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August 2nd, 2004:

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER: Happy pump$

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER: Happy pump$

2 August 04

Happy days are here again at the gas pumps, for the oil companies.

Two major oil companies announced huge growth in income last week, with Exxon Mobil scoring a record $5.8 billion in profits for just the second quarter of the year. Royal Dutch/Shell Group reported a 54 percent growth in net income.

As markets reopen this morning for the week, traders will wonder whether the price of oil, just $10 per barrel a few years ago, might hit $45 a barrel. Do we hear $50?

Most consumers don’t begrudge companies a decent profit. But with retail prices running about $1.90 a gallon for regular unleaded nationally and locally, it’s hard not to resent rocketing profit margins. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

CityDebate.com: Shell Launches New Shell V-Power®, Its Most Advanced Fuel Ever (what, non-tainted?)

CityDebate.com: Shell Launches New Shell V-Power®, Its Most Advanced Fuel Ever (what, non-tainted?)

(Webmasters comment: two points; firstly the question in brackets above was inserted by Shell2004.com; secondly, the article is clearly blatant Shell PR

Posted 2 August 04

New Premium Gasoline Actively Cleans As Cars Are Driven, Has More Than Five Times the Minimum Amount of Cleaning Agents Required By Government Standards

As they prepare to head down the road to a beach, a barbecue or a backyard celebration, motorists traveling this summer will be able to fill up with a new premium fuel – Shell V-Power. The most advanced Shell fuel ever developed, Shell V-Power actively cleans critical engine parts – specifically intake valves and fuel injectors – as customers drive their cars. New Shell V-Power is available at Shell stations across the country. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

American Account: Irwin Stelzer: Soaring oil price lubricates the advance of Kerry

TimesOnLine: American Account: Irwin Stelzer: Soaring oil price lubricates the advance of Kerry

Posted 2 August 04

VLADIMIR PUTIN may have done John Kerry a big favour. When the Russian president threatened Yukos, which accounts for 20% of the country’s oil production, with closure for failing to pay the taxes he now says it owes, oil prices temporarily hit a 21-year high. Never mind that any sensible observer knows that Russia’s treasury would drown in red ink, and the rouble collapse, if Yukos were forced to suspend exports for any protracted period. So tight are oil supplies that even the threat of a temporary loss of about 2% of world production was enough to panic traders. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

The questions over aiding and abetting

Financial Times: The questions over aiding and abetting

By Jonathan Birchall

Posted 2 August 04

Does a group of Burmese villagers have the right to take legal action in the US against a US oil company over alleged complicity in murder and forced labour in their home country? Unocal, the oil company, will shortly resume its efforts to persuade a federal appeals court in California that they do not.

The case will provide a first test of last month’s Supreme Court ruling on the Alien Tort statute, an 18th-century law controversially invoked by human rights groups in a series of cases against US companies. Daniel Petrocelli of O’Melveny & Myers, the law firm representing Unocal, claimed the Supreme Court had delivered a “sound rejection” of the way the statute has been used against business; Amnesty International, echoing other human rights groups, argued instead that the court had upheld the act’s “core principles”. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Victims punished at Shell

Financial Times: Victims punished at Shell

“The FSA justifies the fine by saying it has to send a signal to the market about unacceptable behaviour.”

By John Plender

Published: August 2 2004 04:00 | Last updated: August 2 2004 04:00

What are the securities regulators hoping to achieve with their fines on Royal Dutch/Shell? The people who have chiefly been harmed by the inaccurate data on reserves in the annual report are those investors and shareholders who took investment decisions in a false market. Managers stood to gain from the inflation of the numbers since their pay was partly related to the level of proved reserves. This was, then, a classic example of the principal-agent problem identified in the 18th century by Adam Smith, who noted that agents can never be relied on to look after someone else’s interests as well as their own. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Royal Dutch Shell lays course for governance review

Financial Times: R.Dutch/Shell lays course for governance review

By Deborah Hargreaves and Sundeep Tucker

Published: August 2 2004 04:00 | Last updated: August 2 2004 04:00

Royal Dutch/Shell is expected to reveal some details about the direction of its far-reaching governance review when it announces its strategy plan at the end of September.

Jeroen van der Veer, group chairman, said: “I do not know how far we will have progressed with our studies on governance in September, but it is reasonable to say what we can say at that stage.”

He said at the minimum, the Anglo-Dutch oil company could confirm the timetable for the governance announcement, but that may not be good enough. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.