August 25th, 2006:

By Upstream staff

Shell has paused with front-end engineering and design work on the Gulf Landing gravity-base liquefied natural gas receiving terminal pending the completion of environmental impact studies (EIS) of the proposed graving dock sites and for closer alignment with the projected 2011 start-up of the Olokola LNG plant in Nigeria.

The FEED studies, which were projected to last 10 months to a year, could be on hold for three months or more, claimed a source familiar with the project.

A consortium of fabricator Kiewit Offshore Services, Japanese LNG tank builder IHI and engineering group Black&Veatch is performing one FEED while Saipem and its Technigaz subsidiary is engaged in a rival, separate FEED for Gulf Landing. read more

Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:19am ET

NEW YORK, Aug 25 (Reuters) – Oil major BP Plc has hired a refinery manager from Royal Dutch Shell Plc to run its troubled Texas City plant, breaking an oil industry taboo against poaching staff from competitors.

BP said on Friday Keith Casey, who is currently the general manager of the Motiva joint venture refinery in Norco, Louisiana, will join BP in September and take over as manager of the 460,000 barrels per day Texas City, Texas plant in the first quarter of 2007. read more

By Upstream staff

The decision by two services companies to pull out of the Niger Delta highlights growing concerns about the deteriorating security situation in Nigeria in the run-up to next spring’s elections.

Shell, the biggest oil operator in the country, has stuck to a consistent line that business remains difficult there but it has no intention of abandoning a key producing area.

However, US engineering company Willbros and German construction group Julius Berger have shown that some foreign businesses are losing patience and pulling out until the security situation improves. read more

By Saeed Shah
Published: 25 August 2006

BP has been hit by further troubles in Alaska, after it was forced to shut down even more production at the Prudhoe Bay oilfield and documents emerged that appeared to show the company was warned about the pipeline corrosion problem that has now crippled output.

The latest difficulties will feed into a growing political backlash in the US, where it has been suggested that BP’s slogan should be “big problem” rather than its advertising line of “beyond petroleum”. A Congressional committee will grill BP’s US executives next month over leaks from its Alaskan pipelines. read more

Last Update: 11:05 AM ET Aug 25, 2006

LITTLE FALLS, N.J., Aug 25, 2006 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ — ExxonMobil has overtaken Shell Oil as the number one marketer of finished lubricant products on the global market, according to a recently published study by Kline & Company.

Sales of ExxonMobil’s lubricant products topped 4.5 million kilotonnes in 2005, earning the company a 12% share of the global lubes market and allowing ExxonMobil to edge out Shell for the top spot in Kline’s annual ranking of the world’s top lubricant suppliers. read more

Good morning Mr Molloy

I would like to draw to your attention the results of a survey carried out among BP workers regarding safety.

Houston Chronicle: BP’s own audit finds big lapses in management (*Bill Campbell will be interested in this article)

Is it possible that your union could carry out a similar survey among Shell offshore workers? It would not cost much, but the results could be very revealing (and newsworthy!). All you would need to do is devise a simple survey (perhaps three yes/no questions) which participants could complete and mail to an independent solicitor who could open the envelopes and calculate and verify the results in your presence.  Done in this way, the results would have credibility without costing a small fortune. read more

OUR COMMENT AT FOOT OF THIS ARTICLE: *Headline comment in brackets added by ShellNews.net.  Bill Campbell was formally Group Auditor for Shell International. He has made similar charges of cover-up and indifference at Royal Dutch Shell Plc management in relation to safety lapses at Brent Bravo which cost the lives of workers who put their safety in the hands of Shell.  What’s the betting that a safety survey among Shell offshore workers would produce similar results to those reported in this article i.e. workers ranked “making money” as most important to management and “people” the least…” read more

By TOM FOWLER
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle: Aug. 24, 2006, 10:56PM

BP has named a Shell Oil official to take over as manager of the Texas City refinery beginning next year.

Keith Casey, the current general manager of Shell Oil’s Norco Refinery in Norco, La., will replace Colin Maclean as the Texas City business unit leader and refinery manager early in 2007.

Maclean took over the Texas City plant in May 2005, a couple of months after an explosion at the facility killed 15 and injured scores. read more

EXTRACT: …Oil was discovered in the Ogoni region in the late 1950s by the Royal Dutch/Shell Group….by the 1990s an estimated US $30 billion worth of oil had already been extracted, and oil revenues accounted for over 98 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings; the 550,000 local farmers and fishermen who inhabited the coastal land had received little except a ravaged environment. Once fertile farmland had been destroyed by uncontrolled pollution, and virtually all fish and wildlife had vanished. Only a handful of local people were employed by the oil companies or benefited economically in any way…. read more

Friday, 25 August , 2006, 07:50 
 
New Delhi: The State-owned upstream major Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) is in talks with Royal Dutch Shell for enhancement of production from its Kalol field in the Western onshore.

Kalol is the highest producing field of ONGC’s Ahmedabad Asset in Western onshore and to further enhance its domestic production of oil and gas, the company requires better technology, an expertise which is available with Shell, sources told Business Line. 

Average crude production of Kalol field is 1,430 tonnes per day (tpd). The field also produces gas. The field comprises several producing blocks. According to sources, the talks between the two companies are at a nascent stage, as modalities are yet to be firmed up on how Shell would participate in the project. The talks with Shell comes in the backdrop of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) inked between ONGC and Shell Exploration Company BV (subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell) this January for wide ranging co-operation in the hydrocarbons value chain. read more

By Nesa Subrahmaniyan

Aug. 25 (Bloomberg) — Oil rose in New York to the highest in more than a week on concern supply may be disrupted as a storm that is forming in the Atlantic may move to the Gulf of Mexico, and three oil workers were kidnapped in Nigeria.

Forecasts show a tropical depression, which may strengthen to become Tropical Storm Ernesto, will pass near Jamaica on Aug. 27 before heading for the Gulf, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Three workers from a Eni SpA unit were kidnapped in Port Harcourt, Italian news agency ANSA reported. An Italian foreign ministry official confirmed the abduction. read more

It’s not just BP’s reputation that is suffering in America. The oil major’s U.S. mishaps are hurting its shares too. BP’s latest setback is another halving of output at its Prudhoe Bay field in Alaska. BP stock has underperformed the sector since March — shortly after Prudhoe’s problems first emerged. Two weeks ago the market value of archrival Royal Dutch Shell, at $235 billion, even overtook BP’s for the first time in four years. (See related article below – “Consultant Warned BP Of Pipe-Network Corrosion.”) read more

• The UK, Europe’s biggest consumer of natural gas, may get more of the fuel than expected this winter because new pipelines from Norway and Holland are starting on time, the nation’s energy regulator said.

• Centrica may build its first coal-fired power plant to diversify its sources of power.

• Royal Dutch Shell’s oil and gas exploration programme, the world’s biggest, may suffer from a lack of available drilling rigs in a competitive market, a Shell executive said.

• BP cut production at the biggest oilfield in the US for a second time in less than a month because of a gas compressor breakdown. read more