March 10th, 2007:

By Tim Webb
Published: 11 March 2007

The British Government intervened to help UK and US energy giants in their attempts to secure lucrative contracts to exploit Iraq’s ruined oilfields.

The Foreign Office delivered a report by the International Tax and Investment Center (ITIC) – a Washington-based think-tank backed by a host of multinationals, including oil companies such as Shell and BP – to Iraqi officials in Baghdad, it has emerged.

The British ambassador to Iraq formally sent the “road-map” study on the Iraqi oil industry to the then Iraqi minister of finance, according to documents seen by The Independent on Sunday. The study recommended the Iraqi government sign long-term production-sharing agreements with foreign oil companies. read more

EXTRACT: Last month it reported that oil and gas output jumped 19 per cent last year, compared with a 4.2 per cent gain at ExxonMobil, and declines of 2.2 per cent and 1.3 per cent, respectively, at BP and Shell.

By Sylvia Pfeifer
Last Updated: 11:53pm GMT 10/03/2007

BG Group, the British oil and gas explorer, could become the first major Western energy company to invest in Iraq.

It is understood that representatives from BG recently visited the northern region of Iraq in a move to assess the opportunities. read more

HEADLINE: US class action star targets UK

Big business beware: litigation supremo Michael Hausfeld is setting up shop in Britain and he’s in the mood for a good fight.

March 11, 2007
By Holly Watt

IN American corporate boardrooms, the mere mention of the name Michael Hausfeld is enough to spread panic among directors and investors.

He is one of the country’s top litigators who has won billions in compensation for everyone from Holocaust victims to Alaskan fishermen and consumers ripped off by Microsoft. This month Hausfeld is opening a London office and is preparing an aggressive assault on British companies. In an exclusive interview with The Sunday Times this weekend, he said that there “are laws [in Britain] and they’re not being enforced”. read more

03/10/2007
Associated Press 

HARTFORD: Developers of a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal in Long Island Sound accused some state officials Friday of ignoring the big picture of Connecticut’s energy woes as they continue to battle the project.

“What we need in this project is less political heat and more objective light,” Gary Vale, a spokesman for Broadwater Energy, said.

“By saying no all the time, they’ve created a situation where we now have the highest electric rates in the nation except for Hawaii, which is an island,” he said. “And the fact that the we have the highest energy rates and one of the lowest job growth rates, those dots connect.” read more

SELF-EXPLANATORY EMAIL SENT TO SHELL INTERNATIONAL GENERAL COUNSEL, KEITH RUDDOCK ON 08 March 2007

Copied to Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, Malcolm Brinded (Executive Director Shell EP),  Jorma Ollila (SHELL Chairman), Richard Wiseman (General Counsel),  Michiel Brandjes(Company Secretary Royal Dutch Shell Plc) and Kieron McFadyen (Head of Shell HSE)

Subject: Shell Fatalities

Dear Mr Ruddock

We have received information from a trusted Shell insider source regarding Shell fatality statistics.

The following are extracts from communications received from the relevant source. read more

Laurel Brubaker Calkins Bloomberg News

GALVESTON, Texas: BP chief tries to resist testifying in blast case

John Browne, the chief executive of the oil company BP, should not have to give sworn statements to workers injured in a 2005 blast at its Texas refinery, company lawyers have told the Texas Supreme Court.

But a lawyer for the plaintiffs, who are urging Browne to testify, said Thursday that the executive was “ultimately responsible” for the budget cuts that preceded the accident at a Texas refinery. read more

LONDON: Rijkman Groenink, the chief executive of ABN AMRO Holding, will be named a director of Royal Dutch Shell when a former banker retires from the board of Europe’s largest oil company.

The move, announced Thursday by Shell, will allow the oil company to maintain its links with the biggest Dutch bank.

Shell said it intended to elect Groenink as a non-executive director at its annual general meeting on May 15, to replace Shell director, Jonkheer Aarnout Loudon, a former chairman of ABN AMRO’s supervisory board. read more

Royal Dutch Shell said on Friday that it has successfully contained a major oil spill in a production facility in southern Nigeria but yet to regain output loss of 187,000 barrels per day.

“We have this week contained the spill at Nembe Creek Trunk Line. But we are yet to restore the 187,000 bpd were are losing as a result of the shut down,” a senior official of the company told AFP by telephone.

“We are arranging to start repairs on the trunk line, and this will come up anytime from now” said the official, who demanded anonymity. read more

The challenge: For a bit player to join the billion-dollar oil sands game The call: Focus on technological innovation

NORVAL SCOTT

CALGARY — Columba Yeung admits he spent a solid year “banging my head against the wall” as he tried, and failed, to work out how his startup firm could compete with the world’s largest energy companies in Alberta’s oil sands.

The pounding seems to have paid off. Earlier this week, his boldly named Value Creation Inc. announced plans to build a $4-billion, 40,000-barrel-a-day oil sands project, with operations starting in 2011. The company believes it can ultimately produce 400,000 barrels a day — a huge target for a relatively unknown firm. read more

Abigail L. Ho,
Published: Mar 10, 2007

AMERICAN FIRM CHEVRON CORP., THROUGH its local subsidiaries, has proposed to reprocess all seismic data gathered all over the country from as far back as the early 1970s.

Energy Undersecretary Guillermo Balce said that, by doing this, Chevron might rediscover oil and gas potential in areas that had either been abandoned or had yet to be explored.

There have been other entities that have given similar proposals, Balce told reporters in a recent interview. The purpose usually is to enable them to look at the potential of old and new areas. This is more economical than running new surveys. read more

Published: Mar 10, 2007

IT TOOK THE SUPREME COURT TO TELL THE CITY of Manila and the oil companies to stop malingering and obey the law. The law in this case being a city ordinance reclassifying the Pandacan oil depot property from an industrial to a commercial zone. The main reason for the 2002 reclassification was security. The depot is in the heart of Manila, in close proximity to Malacanang Palace and a major light railway station, an important bridge, and so on.

When Manilas city council passed the ordinance, the Big Three oil companies Petron, Shell and Caltex cried foul and started muttering about the gigantic costs that would have to be passed on to consumers. The result was a kind of negotiated settlement brokered by Manila Mayor Lito Atienza. The oil companies promised to tighten security and start trimming down the size of their facilities. read more

EXTRACT: Other significant buy-backs included BP (£8.4bn), Royal Dutch Shell (£2.9bn), AstraZeneca (£2.2bn) and Anglo American (£2bn).

By Robert Orr
Published: March 10 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 10 2007 02:00

The UK equity market shrank by a record £64bn last year amid a surge in mergers and acquisitions and share buy-backs.

That figure is the equivalent to 4.1 per cent of the London equity market – double the rate of “de-equitisation” of 2005 and four times the figure for 2004. read more

By Tim Bradner

Big numbers: Summer drilling project calls for 18 ships, eight aircraft and 300 workers in offshore search for oil

Shell Oil Co. plans to operate a fleet of 18 major vessels, eight aircraft and employ more than 300 in its summer 2007 offshore exploration programs in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, according to information released by the company. Included among the vessels are two drillships that will explore in the eastern Alaska Beaufort Sea, icebreakers, anchor-handling vessels, a supply vessel, a large oil spill response barge and an Arctic tanker capable of holding 500,000 barrels of oil. read more

By Judith Kohler, Associated Press
March 9, 2007

A land swap is in the works between an energy company and the Colorado Division of Wildlife in a basin that is home to what is believed to be the country’s largest mule deer herd.

The proposal would exchange 3,108 acres in the Piceance State Wildlife Area west of Meeker for 1,800 acres owned by Shell Frontier Oil & Gas Co. in the Oak Ridge State Wildlife Area to the east.

Both sites are in northwest Colorado where natural gas development is flourishing. read more