July 29th, 2006:

By Gordon Jaremko,
CanWest News Service

EDMONTON — Alberta’s youngest oilsands mega-mine set out Friday to grow briskly by 65 per cent even though expansion costs have skyrocketed.

About 6,000 to 7,000 construction workers will build a 100,000-barrels-a-day addition to the Athabasca Oil Sands Project over the next four years on a schedule laid out by senior partner Shell Canada. The giant job will be divided equally between the three-year-old operation’s Fort McMurray open-pit mine and Scotford bitumen upgrader east of Edmonton, Shell president Clive Mather and oilsands vice-president Brian Straub told a conference call for financial analysts and media. read more

Nick Mathiason
Sunday July 30, 2006

The Shell-owned consortium behind the $20bn oil and gas project in Sakhalin off the east coast of Russia is seeking UK taxpayers’ money to help pay for the scheme, even though it is based in the tax haven of Bermuda.

Campaigners are demanding the Export Credits Guarantee Department deny funds to Sakhalin Energy. James Leaton of WWF said: ‘ECGD was set up to promote UK exports. Less than 5 per cent of the project is British and it is already 75 per cent complete. It is unacceptable that taxpayers’ money is being spent to endorse projects based in a tax haven that contribute to climate change.’ read more

30 July 2006 
By Richard Curran

The growing momentum to solve the issues over the Corrib gas field might see the multi-billion-euro project actually move forward sometime soon. The publication of the report by the mediator in the dispute, Peter Cassells, into finding a solution may not in itself fix the problems but it is another step in the direction of finally landing new Irish gas on Irish shores.

At a time when gas prices for consumers and businesses are set to rise again, progress on Corrib couldn’t be more welcome. But pumping Corrib gas into Irish homes will not necessarily be the panacea that many might think. read more

July 30, 2006
Stephen O’Brien
 
SHELL is to announce within two weeks that it is prepared to reroute the Corrib gas pipeline in Mayo, in an attempt to end the local protests that have stymied the €900m project.

The state-owned Bord Gais is expected to become involved in the selection of a new route when it joins forces with Shell in the project. 
 
The rerouting is likely to involve moving the pipeline about 200 metres from local homes. The nearest house to the current route across the Rossport peninsula is 70 metres away. read more

EXTRACT: Last November Total began to expand its deepwater Gulf of Mexico position in a “like kind” exchange with Shell Exploration & Production. Under the agreement, Total would convey its interests in four onshore fields in South Texas for Shell’s 17 percent interest in the deepwater Tahiti field, among the largest finds in the Gulf of Mexico.

THE ARTICLE

Both Hess Pony, Total Alaminos Canyon discoveries are oil; sidetrack planned on Hess acreage; Total well confirms structure

Ray Tyson
For Petroleum News
Headline: Total, Hess confirm deepwater Gulf finds read more

EXRACT: Shell a target?: According to Britain’s Financial Times and other publications, Browne had an even bigger transformation up his sleeve — a merger with arch-rival Shell. Just how serious that plan ever became isn’t clear. It appears the idea was brought up to Shell leaders in the second half of 2005 and didn’t gain much traction.

Admired CEO will take another job as he’s ‘absolutely hooked on business’

Allen Baker
For Petroleum News

John Browne’s recent announcement that he plans to step down as BP CEO at the end of 2008 came amid a flurry of rumor and speculation. There were reports he had hoped to escape the company’s mandatory retirement policies and stay on past the age of 60. In point of fact, he has managed to escape that policy to some extent, since he’ll turn 60 in February of 2008, 10 months before his planned departure. read more

By Gary Park

Imperial Oil-ExxonMobil Canada, a Shell Canada-led partnership and Husky Energy are pushing ahead with various aspects of large-scale oil sands projects, taking the high road during a time of accumulating negatives.

The joint effort by the ExxonMobil sister companies involves the 300,000 barrel per day Kearl project that carries an initial cost projections of C$4.5 to C$6.5 billion to recover 4.41 billion barrels of bitumen over 50 years, is ready to enter the regulatory approval stream. read more

Guest 2770: 28 July 2006

Shell Shocked: “This company has been losing ground now for many years, and I don’t like that,” says Jeroen van der Veer, the 58-year-old chief executive. “I didn’t see the reserves crisis as something isolated–no, I think the whole company was losing ground. We knew it, but we kept on doing more of the same.”

Any other minion who knew he was losing ground but still continued in same fashion would have been sacked. Why does he not step down himself and admit he was not up to the task? Or does he like the status and is convinced the others are even worse? With bright micromanagers like Brinded around he may well be right. And not being in control may increase the chance of having to go to jail? read more

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: July 29, 2006

Chevron reported yesterday that its second-quarter earnings climbed by 18 percent, marking the company’s highest profit for any three-month period. But the results paled next to the earnings announced this week by other large oil companies, and Chevron’s stock price dropped substantially on a day when American markets otherwise soared.

Like Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP and ConocoPhillips, who have all reported a banquet of riches in recent days, Chevron said that it had been profiting from the rising price of oil, which is now more than $70 a barrel, and strong refining margins. read more

Published: Jul 28, 2006

THE High Court has reserved judgment in a multi-million claim for damages by a county council against energy giant Shell.

The legal action followed the leakage of petroleum products from a Shell petrol station which halted construction of new civic offices in Trim, Co Meath.

Damages estimated at between 5m-6m are being sought by the Meath Co Council after a hydrocarbon discharge in 2001 from a petrol station owned by Irish Shell Ltd at Watergate Street, Trim, contaminated an adjoining site previously used as a car park for the local swimming pool. read more

By: Lorna Siggins, Irish Times
Published: Jul 29, 2006

Shell E&P Ireland has said that the Corrib gas partners will “respond positively and in full” to the report on the Corrib gas pipeline published yesterday by Government mediator Peter Cassells.

In its strongest indication yet that it would review the high-pressure pipeline’s onshore route, the company has welcomed the publication of the mediator’s “detailed and thorough” document. However, it says that it needs to consider a number of its recommendations. read more

EXTRACT:  Meanwhile, Shell is in talks with the Securities and Exchange Commission about whether reserves held in gas-to-liquids projects should be booked under the regulator’s rules, Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer said Thursday. The issue of booking is sensitive for Shell, which was forced to restate reserves fives times in 2004 and 2005. 

Net Tops $10 Billion, a Gain
That Could Intensify Anger
About High Prices at Pump
By JEFFREY BALL and BENOÎT FAUCON
July 28, 2006; Page A2

Exxon Mobil Corp. reported its second-highest quarterly profit ever, a result likely to intensify political anger at the oil industry at a time when many U.S. consumers are paying more than $3 a gallon for gasoline. read more

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE

Crude-oil futures tumbled by more than $1 a barrel, settling at $73.20 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, on renewed hopes of a resolution of the violence in the Middle East. Here is Friday’s roundup of energy-related news:

* * *
CHEVRON’S MISS: Chevron did its part to dissipate some of the public rage being directed at Big Oil these days, reporting — get this — disappointing quarterly earnings. Not that a $4.35 billion profit, on $53.54 billion in revenue, is anything to sneeze at. But Wall Street analysts, on average, expected a little more from Chevron’s earnings per share, and its stock fell 2.5%. A big expense to repair equipment damaged by last year’s hurricanes hurt results. read more

By Andy Critchlow & Stephen Voss

DUBAI: Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s second-biggest oil company, yesterday said the Pearl GTL project may cost as much as $18bn, triple earlier estimates.

The project will cost $4 to $6 per barrel of oil equivalent to produce, The Hague-based Shell said yesterday in a statement. The venture is expected to produce the equivalent of 3bn barrels of oil during its lifetime, the company said in a separate statement.

Oil and gas project costs are climbing amid shortages of equipment, labour and raw materials such as steel. A year ago, Shell said costs for its Sakhalin II venture in Russia’s Far East doubled to $20bn. Shell yesterday cut its 2006 output target. read more

Jul. 29, 2006. 01:00 AM

CALGARY—Shell Canada Ltd. aims to proceed with expanding its oil sands mining operation despite surging costs, and has given its partners 90 days to respond to its proposal, it said yesterday.

Shell Canada, which owns 60 per cent of the Athabasca Oil Sands Project, said it believes boosting the production to 255,000 barrels a day from the current 155,000 could cost between $10 billion and $12.8 billion.

That is up from last year’s $7 billion estimate, with the huge increase driven by a squeeze on labour and materials supplies in Alberta’s heavy construction boom. read more

• British Nuclear Fuels, the UK government’s nuclear services company, stopped production at Unit 4 of its Wylfa nuclear plant.

• Interconnector (UK), owner of a natural gas pipeline linking England and Belgium, will export the fuel from mainland Europe into the UK starting tomorrow to meet demand.

• Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s second largest oil company, may reroute a proposed gas pipeline in western Ireland to end an impasse over a facility that could meet almost two-thirds of the country’s gas needs. read more