February 2nd, 2007:

2 February 2007

Governments should impose more rules to limit emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming, said the head of RoyalDutch Shell PLC, Europe’s largest oil company.

“Governments, plural, should make international frameworks” to limit carbon dioxide, Shell PLC chief executive Jeroen van der Veer said in London on Thursday at an earnings press conference. “CO2 will play a major role in our industry and we have to develop more technology.”

Energy executives from other energy companies have called for more regulation. Duke Energy Corp. chief executive James Rogers, who runs the largest U.S. utility, advocates a U.S. national cap on carbon dioxide emissions. read more

02-02-2007

TEHRAN, Feb.2 (ISNA)-Iran Pars gas and oil company manager informed that the investments of Shell and Repsol companies would amount to 7 billion dollars in phases 13 and 14 of South Pars oilfield.

The Anglo-Dutch company of Shell and the Spanish company of Repsol have signed a preliminary deal to develop part of Iran’s giant South Pars field.

Speaking to ISNA, Akbar Torkan also acknowledged that the upper and lower section of liquid natural gas (L.N.G) projects in phase 11 of South Pars would be completed by late February and undergo the final investment decision (FID) stage. read more

Fri 02 Feb 2007

LONDON (SHARECAST) – Goldman Sachs has downgraded shares in Royal Dutch Shell to “neutral” from “buy” and trimmed its price target to 1900p from 2050p.

The US broker applauded the results with profits and reserve replacement ahead of expectations but said cap-ex of up to $4bn is a concern.

JP Morgan also cut its stance on the oil group to “neutral” from “overweight”, while Dresdner Kleinwort cut its stance to “hold” from “buy”.

Lisa Schmidt, Calgary Herald; with a file from Reuters
Published: Friday, February 02, 2007

Royal Dutch Shell PLC says it is ready to abandon its bid to buy out Shell Canada Ltd. if minority shareholders do not accept its sweetened offer of $8.7 billion.

“The $45 per share offer, we think, is full and fair value . . . so it is now for the minority shareholder to make up their mind,” chief executive Jeroen van der Veer said on Thursday.

“At a certain moment, if we don’t get enough people who are prepared to take this full and fair-valued offer, then we move on . . . We have plenty of investment opportunities.” read more

Potential Clout Alarms
Big European Buyers;
Previous Effort Fizzled
By RUSSELL GOLD and GREGORY L. WHITE
February 2, 2007; Page A1

Russia and Iran — which hold nearly half the world’s natural-gas reserves — are talking about creating an OPEC-like organization for gas, a move that has the potential to unsettle energy markets and redraw geopolitical alignments.

Gas accounts for a growing share of global energy use, but the nations that produce most of it don’t work together to influence markets. That’s a stark contrast to the oil market, in which members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries manage output to keep prices at levels they favor.
 
During his annual news conference in the Kremlin yesterday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said “a gas OPEC is an interesting idea. We will think about it.” His comment comes days after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei publicly called on a visiting Kremlin official to establish a group of natural-gas producers similar to OPEC. Russia and Iran are the world’s largest and second-largest holders of gas reserves, respectively. read more

Published: Feb 02, 2007

LONDON (AFX) – Sibir Energy PLC said its 50:50 joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell in the Salym group of fields in western Siberia, Salym Petroleum Development NV (SPD), has reported today that the total crude oil production rate at the fields has passed 70,000 barrels per day (bopd).

Combined with production from Sibir subsidiary, Magma at the Yuzhnoye fields in western Siberia, Sibir said its total daily production now exceeds 43,000 bopd.

Sibir CEO Henry Cameron said, “Reaching the 70,000 bopd milestone this early in the year means that production is on track and will continue to gain momentum throughout the rest of 2007.” read more

Published: Feb 02, 2007

CALGARY – Shares of Shell Canada Ltd. dipped yesterday below the offer price set by Royal Dutch Shell PLC after the parent company said it was prepared to walk away from its bid to take out minority shareholders.

“The $45-per-share offer, we think, is full and fair value so it is now for the minority shareholder to make up their mind,” chief executive Jeroen van der Veer said.

“At a certain moment, if we don’t get enough people who are prepared to take this full and fair-valued offer, then we move on we have plenty of investment opportunities.” read more

By Ed Crooks
Published: February 2 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 2 2007 02:00

Even by the standards of the energy industry, Jeroen van der Veer, Shell’s chief executive, is taking the long view. The question is whether even the most far-sighted investors are prepared to wait for the pay-off.

What he is doing, he said yesterday, is “building anew energy infrastructure” that will reward the company for the next three decades and more.

The context, as Mr Van der Veer set it out yesterday, is the increasingly ferocious competition round the world for oil and gas. To get access to resources, Shell, like other international oil companies, is being driven further into more challenging projects. read more

By Ed Crooks
Published: February 2 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 2 2007 02:00

The sale under duress of half its stake in Sakhalin-2, the $22bn (£11bn) oil and liquefied natural gas project off the far-east coast of Russia, is expected to cost Shell about 400m barrels of oil equivalent from its reserves, writes Ed Crooks.

The effect of the deal, agreed just before Christmas, on Shell’s reserves was a fresh jab in a spot that is still sore after the scandal of 2004, when the reserves were found to have been overstated. read more

A fuel delivery to a service station in Keller, Tex. Exxon Mobil reported that it earned $39.5 billion in 2006.

Donna McWilliam/Associated Press               
By CLIFFORD KRAUSS
Published: February 2, 2007

HOUSTON, Feb. 1 — Oil prices have fallen, but Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell left their smaller competitors in the dust and reported record annual profits Thursday.
 
By making $180 million a day between them, the two largest publicly traded oil companies displayed their ability to ramp up production worldwide over the year, even in unstable places like Chad and Nigeria. Growth may be slowing and is likely to continue to do so in the future, but these two companies showed they could navigate the year’s volatile energy prices that caused smaller companies to stumble in their fourth-quarter profits. read more

Michael Kanellos, for News.com

What will you fill up your car with in five to ten years? It’s hard to say. Several different alternatives to petroleum and diesel, or ways to economize on them, have come forward in the past few years, and each has its own pluses and minuses.

Experts warn that it won’t be easy to get off of petroleum or reduce how much the world uses. The amount of energy per liter derived from petroleum is far better than most of the alternatives, a worldwide infrastructure based on it already exists, and people tend to be lazy–seeking out alternative fuels takes some effort. read more

Terry Macalister
Friday February 2, 2007

ExxonMobil and Shell, two of the biggest carbon emitters in the world, reported combined annual profits yesterday of nearly £90m a day, earned largely from oil production, refining and petrol stations.

The earnings triggered protests from trade unions and fuel poverty groups as well as environmental campaigners.

Exxon’s net income of $39.5bn (£20bn) last year is the largest ever recorded in US corporate history and comes amid mounting fears worldwide about the impact of CO2 output on global warming. read more

Nils Pratley
Friday February 2, 2007

It is the largest annual profit recorded by a British company, or would be if only we could claim Shell as a true Brit. Shell has rarely looked and sounded so Dutch, from chief executive Jeroen van der Veer, who says with gross understatement that profits of $25.3bn (£12.9bn) made 2006 “by and large, a good year,” to finance director Peter Voser, who describes the miracle by which the loss of half the stake in the Sakhalin-2 project in Russia implies a reduction of a mere 100m barrels, or 1%, in Shell’s net reserves. read more

There are now just a few thousand tigers left. Seven hundred mountain gorillas. A hundred Iberian lynx. Can we do anything to help them? Emine Saner looks at 10 animals we just have to save – and how you can get involved

Friday February 2, 2007

Western Pacific grey whale

The Eastern Pacific grey whale, which travels along the west coast of America, has bounced back in recent years. But not its Western cousin. There are just 100 of them left in the world – and just two dozen or so females of breeding age. Their only feeding ground is around Sakhalin Island, off the far eastern coast of Russia, and thanks to Shell (and now Russia’s energy giant Gazprom), their survival looks increasingly unlikely. read more

(The arctic habitat of polar bears is under threat as climate change causes ice to melt. Photograph: Joseph Napaaqtuq Sage/AP)

Ian Sample, science correspondent
Friday February 2, 2007

Scientists and economists have been offered $10,000 each by a lobby group funded by one of the world’s largest oil companies to undermine a major climate change report due to be published today.

Letters sent by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), an ExxonMobil-funded thinktank with close links to the Bush administration, offered the payments for articles that emphasise the shortcomings of a report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). read more

US and UK oil majors post record-breaking profits but growth prospects under scrutiny

By James Moore
Published: 02 February 2007

Shell has been forced to ditch its target of producing 4 million barrels of oil a day by 2009, because of a series of setbacks on key projects.

The bad news on production took the gloss off the $25.4bn (£12.9bn) of profits the company produced in 2006 – which smashed the record for a British company and was up 12 per cent on the previous year.

A number of Shell’s key projects have been dogged by difficulties in the past 12 months, including being forced to cede control of the Russian Sakhalin Island project to Gazprom and the current impasse with militants in Nigeria’s Niger Delta where production has ceased. read more

Published on: 2/1/07.

A FULL-SCALE INVESTIGATION into the 1995 oil leak by Shell is expected to start from as early as today.

The petroleum company at the centre of a dispute with Christ Church farmers over damages to land as a result of the oil leak has contracted the services of global environmental consulting company, Environmental Resources Management, to do a full investigation.

The company is expected to provide an analysis of the area along the pipeline that was formerly used to move aviation fuel from the terminal at Oistins to Grantley Adams International Airport. read more

(Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer said the company
added 150pc more reserves than it lost from production last year)

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 1:51am GMT 02/02/2007

Oil companies are finding it ever harder to secure fresh sources of energy, as China, India and the new emerging powers join the global scramble for fuel, Royal Dutch Shell has warned.

“We see tremendous competition for new oil and gas resources. There are new players, some of them state-owned, prepared to pay top dollars,” said Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of the Anglo-Dutch group.
 
Delivering the group’s results for 2006, he said Shell would continue to work on a $10bn (£5.07bn) deal with Iran to develop the South Pars gasfield, brushing aside a threat of sanctions by the US state department. read more

MARTIN FLANAGAN
 CITY EDITOR ([email protected])

OIL giant Royal Dutch Shell smashed the yearly profits record for a UK company yesterday as roaring oil prices helped it drive profits up 12 per cent to $25.3 billion (£12.9bn) in 2006.

It came as Exxon Mobil, the American oil leviathan, reported the most profitable year in US corporate history, with 2006 earnings totalling $39.5bn.

Jeroen van der Veer, Shell’s chief executive, deflected suggestions that his group was exposed to increasing risk, from Sakhalin Island off Russia to the violence in Nigeria and the controversial possibility of it moving into Iran. read more

By Tom Bergin

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell posted record annual profits, beating forecasts, but analysts warned rising costs, lower oil prices and refining margins and reduced growth targets could curb future earnings.

Shell said its fourth-quarter current cost of supply (CCS) net profit, which strips out changes in the value of inventory, rose 11 percent to $6 billion (3 billion pounds), thanks to higher output, strong oil prices and profit from disposals.

For 2006 as a whole, CCS profit was up 12 percent at $25.4 billion, a UK corporate record, analysts said. read more

By Ann Crotty

Johannesburg – Shell Accountability Group, a global network of environmental groups, has called on Shell to replace, at an estimated cost of $6 billion (R43 billion), the Durban-based refinery that is jointly owned by it and BP through the SA Petroleum Refineries (Sapref) joint venture.

The call was made in a report, which was published to coincide with the release of Shell’s financial 2006 results, written by a coalition of environmental, human rights and community groups. read more

02 Feb 2007

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, will build more liquefied-natural-gas processing units at its Sakhalin-2 project in Russia if it gains access to more reserves with OAO Gazprom, its new state-run partner.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc and its two Japanese partners agreed in December to sell Gazprom half their stakes in the Sakhalin-2 venture, which includes Russia’s first LNG export terminal. Shell had anticipated years before the deal with OAO Gazprom it might build more LNG units, called trains, to create an export hub for Sakhalin-area projects. “We have in the design of the present two-train LNG complex enough space to add additional trains,” Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer said yesterday at a press conference in London. read more

By RUTH RENDON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Ten passengers on a bus that was hit by a train at the Shell Oil Co.’s Deer Park plant earlier this week are suing the company, claiming an unguarded railroad crossing posed an unreasonable risk of harm.

The passengers, all employees of AltairStrickland, filed suit Thursday in a Harris County district court.

They, along with about 30 other AltairStrickland employees, were riding in a school bus from a satellite parking lot to inside the 1,500-acre Shell facility Tuesday morning when the collision occurred. read more

February 02, 2007
Carl Mortished: International Business Editor

14 per cent rise in dividend planned
Company trims growth forecasts
 
Royal Dutch Shell yesterday called into question the value of share buybacks and said that it will reduce its own repurchases despite reporting record profits of $25 billion (£12.7 billion). 
 
The company, which last year spent $8billion buying back its shares, instead promised a 14 per cent increase in the first-quarter dividend and will raise spending on projects by up to $2 billion. read more

Thu Feb 1, 2007
By Peg Mackey and Alex Lawler

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell said on Thursday it faces a dilemma over its proposed multibillion dollar investment in a gasfield in Iran, which is under U.S. pressure for its atomic work and alleged interference in Iraq.

The Anglo-Dutch company and Spain’s Repsol have signed a preliminary deal to develop part of Iran’s giant South Pars gasfield, despite Washington urging its allies not to invest in the country. Tehran values the deal at $10 billion (5 billion pounds). read more