on in large measure on by OPEC induced crude oil prices, announced that it had successfully obtained the drilling rights to 275 lease blocks in the Chukchi Sea offshore northwest Alaska. These new  lease holdings together with Shell’s lease holdings in the Beaufort Sea moved David Lawrence, Shell’s Executive Vice President Exploration to triumphantly exclaim they have the “potential of becoming a new heartland for Shell”. read more

By Ron Derby

Feb. 25 (Bloomberg) — Oando Plc, Nigeria’s biggest retailer of petroleum products, said it will pay $625.7 million for Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production’s 49.8 percent stake in offshore licenses 125 and 134.

Oando confirmed the transaction in a statement distributed by the Stock Exchange News Service in Johannesburg today.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ron Derby in Johannesburg at [email protected]

Last Updated: February 25, 2008 05:06 EST

Simon Bowers
Monday February 25 2008

The Office of Fair Trading imposed a £116m fine on a number of supermarket groups and dairy companies, including Asda, Sainsbury and Dairy Crest.

Sainsbury’s fine was £40m but that was reduced to £26m because of the company’s co-operation with investigators.

September 2007: Southern Water was hit with a £20.3m penalty – Ofwat’s biggest ever – for misreporting and poor service over several years. The Serious Fraud Office dropped an investigation into Southern Water in April after finding insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges. read more

Mon Feb 25, 2008 5:55am EST

BEIJING (Reuters) – PetroChina, China’s largest oil firm, aborted its bid for an offshore oil block in Nigeria offered by Royal Dutch Shell a few months after offshore specialist CNOOC withdrew its bid for the block, an industry source said on Monday.

Both companies were told their bids, at around $300 million to $400 million, were too low for Shell’s nearly 50 percent stake in block OML 125, the Beijing-based source familiar with the matter told Reuters. read more

By Upstream staff

UK energy company Centrica is set to offer up to $600 million for a clutch of North Sea gas fields owned by Shell and ExxonMobil, according to reports in the UK media.

Centrica was thought to be particularly interested in the Nogat fields, which were put up for sale last year, Reuters quoted the Sunday Times newspaper as saying in a report.

The newspaper said Centrica planned to spend at least $1.97 billion a year over the next few years buying gas fields to supply its customers.

A spokesman for Centrica said the group may well look at the North Sea assets, as they would with any other opportunity, but it was too early to say whether they would pursue it any further. read more

Volume: 25, No. 8 February 25 – March 2, 2008

HOUSTON:

Rajendra Pachauri said he thought he was “walking into the lion’s den” when he told oil executives they need to take a lead in cutting greenhouse gas emissions in order to save the earth.

Pachauri, chairman of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former US Vice President Al Gore, said the oil industry has been both lion and lamb when it comes to seeing the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions to prevent global warming. read more