June 19th, 2006:

June 19, 2006 

Nigerian Government has embargoed further export of crude oil from the Shell operated 225,000 barrels per day output capacity Bonga crude oil and gas field over non-payment of royalty by the Anglo Dutch oil company.
 
A senior government official who was part of the government delegation to the just concluded Producer–Consumer Summit on LNG which took place in Washington  D.C., made the disclosure while speaking with Nigerian journalists in New York, USA, weekend.

The Bonga oil field is operated by the Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO) Limited, a subsidiary of Shell Companies in Nigeria (SCiN). read more

June 19, 2006 

Nigerian Government has embargoed further export of crude oil from the Shell operated 225,000 barrels per day output capacity Bonga crude oil and gas field over non-payment of royalty by the Anglo Dutch oil company.
 
A senior government official who was part of the government delegation to the just concluded Producer–Consumer Summit on LNG which took place in Washington  D.C., made the disclosure while speaking with Nigerian journalists in New York, USA, weekend.

The Bonga oil field is operated by the Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO) Limited, a subsidiary of Shell Companies in Nigeria (SCiN). read more

By Upstream staff

BILL Campbell developed a real passion for safety issues from an early age by learning the lessons from UK coal-mining disasters as to how best to protect workers against the ever-present threat of an industrial accident in a high-risk business, writes Christopher Hopson.

Today, as a seasoned technical professional, he can rightly boast at having spent over 40 years as a much sought-after safety expert with wide experience in both the UK mining and international oil and gas industries. “From a very early age I became interested in the behaviours of people who get themselves hurt,” he recalls. read more

By Upstream staff

SUSTAINED pressure on Shell’s directors finally paid dividends last year when Bill Campbell, by then an ex-employee but still a shareholder, finally managed to persuade the group to carry out an internal investigation into his audit claims, resulting in a meeting with company chief executive Jeroen Van der Veer, writes Christopher Hopson.

Campbell had in December 2004 written a letter to Malcolm Brinded, who by then had been promoted to Shell’s global head of exploration and production, outlining his concerns over the way Brinded, then oil director Chris Finlayson and the Brent managers had failed to act on his Platform Safety Management Review (PSMR) recommendations. read more

Goal-widening rather than goal-setting 

Questions over ‘corrupt and deeply flawed independent verification process’ but directors not seen as at fault by company if wrongdoing occurred

By Upstream staff

ABERDEEN-based Wood Group, the main Brent field contractor, also took stinging criticism from former Shell International group auditor Bill Campbell.

Wood Group managers onshore told the Platform Safety Management Review (PSMR) audit team they knew full well that Brent field maintenance reports had been falsified and they accepted the situation. read more

By Upstream staff

THE UK’s offshore safety watchdog, the Health&Safety Executive (HSE), is shown in Bill Campbell’s evidence to be a deeply entrenched and secretive body, writes Christopher Hopson.
He believes it has failed in its public duty to ensure proper verification of offshore safety systems, thereby increasing the risk levels on many of the UK’s ageing North Sea installations.

The implications from Campbell’s 1999 Platform Safety Management Review (PSMR) of Shell’s Northern Business Unit installations, and a Shell internal audit from November 2003, is that the current legislative regime has failed in its primary aim of reducing the risks to people working offshore. read more

Audit chief removed from review post after raising questions over management direction

By Upstream staff

SHELL failed to act on Bill Campbell’s central recommendation that its top three Brent managers should immediately be suspended from duty following his audit team’s devastating internal investigation revealing the negative safety culture across the field. Instead, UK chief Malcolm Brinded removed Campbell from his position as the lead role in the audit review team.

The conclusions of the hard-hitting Platform Safety Management Review (PSMR), seen by Upstream, will have made very uncomfortable reading for Brinded, then oil director Chris Finlayson and gas director Tom Botts, the three senior directors in charge of Shell Expro in late-1999. read more

Former company auditor makes claims of serious breaches in safety standards and falsified maintenance records on North Sea fields

By Upstream staff

SHELL is facing a major new top management scandal following startling disclosures of how it persistently ignored critical safety warnings on its UK flagship Brent field in the North Sea by running its four platforms “flat out” while allegedly violating operating procedures, falsifying maintenance records and corruptly failing to maintain safety critical equipment. read more

MOSCOW, June 19 (RIA Novosti) – Gazprom (RTS: GAZP) is considering creating a joint venture with Anglo-Dutch oil major Shell to build a natural-gas liquefaction plant in northwest Siberia, the deputy chairman of Gazprom’s managing committee said Monday.

Alexander Ryazanov said the plant in Nadym, in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Area, would have capacity of around 12 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

The company needs to liquefy the gas because the falling pressure of the remaining gas at the local deposits means that it cannot be exported by Gazprom’s pipeline system, he said. read more

DARWIN, Australia, June 19 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc. (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday it had agreed an option to farm into three deep-water exploration blocs in the gulf of Papua, offshore Papua New Guinea.

It marks a possible return to Papua New Guinea for Shell, which pulled out of its fuel retailing activities in the small Pacific nation in 2005. Under the agreement with Chinampa, a subsidiary of seismic data provider Fugro Multi Client Services, Shell has the option to take up 75 percent equity in some or all of the blocs, in exchange for funding exploration activities, the company said in a statement. The blocks cover total acreage of 45,000 square kilometres with an average water depth of 1,500 metres. Shell has agreed to fund seismic testing before deciding whether to buy into the blocs, after which it would fund one exploration well per bloc over a two-year period, and decide whether to become operator of the acreage. read more

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 18, 2006
Filed at 11:36 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) — Americans paying $3 per gallon at the pump have it relatively cheap when compared with prices globally, say oil and gas company executives who defend their record profits as essential to maintaining supplies.

In parts of Europe and elsewhere in the West, gasoline prices are more like $5 per gallon to $7 per gallon, said the chairman of ConocoPhillips Co., James J. Mulva.

”This is a global business, and it’s not only that we need to add to supply, but we need to reduce demand,” Mulva said. ”In the United States alone, we have about 2 percent of world oil reserves, 5 percent of the population and yet we use about 25 percent of the world’s consumption of oil.” read more

By REUTERS
Published: June 18, 2006
Filed at 2:43 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Top executives at three big U.S. oil companies defended record profits on Sunday as necessary to finance future investment, and one cautioned that summer gasoline pump prices could go higher with hurricane season underway.

Some of the major oil companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM.N), Chevron Corp. (CVX.N), ConocoPhillips (COP.N), collectively earned well over $100 billion in profits last year, sparking outrage among consumers and some lawmakers. read more

June 19, 2006

By Peter Klinger
 
DOMINION PETROLEUM is hoping to follow in the steps of Cairn Energy by drilling its way to a fortune in territory abandoned by Royal Dutch Shell.

The London-based company is hoping to raise $60 million (£32.5 million) in an initial public offering before a $338 million flotation on the Alternative Investment Market to help to fund an oil and gas exploration programme in Tanzania. 
 
Dominion’s focus is on an onshore area in the East African country where Shell had drilled previously for oil and gas. Shell’s hunt proved unsuccessful and the Anglo-Dutch group walked out of Tanzania. Dominion believes that up to $200 million-worth of exploration work had been carried out in the area, providing valuable data for the newcomer to focus future exploration efforts. It estimates that its three licences, covering ten million acres, contain possible reserves of 104 million barrels of oil and gas — before even drilling one well. read more

Multinationals know they must adapt to survive. Being seen to behave ethically is as important as making profits, reports Nick Mathiason

June 18, 2006

Oil giants foment gang warfare in developing countries; their negligence causes catastrophic environmental disasters. Ruthless mining firms stop at nothing to secure lucrative concessions, bribing officials and even toppling democratically elected governments.

Big Pharma obstructs access to vital life-saving medicines for the world’s poorest. Consumer titans douse their unhealthy wares with sugar and salt while simultaneously buying up burgeoning ethical brands to own and control the nascent competition. Rich world agribusinesses suck on the teat of state subsidies while demanding poor nations give them access to their markets. read more

By Neil Buckley and Arkady Ostrovsky

Published: June 19 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 19 2006 03:00

Leaders of Russian industry, lined up under company banners to greet President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg last week, looked like soldiers standing to attention for their commanding officer. Some had flown hundreds of miles for a place in the parade.

A month before world leaders fly into the city for the summit of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, the investment forum in Mr Putin’s home city was designed to showcase Russia’s economic resurgence. As top executives oozed a confidence born of $70-a-barrel oil and the economic recovery it has generated, the message was clear: Russia is back – and is aggressively eager to use its natural resources as tools to regain its influence in the world. read more

By Kevin Morrisonand Rebecca Bream in London

Published: June 19 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 19 2006 03:00

Leading oil executives, including BP chief executive Lord Browne, have said there is plenty of oil refining capacity, in spite of market fears to the contrary.

Oil prices remain close to $70 a barrel even though oil inventories in the developed world rose to their highest level in more than 20 years in April, suggesting there is no shortage of oil.

Analysts said the high prices reflected the tightness in the production process of turning crude into finished products such as petrol, diesel and jet fuel. read more

Posted to the Web: Monday, June 19, 2006

The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has drilled two additional gas wells in a bid to boost local supply of gas. The drilling project commenced in June  last year and was completed early this year, according to the latest edition of the Shell Bulletin, made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on  Thursday. Gas drilled from the wells, called “Utorogu-32” and“Utorogu-33” are supplied through the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) for various local uses, including  generation of electricity. read more

TOKYO — Gazprom may invest in a 300 billion yen ($2.6 billion), 850-kilometer pipeline to transport natural gas from Sakhalin Island to northern Japan, the head of the Japanese project said.

Japan Pipeline Development Organization, a closely-held company based on the northern island of Hokkaido, is in talks with Gazprom, chief executive Hideo Ogawa said.

The pipeline may link to ExxonMobil’s Sakhalin-1 project or Royal Dutch Shell’s Sakhalin-2 venture, he said. (Bloomberg)