September 9th, 2006:

United Arab Emirates: Saturday, September 09 – 2006

Shell has announced its sponsorship of the third Middle East Corporate Social Responsibility Summit, a regional initiative it launched three years ago to demonstrate its commitment to Sustainable Development of the communities within which it operates.

The meet will gather world reputed speakers from the ranks of international policy makers, corporate leaders and business heads to explore the relevance, adoption and future of CSR in the region, at Dubai’s J W Marriott Hotel from September 17 to 20. read more

8 September 2006

SHELL is making final preparations to carry out flow tests on a large offshore accumulation of heavy oil in Brazil’s Santos basin after recently concluding an appraisal well there, writes Gareth Chetwynd.

“The rig is undergoing final adjustments at the Maua-Jurong shipyard and we are almost ready to get it to the location and start the tests,” said a spokesperson.

Shell is facing a December deadline to declare commerciality on the accumulation in Block BS-4.

The appraisal well was drillled with the Transocean drillship Deepwater Navigator, and the same unit will be used for the flow test. read more

8 September 2006

SHELL is on course to award a charter contract at the end of this month for a floating production storage and offloading to operate on a cluster of heavy oilfields in Brazil’s Campos basin, writes Gareth Chetwynd.

The FPSO is expected to produce more than 80,000 barrels of crude per day on the area of the Campos basin formerly covered by Block BC-10.

The four fields, known individually as Abalone, Ostra, Nautilus and Argonauta, are being referred to in Brazil with the Portuguese name Parque das Conchas (Shell Park). Crude ranges from 18 to 24 degrees API, with first oil scheduled for early 2010. read more

8 September 2006
 
BP has hired a prominent Washington attorney as an ombudsman for its employees to vent concern about operating practices in the US, while federal regulators proposed new rules to toughen oversight of low-pressure pipelines such as those that sprang leaks this year at Prudhoe Bay on Alaska’s North Slope, writes Dann Rogers.

Before being appointed to the bench by late president Ronald Reagan, Stanley Sporkin, 74, spent 20 years at the US Securities & Exchange Commission, where he helped write legislation that made it illegal for US corporations to bribe foreign officials.
He later served five years as general counsel to the CIA. read more

Ministry releases results of latest government check-up on project

VLADIMIR AFANASIEV Moscow
8 September 2006

RUSSIA’S Natural Resources Ministry has increased public pressure on Shell-led Sakhalin Energy Investments, operator of the Sakhalin 2 oil and gas development, by releasing the results of its August check-up on the project.

At the same time, the ministry’s supervisory branch, Rosprirodnadzor, said that it has filed an appeal in the Presnensky regional court in Moscow, asking it to revoke the 2003 government approval of the project’s environmental review. read more

EXTRACT: With arguably his chief rival Browne trying to save his legacy by sorting out problems in Alaska, Texas and the Gulf of Mexico, and Shell still somewhat shaky after its after its reserves fiasco of 2004, the way is clear for Tillerson to put ExxonMobil out of sight as industry leader. You suspect he knows that and has every intention of trying to do it.

THE ARTICLE

8 September 2006

How the wheel of life turns. It was not so long ago that BP chief executive John Browne was held up as the model of a new liberal and savvy industrialist effortlessly moving his company forward to greater and greater successes. read more

Sources say that infill programme offshore New Zealand was success

RUSSELL SEARANCKE
Wellington
8 September 2006

A TWO-well infill drilling pro¬gramme that cost at least NZ$40 million ($26 million) on Shell’s ageing Maui field off New Zealand was a success with the wells due on stream in the near future.

The Ihi and East of Ihi wells are tight holes, but sources said Shell was happy with the results. The Ihi well had pre-drill potential of about 300 billion cubic feet of gas, said sources.

In 2002, a 4D seismic survey was shot to identify potential areas of bypassed gas at the 27-year-old field off Taranaki. Both wells were drilled from the 20,000-tonne Maui A platform by Nabors Industries’ platform rig OM 175, which was a newbuild, and the fourth of Nabors’ MODS series. read more

Watchdog tells industry greater effort is needed to meet targets
CHRISTOPHER HOPSON London
8 September 2006
 
THE UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) has called on the oil and gas industry to do more to meet offshore safety targets after releasing a poor set of accident statistics showing a rise in the total number of fatal and major injuries in 2005-2006 compared with the previous year.

The HSE’s latest offshore safety statistics bulletin for 2005-2006 reported that two workers were killed and 50 suffered major injuries, compared with no fatalities and 48 major injuries in 2004-2005. read more

(AN EXECELLENT ARTICLE WE MISSED WHEN IT WAS PUBLISHED IN JULY 2005: Shell subsequently had the “Rossport Five” released from prison and made a public apology for having them jailed – although contempt proceedings are still on the table.)

THE ARTICLE

By HARRY BROWNE
Dublin, Ireland.
July 15 / 17, 2005

While media attention here focuses across the Irish Sea and beyond on arrests and searches in relation to the London bombs, five men from Mayo in the west of Ireland have spent most of the last month in a Dublin jail. read more

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL ONLINE
September 8, 2006 5:23 p.m.

Crude-oil prices fell sharply, cracking through key technical support levels and settling at nearly $66 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, a fresh five-month low. Here is Friday’s roundup of oil and energy news.

* * *
BP’S EMPTY CHAIR: By the time a massive oil-pipeline spill was discovered in March on Alaska’s North Slope, the job of BP’s senior corrosion engineer had been left unfilled for more than a year, according to an internal company audit, the Associated Press reports. This hindered BP’s ability to maintain a “strategic view” of its corrosion prevention activities, the audit found. read more

By Kevin Morrison and Darryl Thomson
Published: September 9 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 9 2006 03:00

Oil fell to a five-month low yesterday as BP said it might be able to return its Alaskan oilfield, Prudhoe Bay, to full production sooner than expected.

The return of the field was one of a series of factors that weighed on oil prices this week. Royal Dutch Shell said its Mars platform in the Gulf of Mexico was at 190,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, up 20 per cent from its pre-Hurricane Katrina levels last year. The Mars platform was badly damaged by the hurricane, and did not resume production until May. read more

By Carola Hoyos in London
Published: September 8 2006 03:00 | Last updated: September 8 2006 03:00

EXTRACT: Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch energy group, is developing the Soroosh and Nowrooz oil fields and last year signed on to help develop South Pars, the world’s biggest gas field.

THE ARTICLE

Total has vowed to continue efforts to develop Iran’s vast oil and gas reserves, saying yesterday it would not have its hands tied by US attempts to isolate Iran by preventing international companies from investing there. read more

EXTRACT: Exxon is not alone. Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch energy group, for example, is investing more than $10bn, withstanding Arctic conditions, and re-routing pipelines away from the feeding areas of grey whales, to pull oil and gas from Russia’s eastern Sakhalin Island, a place Anton Chekhov described as “hell”. Madagascar’s cyclone-prone seas may seem tame in comparison, but the country has its share of onshore challenges.

Chekhov’s idea of hell may be Sakhalin Island, but mine is Nigeria. More than 50 years of oil “wealth” has turned Africa’s biggest oil exporter into a place in which one cannot check in to a hotel without being bribed; where rebels hold oil executives hostage and villagers are so poor that they are willing to risk blowing themselves up stealing petrol from pipelines that run across their fields. read more

By BROOKES MERRITT, Staff Writer
September 8, 2006

Shell Canada is blaming a contractor hired to warn people of mishaps at a Fort Saskatchewan plant for failing to notify nearby residents of a toxic sour gas leak in a timely fashion.

The leak caused a brief fire inside Shell’s Scotford upgrader around 11:30 a.m. Thursday before the excess gas was properly vented and burned off through a flare.

No one was injured, but up to 600 employees were evacuated from the plant.

None of the homes or businesses near the facility – about 12 km east of Fort Saskatchewan – needed to be evacuated. read more

Western Oil Sands takes 20 percent of oil sands project with goal of 100,000 bpd by 2015; appraisal drilling to start this winter

Gary Park
For Petroleum News

Without any fanfare a Chevron Canada-operated oil sands project is shaping up, with an initial objective of about 100,000 barrels per day by 2015.

An appraisal drilling program of 80 to 100 wells is due to start this winter and will be accompanied by engineering, processing and other technical evaluation work, junior partner Western Oil Sands said in announcing it has exercised an option to take a 20 percent stake in the Ells River venture. read more

Merger and acquisition activity in the Canadian oil patch gathered pace in the second quarter of 2006, pushing the first half tally to C$13.9 billion, beating the same period of 2005 by C$4.1 billion, according to Sayer Energy Advisors.

The April-June period posted five deals valued at C$1 billion or more, led by Penn West Energy Trust’s C$3.7 billion takeover of Petrofund Energy Trust.

Those five transactions accounted for just over two-thirds of the first half value.

Trust sector 57% of total

Sayer estimated that the trust sector represented transaction value of C$7.8 billion or 57 percent of the total. read more

EXTRACTS: More fallout from the scandal is expected in the November elections when some congressmen implicated in the scandal will stand for re-election. These include Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., who was found with $90,000 in his freezer. Oil industry lavished lawmakers with gifts. Lobbying by the three largest oil companies doubled from 2004 to 2005.  At this pace, more than $9 million are projected be spent by the three major oil companies and the rest of the oil industry for lobbying expenses in 2006, the group noted. read more