August 9th, 2006:

City Focus
By Sam Fleming

BELIEVE it or not, BP was until recently considered one of the better performers when it came to oil pipeline safety. The British oil major’s inspection and repair standards were seen by some as an example of best practice in an industry with a messy history.

Monday’s news that miles of Alaskan pipeline will have to be replaced because of ‘severe corrosion’ has tarnished that reputation. Coming only months after a spill from the same Prudhoe Bay field, chief executive Lord Browne’s efforts to turn his firm into an environmentally friendly pin-up have been holed below the waterline. read more

8 August 2006

THE government is investigating alleged breaches of safety regulations at Royal Dutch Shell’s North Sea platform, Brent Bravo.

Oil union the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee has complained that the company allowed workers to use a stairwell inside one of the legs of the platform for months after a report was-made detailing corrosion.

The Health and Safety Executive started its investigation last week.

Shell said the stairwell was available for ‘critical’ operations. ‘The report was not actioned and we are investigating why that happened.’ read more

EXTRACT: The company has some serious questions to answer. It has been better at replacing reserves than rival Shell, which made a remarkable recovery from its own dodgy accounting scandal a couple of years ago. In the Shell affair, the company’s reputation was trashed but financially it emerged virtually unscathed. The outcome is likely to be similar for BP.

THE ARTICLE

RUTH SUNDERLAND, DAILY MAIL DEPUTY CITY EDITOR
8 August 2006

BP IS DESPERATE to establish its green credentials but it is still a big dirty oil company. The indefinite shutdown of its Prudhoe Bay oilfield in Alaska is a huge blow to the company’s attempts to hone its reputation. read more

Aug 9, 2006

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RSDA) has now overtaken the U.K.’s BP PLC (BP) as Europe’s largest oil company by market capitalization, due to production setbacks at BP, analysts said Wednesday.

As of 1455 GMT, Shell’s share price was 1.35%, or 26p higher at 1,951 pence, valuing it at GBP126.775 billion. BP’s share price meanwhile has risen 0.5% or 3.5p to 617.5 pence, giving it a value of GBP121.575 billion.

Since the beginning of the year, Shell’s shares have outperformed BP’s shares by 4%, according to Dow Jones Newswires calculations. read more

Wednesday 09 August 2006, 19:37 Makka Time, 16:37 GMT  

Four more foreign oil workers have been kidnapped from a supply ship off the Nigerian coast.

The two Norwegians and two Ukrainians were kidnapped from the vessel, owned by Norwegian shipping company Trico Supply, late on Wednesday as it was carrying supplies to an oil rig off Nigeria, company spokesman Bjorn Endresen said.

Hafiz Ringim, the police commissioner for Bayelsa state, where the attack happened, said: “They were working in their boat around 4 or 5am when some armed men believed to be disgruntled members of the community attacked them and took them away.” read more

RBC, 09.08.2006, Moscow 18:34:21.Russia’s Industry and Energy Ministry discussed matters of further development of the Sakhalin-2 project with Japanese companies Mitsui and Tokyo Electric today.

As reported by the ministry’s press office, representatives of the Japanese parties expressed interest in expanding cooperation within the project, including in terms of supplies of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the Japanese market. Mitsui is one of the Sakhalin-2 shareholders, and Tokyo Electric is a major gas customer. read more

An Open Letter from John Donovan To JEROEN VAN DER VEER (sent by email)

Dear Mr Van der Veer

As a long term Shell shareholder I am extremely concerned by the serious allegations made by the former Shell International Group Auditor, Mr Bill Campbell, concerning alleged falsification of records in relation to the Shell Brent scandal.

We really cannot have a distinguished former high level Shell official being allowed to make such accusations without Shell taking action against him for defamation if, as Shell claims, they are untrue. read more

By Upstream staff

Shell and its partner Malaysia’s state-run Petronas, have pumped first gas from the E8 field off Sarawak, Malaysia.

E8 is part of Shell’s E11 hub integrated gas project and first gas from E8 marks a major milestone for the development.

Under the hub integration project, gas production from surrounding fields is channelled to the E11 complex for processing before being piped to Petronas’ liquefied natural gas complex at Bintulu.

One of five fields developed to ensure continued supply to the LNG Complex, E8 will make the E11 complex the biggest gas production facility in terms of volume in Sarawak waters. The other four fields are E11, F23, F6 and F13. read more

By MARY PEMBERTON
Associated Press Writer
Aug 9, 2:20 AM EDT
 
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — BP’s problem of corroding pipes is worsening as the nation’s largest oil field ages and more water and less oil is produced during drilling.

“Really, we are a giant water field,” said Bill Hedges, BP PLC’s corrosion expert, explaining that what comes up now during drilling is three-quarters water.

Water contains carbon dioxide, ideally suited to corroding pipelines.

The shutdown this week of the Prudhoe Bay oil field because of severe corrosion found in transit lines is raising questions about the condition of the rest of the field. Oil first flowed at Prudhoe Bay on June 20, 1977.
 
The Prudhoe Bay oilfield, which accounts for 8 percent of domestic output, is very different now from what it was when it was first brought onstream, said ING Financial Markets analyst Jason Kenney. read more

By Upstream staff

Oil prices held steady just below record highs today, taking some relief from efforts to keep nearly half of Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay oilfield’s output flowing.

London Brent crude, which hit a new high of $78.65 a barrel before succumbing to profit-taking yesterday, was trading up 10 cents at $77.65 a barrel. US light, sweet crude was down 1 cent at $76.30, about $2 shy of its peak in July.

After soaring 3% on Monday following news that BP was shutting down Prudhoe Bay due to a corroded pipeline, prices eased yesterday amid hope that some output from the biggest oilfield in the US could be maintained. read more

EXTRACT: Producers in Nigeria, led by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, have lost about one-third of the country’s capacity to militant attacks on pipelines and platforms.  “Shell warns that it might be possible to restart some production before next April’s presidential election,” White said. “Not precisely encouraging news.”

THE ARTICLE

006/8/9
By Will Kennedy SINGAPORE, Bloomberg

Brent oil, the price marker for two-thirds of the world’s crude, may rise to a record US$79.80 a barrel this week as BP’s Alaskan shutdown compounds global supply problems, Societe Generale said. read more

Headline: For BP, a Pair of Repairs

By Steven Mufson and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, August 9, 2006; D01

Sitting in his Madison Avenue offices two weeks ago, with contemporary art on the walls and a commanding view of Midtown Manhattan, BP PLC chief executive John Browne was asked about the different images of BP, then the world’s second-largest oil firm, and its larger rival, Exxon Mobil Corp.

“It’s not a matter of competition,” Browne said. “It’s a matter of different character.” read more

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
August 9, 2006 12:37 a.m.

Oil futures fell to nearly $76 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, giving back some of Monday’s sharp rally, after U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman made soothing remarks about oil supply in response to the looming shutdown of the Prudhoe Bay oilfield in northern Alaska. Here’s Tuesday’s roundup of energy-related news:

* * *
BODMAN’S ENCOURAGING WORDS: Mr. Bodman said that, while the problems at BP facilities at Prudhoe Bay — a field responsible for 8% of U.S. daily oil production — could take months to fix, the U.S. could make up most or all of the supply shortage with other sources. He also suggested that part of Prudhoe Bay might be able to stay open. BP later said it was talking to regulators about ways it could maintain production in part of the facility. read more

By RUSSELL GOLD
August 9, 2006; Page C1

Everyone is looking for the next Barnett Shale.

As recently as 1998, the Barnett was a relatively insignificant natural-gas field, covering pieces of three counties near Fort Worth, Texas, and producing just 96 million cubic feet a day. Then companies discovered how to crack the rock and unlock the gas.

Today, the field spans eight million acres across a dozen counties and produces 1.3 billion cubic feet a day, some 2.5% of natural gas produced in the U.S. It is the second-largest gas field by production in the continental U.S. after the San Juan Basin in New Mexico — and still growing. read more

EXTRACT: BP’s American troubles are almost a mirror image of Shell’s discomfort in the North Sea, where years of penny-pinching culminated in two deaths on Brent Bravo in 2003 when workers inspected a botched repair to a gas line.

THE ARTICLE

By Carl Mortished
August 09, 2006 
 
WOULD you continue to drive your car knowing that you had a slow puncture or a flickering warning light on the dashboard? For how long would you chance it and would you drive for four hours at speed on a motorway with your children in the back seat? People take such risks daily, but BP yesterday pulled the car over, called the AA and waited for a tow to the nearest garage. read more

By Craig Smith

Published: August 9 2006 03:00 | Last updated: August 9 2006 03:00

The aerial shot of the leak from BP’s Prudhoe Bay oil transit pipeline in Alaska shows an affected area smaller than half of a football field. However, this leak of around five barrels (200 gallons) of oil on to the Alaskan tundra coupled with evidence of severe corrosion elsewhere in its pipelines has led BP to shut down the Prudhoe Bay oilfield, the biggest in the US providing around 8 per cent of US crude oil production. read more

EXTRACT: What we are currently witnessing in the Corrib gas dispute is a co-ordinated strategy of deception directed at the people of Mayo.

THE ARTICLE 

DR. Mark Garavan, spokesman for the Shell to Sea campaign, has taken issue with a front page editorial in last week’s edition of The Connaught Telegraph.

In his response, Dr. Garavan stated: “The central assertion in your front-page editorial was that now that the Rossport Five and the Shell to Sea campaign ‘have won’ they should ‘get off the pitch.’ read more