April 21st, 2008:

Bloomberg: Shell Sydney Gasoline Unit Repairs to Take `Several Weeks’ More

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

April 21 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, one of Australia’s four crude-oil refiners, said repairs to a gasoline- making unit at its Clyde refinery in Sydney will take “several weeks” more, extending fuel shortages in the region.

Maintenance is still being carried out at the catalytic cracking unit shut down in January, Claire Wilkinson, a Melbourne-based spokeswoman for Shell in Australia, said today in an e-mail. She couldn’t give an exact date for the restart of the unit. read more

oilandgasnewsonline.com: Shell restarts Calpine pipeline

NEW YORK:

Oil major Royal Dutch Shell restarted the giant Capline crude oil pipeline after completing repairs on a small leak, the company said in a statement.

Shell shut the 1.14 million barrels per day capacity line after a worker discovered a crack that resulted in approximately 10 gallons of oil being spilled.

“The Capline crude oil pipeline restarted this morning and is making shipments,” an e-mailed statement from Shell said. read more

Shell shock?: Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer says the world’s remaining easily accessible oil and gas supplies will not be enough to meet future demand

UpstreamOnline: Producers in pound seats in Rome

By Upstream staff

Consumer countries and international oil companies keen to gain greater access to the world’s energy resources are likely to walk away empty-handed from talks with producer nations in Rome.

Record high oil, which struck $117 a barrel on Friday, has helped to drive up the profits of oil majors, but it has also increased the spending power of national oil companies and made them ever more reluctant to grant access to their resources. read more

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Bears Baffled by Oil Highs

By GREGORY MEYER
April 21, 2008; Page C10

As crude-oil prices edge further into uncharted territory, life as a bear has become lonelier than ever.

Benchmark crude futures have registered an electric performance so far this year and now — near $117 a barrel — hover well above some of the highest near-term forecasts. The speed of the ascent has caught many market participants off guard and forced banks and brokerages to repeatedly revise their oil-price outlook upward. read more

Financial Times: Shell says it has 55 years of reserves

By Sheila McNulty in Houston
Published: April 21 2008 03:00 | Last updated: April 21 2008 03:00

Royal Dutch Shell has sought to calm concerns about diminishing oil reserves and access to new supplies, arguing that its existing resource base will provide 55 years of production at current production levels.

“We still have a lot of legacy [positions] from the past,” said Jeroen van der Veer, Shell’s chief executive, in an interview with the Financial Times. read more

FT REPORT – FUND MANAGEMENT: How to play the yield phenomenon

By Eric Uhlfelder
Published: Apr 21, 2008

Few seasoned investors are going to bet against the current bear market based on a single indicator. But when the dividend yields of the UK’s largest companies recently hit 4.14 per cent, surpassing five-year gilt rates of 3.97 per cent, the smart money may have noted a key inflection point.

Why? Because these yields don’t cross very often – in fact only twice in the last 50 years – and in both instances a strong stock rally followed. read more

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Oil prices spike to record above $117 a barrel

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 21, 2008
Filed at 1:30 a.m. ET

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Oil prices spiked to a record above $117 a barrel Monday in Asia following an attack on a key pipeline in Nigeria at the end of last week.

Comments over the weekend by an OPEC official that the group isn’t likely to increase production also supported prices.

Abdullah el al-Badri, secretary-general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said Sunday that oil prices would likely go higher and that the group was ready to raise production if the price pressure was due to a shortage of supply — something he doubted. read more

Bloomberg: Emerging Market Oil Use Exceeds U.S. as Prices Rise (Update1)

By Mark Shenk

April 21 (Bloomberg) — Traffic jams in Beijing and humming air conditioners in Dubai are replacing U.S. highways and suburbs as the driver of global oil prices.

China, India, Russia and the Middle East for the first time will consume more crude oil than the U.S., burning 20.67 million barrels a day this year, an increase of 4.4 percent, according to the International Energy Agency in Paris. U.S. demand will contract 2 percent to 20.38 million barrels daily, the IEA says. read more

Bloomberg: Oil Reaches Record as OPEC Says It Doesn’t Need to Raise Output

By Christian Schmollinger and Angela Macdonald-Smith

April 21 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose above $117 a barrel for the first time in New York after OPEC said it will maintain production, rejecting calls from the U.K. and Japan to boost output.

There is no shortage of oil in the market, Secretary- General Abdalla el-Badri said yesterday in Rome, blaming the weak dollar and speculators for high prices. Even if the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries raises production, “we will not find people to buy the increment,” President Chakib Khelil said, as cited by Kuwait’s state news agency. read more

A view over methanol factory installations and oil wells in Kharg Island in the Persian Gulf. Photograph: Kaveh Kazemi/Corbis

The Guardian: Iran loses patience with Shell’s indecision

· Oil firm has until June to commit to £5bn project
· Tehran already holding talks with competitors

Terry Macalister
Monday April 21 2008

Shell has been warned by Iran that it must commit itself to developing a $10bn (£5bn) gas field in the turbulent Middle East country by June or risk the project being handed over to a rival. read more

The Moscow Times: Russia Investment Roadshow: The Rules Of the Game

Issue 3887 Special Report
21 April 2008
By Catrina Stewart / Staff Writer

As one seasoned investor might have put it, you will have a tough job succeeding in Russia if you don’t know your Bulgakov from your Pushkin.

A new presidential term is looming, and President-elect Dmitry Medvedev is standing in the wings, ready to assume the mantle of power within weeks. Yet investors — perhaps more now than ever before — still have a minefield to navigate if they are to make sense of the investment climate in Russia. read more