Oil prices resumed their climb, gaining more than $1 to settle at nearly $72 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Worries about Nigerian production egged prices higher, as did the kidnapping of an Iraqi oil official. Here is Friday’s roundup of oil and energy news.
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NIGERIAN DISRUPTION: Tony Chukwueke, director of Nigeria’s Department of Petroleum Resources, sent ripples through global oil markets when he said militants had shut down about 800,000 barrels a day of his country’s oil production. Previous estimates had pegged the loss at just 500,000 barrels. Mr. Chukwueke quickly retracted his higher estimate and said the 500,000 figure was more accurate, but emphasized that his government was worried that interminable hostage-taking by militants could lead to greater losses.
KIDNAPPING IN IRAQ: Gunmen kidnapped Muthanna al-Badria, director general of Iraq’s state company for oil projects, or SCOP, in Baghdad. The incident was evidence the death of Iraqi insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi will likely have no immediate impact on Iraq’s oil supply.
•Crude Trade: High oil prices helped widen the U.S. trade deficit with the rest of the world in April, breaking a rare, unexpected, two-month streak during which the gap shrank.
•G-8 Worries: Finance ministers of the Group of Eight industrialised nations will focus on rising oil prices and energy security at its meeting this weekend in St. Petersburg, the Financial Times reports.
•Ethanol by the Numbers: In case you missed it, Carl Bialik’s Numbers Guy column investigates the claims made for and against ethanol production.
•Green With Envy: Some U.S. colleges have refreshed old rivalries by competing to advance green technology, the Associated Press reports.
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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 conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
