April 8th, 2008:

computerweekly.com: Shell offers lessons on outsourcing contracts

Author: Cliff Saran
Posted: 16:53 08 Apr 2008

Shell’s IT outsourcing deals totalling about £2bn that were signed last month represent a break from the normal pattern of multi-source outsourcing deals.

Shell signed three IT outsourcing deals last month with EDS, AT&T and T-Systems. EDS will take over day-to-day management of the oil company’s of AT&T and T-Systems. It will also take over responsibility for the risk of those projects as well as its own. read more

The Australian: Skills shortage may hit LNG output

Nigel Wilson, Energy writer
Wednesday April 09, 2008

AUSTRALIA’S skills shortage is likely to thwart the country’s ambition to become the world’s third-largest LNG producer by the end of next decade.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association said this week that the nation would quadruple LNG exports by 2020 to around 60 million tonnes a year, putting Australia behind only Qatar and Nigeria as an LNG supplier.

Australia now exports about 11 million tonnes of LNG a year from the North West Shelf and a further 3 million tonnes from Darwin. read more

Forecourt Trader: Shell on the lookout for new dealers

Shell is looking to actively recruit new retailers in a bid to grow its dealer network in 2008. Nick Adams, UK retail manager at Shell, said the oil giant was looking to get more “pro-active” in its approach. He said: “We’re very keen on expand our dealer business. “We’ve been growing it for the last two years, it was fairly stable but now it’s growing significantly. We are very keen to hear from dealers and we want to get extra dealers on board, the message is: read more

The Americanization of UBS

By Robert E. Bauman
April 07, 2008

What are we to make of the crass stupidity and misjudgment on the part of the mismanagers of the United Bank of Switzerland — UBS!?

Whatever happened to that much vaunted, world famous Swiss reputation for financial integrity and careful, conservative investments?

Last week UBS — with $3.1 trillion in assets, Switzerland’s biggest bank — announced that it was taking an additional US$19 billion loss charge that brought UBS’s total write-downs to nearly $40 billion — more than any other bank in the world — and UBS expects to post a first quarter loss of $12 billion. A few weeks ago UBS had to be bailed out with a $13 billion cash infusion from the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation and an “unidentified Middle Eastern investor.” But its plans to raise new capital have not quashed fears that the bank, based in Zurich, was facing deeper threats because of its subprime mortgage woes. read more

WFSB.com (Channel 3 Eyewitness News): N.Y. Urged To Turn Down Broadwater: N.Y. Must Decide On Project This Week

POSTED: 7:18 pm EDT April 7, 2008
UPDATED: 7:49 pm EDT April 7, 2008

BRANFORD, Conn. — The state of New York must decide this week whether to approve a liquid natural gas terminal proposed for the waters of Long Island Sound.

Connecticut Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz and several concerned citizens said they were prepared to meet with New York’s secretary of state on Tuesday to discuss the plan. Bysiewicz said that she was told that the meeting was cancelled and a decision could be made as soon as Wednesday. read more

Bloomberg: New Zealand Refining Co. Margins Rise 34% on Increased Demand

By Gavin Evans

April 8 (Bloomberg) — New Zealand Refining Co., operator of the country’s only oil refinery, said processing profit in January and February rose 34 percent on increased demand.

The average refining margin climbed to $10.58 a barrel during the period, from $7.90 a year earlier and $7.43 in November and December, New Zealand Refining said in a statement to the New Zealand stock exchange today.

The Ruakaka-based company is controlled by the local units of Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc. It charges those customers a fee based on Singapore refining margins to process their oil at the Marsden Point refinery in the north of the country’s North Island. read more

Bloomberg: LNG Will Meet a Third of Asian Gas Demand, Exxon Says (Update1)

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

April 8 (Bloomberg) — Liquefied natural gas will meet about one-third of Asia’s natural gas requirements by 2030, with demand boosted by increased use among electricity generators, said Exxon Mobil Corp., the biggest U.S. oil company.

Global LNG demand will more than triple between now and 2030, Alan Hirshberg, vice president for established area projects at Exxon Mobil, said today in Perth, Western Australia. Natural gas will account for about a quarter of global energy demand by 2030, up from about 20 percent now, he said. read more

The Times: Need to know: April 8, 2008

Natural resources

Royal Dutch Shell’s chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, has called for governments to act swiftly to adopt new measures to promote lower carbon dioxide emissions and incentives for carbon capture and storage.

D1 Oils, the biofuels company, said it is in advanced talks with its leading shareholders in relation to a potential equity fundraising at a discount to the current share price.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/article3701563.ece read more