February 9th, 2007:

Crude-oil futures rose to a fresh five-week high of nearly $60 a barrel after Nigeria’s state oil company declared force majeure on crude cargoes as part of a government directive to cut output.

Here is Friday’s roundup of oil and energy news:

* * *
CARBON CONTEST: Sir Richard Branson announced a $25 million prize for the scientist who comes up with a way to extract greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, comparing it to the 17th-century quest to revolutionize navigation by determining longitude. The Virgin Group chairman was joined by former Vice President Al Gore and other leading environmentalists as he announced the challenge to find the world’s first viable design to capture and remove carbon dioxide from the air. read more

11:19 Friday February 9th 2007  

Opponents of the Corrib gas pipeline in Co Mayo have announced plans to hold a national demonstration in Dublin later this month as part of their ongoing campaign. The rally by the Shell to Sea group will be held on Saturday, February 24th.

Last month, the Environmental Protection Agency announced its intention to grant a licence for the refinery being built in Bellanaboy by Shell.

Local residents have been holding a series of demonstrations in the area to highlight their ongoing opposition to the project, which they say puts the community in danger.
  read more

By Adam Zagorin/Washington

If it helped isolate apartheid-era South Africa, why couldn’t it do the same for Iran? That’s the question some U.S. and Israeli officials are posing, as they ramp up efforts to get big institutional investors to divest themselves of any companies that do business with Tehran.

As part of this escalating war by other means, former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently visited the U.S. and met with representatives of U.S. pension funds, whom Netanyahu encouraged to stop investing in any company that does business with Iran. read more

CALGARY (CNS) — Husky Energy Inc. says it may team up with Royal Dutch Shell on research to recover oil trapped in limestone, but a commercial oilsands project is still a long way off.

CEO John Lau said Tuesday his company is reviewing different technologies to access the vast reserves believed to be buried underground in limestone rather than the sand that makes up most oilsands deposits in northern Alberta.

Royal Dutch, the parent of Shell Canada Ltd., staked out new oilsands territory last year, picking up $465 million in leases in Northern Alberta last year under a new subsidiary called SURE Northern. read more

BY CLAUDIA CATTANEOCalgary Bureau Chief
Financial Post [email protected]

CALGARY • CIBCWorldMarkets, hired by Shell Canada Ltd. directors to evaluate a minority takeout bid from its parent, values its shares at between $42 and $48, a directors’ circular said yesterday.

A committee of directors, headed by Derek Burney , agreed to back a $45 price because it’s in the mid-range of the fair market value range determined by CIBC, they said in the circular.

In addition, the directors supported the $45 bid because it represents a substantial premium (37.2%) over the share price before Royal Dutch Shell PLC made its first bid, at $40, last October. read more

The Associated Press
Published: February 9, 2007

MOSCOW: Russia’s subsoil agency has given BP PLC’s Russian joint venture three months to fix licensing violations at its giant Kovykta natural gas development or risk losing the license to develop the field, Russian environmental regulator Oleg Mitvol said Friday.

Observers say that intense regulatory pressure on Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s Sakhalin-2 project led to the company selling a controlling stake to Russian gas monopoly OAO Gazprom, and suggest Kovykta could be next as President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin seeks to expand its control over key energy projects. read more

By Barry Morgan

Security and political risk consultancy Control Risks confirmed today that the Nigerian federal government has put all available security agents on “red alert” in the oil hub of Port Harcourt in the country’s oil-rich Niger Delta.

The move follows Wednesday’s kidnapping in broad daylight of a subcontractor working for Total and that of a Filipino woman on her way to a bank in the same city, located in Rivers State.

A British oil worker taken hostage some time ago was released this week on health grounds this week, but various militant groups which claim they are fighting for resource control of the region’s oil still hold a US national, two Italians, a Lebanese citizen and 24 Filipino crew members who were abducted in the Chanoni Channel in Delta State. read more

By the end of this decade, Britain will have become an importer of both natural gas and oil, a radical change for a country used to plentiful North Sea reserves. By 2020, Britain will be relying on potentially unreliable and politically unstable suppliers – principally Algeria and Russia – for most of its energy.

It is because of these worrying trends, rather than any mushy-headed obsession with sticking to the faulty Kyoto protocol on climate change, that Britain must urgently undergo a radical shift in its energy policy to ensure that it always has access to enough energy to meet its needs, for no more than the market price. read more

By JOHN PORRETTO AP Business Writer
© 2007 The Associated Press
Feb. 9, 2007, 12:23PM

HOUSTON — With dwindling oil supplies, pollution concerns and the ever-present threat of gas prices soaring again, talk of new and better ways to fuel our cars, heat and cool our homes, and power our factories has never been greater. What’s more, the conversation is emanating increasingly from a source that’s been surprisingly quiet until recently _ the oil companies themselves.

When some of the industry’s top executives gather in Houston next week to discuss global energy challenges, finding new and more effective ways to produce oil and gas _ as well as alternatives to fossil fuels _ will dominate the discussion. read more

Posted: 09 Feb 2007

The Bush Administration has lifted the restriction on development at Alaska’s Bristol Bay to allow oil and gas exploration and drilling. This overturns decades of bipartisan protection of the Bay which is the backbone of Alaska’s fishing economy as well as home to critical habitat for numerous endangered and threatened species.

In Alaska, Royal Dutch/Shell has been the main proponent for opening Bristol Bay. As currently envisioned by Shell, the project would include offshore platforms and subsea pipelines in the heart of the nation’s largest fishery and endangered right whale habitat. It would also involve an overland pipeline across a national wildlife refuge, a natural gas liquefaction plant on the remote Alaskan Peninsula, and tankers transiting endangered Steller sea lion critical habitat. read more

By Fred Pals

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Exxon Mobil Corp. started pumping natural gas from a Dutch wetland that contains as much as 20 billion cubic meters of the fuel.

Shell and Exxon’s joint company has licenses to explore and produce for three decades in blocks in the Wadden Sea to supplement production from the venture’s aging Dutch Groningen field. Only 60 wells have been drilled in the area in 60 years.

The venture, Nederlandse Aardolie Maaschappij BV, or NAM, received permits to extract gas in the Wadden Sea area off the Dutch coast after the government accelerated the approval process for 32 licenses. NAM currently produces gas from three small fields in the area under permits it received in the 1980s. read more

13:07 | 09/ 02/ 2007 

TOKYO, February 9 (RIA Novosti) – Osaka Gas has signed a preliminary agreement with Sakhalin Energy, the operator of a vast oil and gas project off Russia’s Pacific Coast, on long-term deliveries of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the Japanese company said Friday.

According to the agreement, signed in Moscow Thursday, the operator of Sakhalin II will supply 200,000 metric tons of LNG annually for 23 years, beginning in April of 2008.

LNG will be delivered to Japan’s fourth-largest LNG buyer, from a plant which is in the final stages of construction in the south of Sakhalin Island and which will have a capacity of 9.6 million tons a year. read more

By ANDREA R. MIHAILESCU
UPI Energy Correspondent

WASHINGTON (UPI)

Putin: Russia over-reliant on raw material exports

President Vladimir Putin told Russia’s most influential businessmen the country is over-reliant on raw materials and called on companies to move toward producing higher-value exports.

Putin said unprocessed raw materials accounted for a rising share of exports, increasing from 80 percent in 2000 to 85 percent in 2005.

“This tendency should worry the business community as much as it does the government,” he said. “We must learn not only to profitably export crude oil, gas, ore and timber – we need to process these natural resources within the country and export valuable, high-tech products.” read more

Published: Feb 09, 2007

Ground Floor: The report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last week concluded that people are responsible for global warming and our past actions may have effects for centuries to come. It has become a chain reaction which we can’t stop; we can only modify our behaviour so we don’t make things even worse, writes Sheila O’Flanagan

Of course modifying our behaviour means taking a certain level of responsibility for our actions and admitting that we are part of the problem – which seems to be the hardest thing for most of us to do. read more

By Carola Hoyos in London
Published: February 9 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 9 2007 02:00

Viktor Khristenko, Russian energy minister, this week dismissed as a “fantasy” the idea that Russia might form an Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries-style cartel for natural gas with Iran, Algeria and other countries.

His thoughts echo those of Abdullah bin Hamad Al Attiyah, Qatar’s energy minister, and other leaders of gas-producing countries, who have tried to reassure European politicians and Nato analysts that there will be no gas-style Opec. read more

By Ed Crooks
Published: February 9 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 9 2007 02:00

Shares in BG Group, the gas producer, rose more than 4 per cent after it held out the prospect of raising production by up to 10 per cent a year over the next five years.

BG has said in the past that it expects upstream production volume growth of 6 to 10 per cent a year between now and 2012.

It said yesterday it was now “more confident” of getting towards the upper end of that range.

Royal Dutch Shell and BP, the two other – much bigger – oil and gas producers in the FTSE 100 index, have predicted growth of only about 2 per cent a year over the next few years. read more

By Paul Betts
Published: February 9 2007 02:00 | Last updated: February 9 2007 02:00

Big oil has always suffered from an image problem – from the wildcat entrepreneurs of the early 20th century to the robber barons who gave rise to the Seven Sisters cartel. Now the industry, flush with money from high oil prices, is going through another of its reputational crises.

BP has lost its chairman as well as its environmentally friendly image prematurely. Royal Dutch Shell has been struggling to repair the damage from misleading investors over the true level of its reserves. But these days it seems to be Total’s turn to be perceived – at least in France – as the industry’s bad boy. read more

COMMENTARY 
By ROBERT R. AMSTERDAM
February 9, 2007; Page A10

The Kremlin this week showed that democracy, human rights and the rule of law are dead in Vladimir Putin’s Russia. With extraordinarily cynical timing, new charges — this time, money-laundering — were brought against Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who once ran Russia’s largest oil company, Yukos. These charges have nothing to do with upholding Russia’s laws. They have everything to do with the fact that Mr. Khodorkovsky would have been eligible for parole later this year, having served half his eight-year sentence on a politically motivated tax evasion conviction handed down in 2005. Another show trial will surely propel the machinery of so-called justice toward another preordained guilty verdict. read more

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

VIENNA, Austria (AP) — Europeans are accusing Americans of strong-arming them into cracking down on Iran in the latest trans-Atlantic conflict, a dispute that is straining efforts to maintain a joint front on Tehran over its refusal to freeze uranium enrichment. U.S. officials, in turn, complain that Europe is not pulling its weight because individual nations are placing business interests above the common goal of keeping Iran from heading down a path that could lead to nuclear weapons. read more

Published: February 9, 2007

The Russian energy minister, Viktor Khristenko, piously declared on Tuesday that Russia’s meetings with other gas producers were intended only to improve energy security, and that any talk of a cartel was the product of a “sick imagination.” A curious insistence since the idea of a cartel has been discussed by President Vladimir Putin, who recently called OPEC-like cooperation with Iran for gas “an interesting idea” — though, of course, its goal would be to better serve customers, not fix prices. read more

Edited by James Quinn
BG Group
Shares: 725p +29p
Questor says Buy

It is not all bad news in the oil and gas sector. BG Group’s upbeat forecasts yesterday about production growth were in sharp contrast to the recent pessimism of BP and Royal Dutch Shell.

BG’s confirmation of an earlier target that it expected to grow production by between 5pc and 7pc until 2009 sent its shares to a six-month high.

There had been nervousness among BG watchers because the company’s bigger rivals have either downgraded forecasts or predicted modest growth. read more

By Russell Hotten

Oil and gas explorer BG Group bucked the industry trend by confirming production growth targets and the long-term strength of the company’s reserves.

While BP and Royal Dutch Shell have been pessimistic about growth, BG chief executive Frank Chapman said yesterday the outlook was very positive. He underlined the point by revealing that an oil and gas field off the coast of Brazil could contain more than 10bn barrels. “The scale is potentially huge,” he said. BG has a 25pc stake in the Santos Basin field. read more

(Shell Oil President John Hofmeister speaks to high school students yesterday at Pine-Richland High School. Bob Donaldson, Post-Gazette)

Friday, February 09, 2007
By Elwin Green,

The president of Shell Oil Co. spoke with the conviction of an evangelist when he shared three of his beliefs with the 200 or so students gathered at Pine-Richland High School yesterday morning. 
 
There were no obvious on-the-spot conversions among the skeptical students, although John Hofmeister’s message was as plain and direct as an old-time Baptist preacher’s: read more

Friday, February 9, 2007
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 286

Royal Dutch Shell plc (the “Group”) announced that it has filed its formal offer to acquire all the issued and outstanding common shares of Shell Canada Limited (“Shell Canada”) other than common shares already held by the Group or its affiliates, with securities regulators in Canada, and has mailed its offering circular and related documents to Shell Canada shareholders.
 
The offer remains open until 8:00 p.m. (Toronto time) on March 16, 2007, unless the offer is withdrawn or extended by the Group. Under the terms of the offer, Shell Canada shareholders will receive C$45.00 for each Shell Canada common share. read more

DAVID EBNER

CALGARY — Shell Canada Ltd. could be worth as much as $9.3-billion — higher than Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s current offer for the part of the company it doesn’t already own.

The independent valuation is contained in Royal Dutch’s formal $8.7-billion offer for the remaining 22 per cent of Shell Canada, which it had to include in a takeover bid circular filed with Canadian securities regulators by Royal Dutch Thursday after North American markets closed.

CIBC World Markets Inc. tallied the value on behalf of Shell Canada and the results could reignite debate over the price being paid for the company, which died down a week ago after Royal Dutch said it would “move on” if its current offer fell short. read more

By Shigeru Sato

Feb. 9 (Bloomberg) — Osaka Gas Co., Japan’s second-biggest distributor of the fuel, said it signed an initial agreement to purchase liquefied natural gas from Royal Dutch Shell Plc.’s Russian venture, to diversify sources of supply.

Under the 23-year agreement starting in 2008, Osaka Gas will import about 200,000 metric tons of LNG a year from Sakhalin-2, the company said in a statement issued in Tokyo today.

Osaka Gas joins Tokyo Electric Power Co. and Tokyo Gas Co. in signing contracts with the Russian venture, part of efforts by utilities in Asia’s largest economy to cut reliance on Indonesian supplies. Shell and its two Japanese partners in December agreed to sell Russia’s OAO Gazprom half their stakes in Sakhalin-2. read more

Published : February 2007

Russia wants better trade relations with the West. Is it truly an untapped resource, or is it reverting to USSR trade tactics? Ruari McCallion investigates

The close of 2006 had a strangely familiar feel to it. The energy pipeline running through a former Soviet republic was cut off as Russia unilaterally increased prices, causing oil to rise on world markets. In 2005/6, the crisis over energy supplies to the Ukraine—culminating in supplies being cut off—led to global shortages, and natural gas prices rocketed across the world. The heady days of the 1990s, with deals very favorable to the West and the promise of boundless energy supplies to replace the West’s declining sources, seem a long time ago. read more

By Andrew Osborn in Moscow
Published: 09 February 2007

Alistair Darling, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, has complained to the Kremlin over its treatment of British companies, arguing that the way in which Shell was strong-armed out of a majority stake in the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas venture was unacceptable.

Mr Darling, in Moscow to cement Britain’s role as the largest foreign investor in Russia, warned that UK companies would be reluctant to invest in Russia in future unless they know that the contracts they sign are going to be honoured. read more