March 16th, 2007:

By Hayley Pinkerfield Revolution UK
16-Mar-07, 13:17

LONDON – Royal Dutch Shell is launching an interactive campaign site to support a new brand positioning.

The site, created by Digit, is part of a global communication campaign, pitching Shell’s quest to secure a responsible energy future. It marks the company’s first fully integrated online marketing message.

Visitors can try out online challenges, which aim to entertain and inform while testing users’ ‘analytical, maths and memory skills. Each game reinforces positive messages about future energy sources. read more

Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:17 PM EDT
 
CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – Shell Canada Ltd. (SHC.TO: Quote) stock hovered below the price of its parent company’s C$8.7 billion ($7.4 billion) bid for the minority shareholding on Friday, a sign investors saw little chance of a sweeter offer hours before the expiry.

Shell Canada was off 22 cents at C$44.38 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s (RDSa.L: Quote) C$45 a share offer for the 22 percent of Shell Canada it does not already own is set to expire at 2000 Eastern time (midnight GMT). read more

Fri Mar 16, 2007 12:17 PM BST

LAGOS, March 16 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research) has begun repairs to a ruptured trunk pipeline in Nigeria that forced it to cut 187,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) output on March 4, a spokesman said on Friday.

Work on the pipeline that feeds the Bonny export terminal was delayed by youths from a local community who seized Shell’s equipment and denied workers access to the spill in the Nembe Creek area.

March 16, 2007
Posted to the web March 16, 2007
Emma Arubi
Warri

THE Egbema Survival Movement (ESM) in Warri North Local Government Council of Delta State has called on the federal and state governments to urgently address the issues of neglect and marginalisation visited on their communities.

They also called on Shell Petroleum Development Company and Chevron Nigeria Limited to wake up to their social responsibilities to Egbema communities, saying that their oil exploration and exploitation activities in the area is impacting negatively on them.
 
In a press statement signed by Mr. Ebiginde Izon-Kenewonumo, President, Mr. David Egbema-Ebi, Secretary and Victor Ditimi, Operations Director and made available to Vanguard in Warri, yesterday, the Egbema Survival Movement listed their predicament to include the dredging of the Olodua creek, construction of the Ogbudugbudu/Ofunama/Udo road and provision of potable drinking water. read more

TEHRAN, March 16 (MNA) — Four big oil companies purchased the tender documents of 17 oil blocks in Iran, said National Iranian Oil Company’s (NIOC) exploration manager here on Friday.
 
Of over 30 domestic and foreign bidders, four oil companies bought the documents, Hossein Roshandel told MNA.

He declined to directly name the purchasers, however adding the Anglo-Dutch Shell, France’s Total, Brazil’s Petrobras and Malaysia’s Petronas, Spain’s Repsol, and Austria’s OMV were among the bidders. read more

15/03/2007

THE Prins Willem-Alexander School in Woking has also excelled with its exam results, following the curriculum operated in the Netherlands.

The Dutch school in Old Woking Road, which caters for children aged four to 12, has  achieved the highest results in the annual CITO exams of all Dutch schools in the Netherlands and overseas.

CITO examinations are taken by pupils aged 12 as the final exam before they move to secondary schools and to some extent it determines the type of school they go to. read more

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

March 16 (Bloomberg) — Woodside Petroleum Ltd. and Santos Ltd., Australia’s second- and third-largest oil and gas producers, are ramping up production at oil fields off the northwest coast that were closed last week on the approach of a tropical cyclone.

The Woodside-operated North West Shelf venture yesterday reconnected the production vessel used at the Cossack oil project to the field and was resuming output, said Peter Kermode, a spokesman in Perth. Santos resumed output at the Mutineer-Exeter field, while Woodside restarted the Legendre field. read more

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

March 16 (Bloomberg) — Tohoku Electric Power Co., Japan’s fourth-largest power utility, agreed to double the volume of liquefied natural gas it buys from Australia’s North West Shelf venture.

Tohoku Electric, based in Sendai City, agreed to increase its LNG purchases from the Perth-based venture by about 500,000 metric tons a year to about 1 million tons a year starting in 2010 for eight years, North West Shelf Australia LNG Pty., the venture’s marketing arm, said in an e-mailed statement. read more

FIRST ARTICLE: Bloomberg: Total’s De Margerie Says Refining Is `Strategic’ for Company

By Tara Patel

March 15 (Bloomberg) — Total SA, Europe’s third-largest oil company, will invest 1 billion euros a year through 2010 in refining, a “strategic” business for the company, its chief executive officer said.

“Refining remains an important strategy for us,” Chief Executive Officer Christophe de Margerie said today at a news conference in Normandy, the site of Total’s largest French refinery. “We are not getting out of the sector because at one point in time it’s not profitable. We don’t have a stop-and-go kind of policy.” read more

March 15, 2007
Posted to the web March 16, 2007

Jim Fisher-Thompson
Washington, DC

The United States is partnering with Nigeria to counter growing violence in its oil-rich delta region that is threatening an ally that has made valuable contributions to peacekeeping and regional stability in Africa, says a U.S. defense official.

Theresa Whelan, deputy assistant secretary of defense, told a March 14 forum in Washington, “There are no quick-fix solutions” to the security problems in the Niger River Delta where most of Nigeria’s oil is produced. The forum was sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
 
The Niger Delta extends over an area in southern Nigeria of approximately 70,000 square kilometers and accounts for 7.5 percent of the country’s land mass, according to government statistics. read more

Deal comes week after agreement to promote use

Associated Press

SÃO PAULO, BRAZIL — An official from Brazil’s state-run oil firm Petroleo Brasileiro, or Petrobras, said the company plans to start exporting ethanol to the United States in 2007.

Silas Oliva Filho, manager of ethanol and oxygenates at Petrobras, said during a sugar and ethanol conference in São Paulo on Thursday that the company planned to enter the U.S. ethanol market for the first time in 2007.

The announcement comes a week after the U.S. and Brazil signed an agreement to join forces to promote more ethanol use. read more

Royal Dutch’s $8.7-billion offer for rest of its Canadian unit expires tonight

By DAVID EBNER
Friday, March 16, 2007 Page B3
 
CALGARY — Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s $45-a-share offer for Shell Canada Ltd. expires tonight, and several investors say the takeover attempt will be a close call.

Royal Dutch, one of the world’s biggest public energy companies, already owns about 78 per cent of Shell Canada and wants to buy the rest, saying its offer is contingent on getting more than half of the minority shares. read more

BY GORDON HAMILTON

GREENHOUSE GASES Canadian oil and gas companies have failed to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, putting themselves and their investors at risk of the the kind of eco- campaigns that targeted forest companies or the multi- billion- dollar lawsuits launched against tobacco companies, according to a new sustainability report.

Head in the Oil Sands, a 25- page report by the $ 2.2- billion Ethical Funds Company, reveals that only three of 50 publicly traded oil and gas companies tracked by the fund have decreased greenhouse gas emissions while increasing production. Only seven are factoring the cost of carbon into capital allocation decisions. All 50 were Canadian companies except two, Royal Dutch Shell and BP plc. read more

By Upstream staff

Iran’s Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh has insisted that tougher United Nations sanctions would fail to choke development of Iran’s oil and gas industry.

US, UK , French, German, Russian and Chinese diplomats at the UN have reached a tentative deal on imposing fresh sanctions on Iran and hope to introduce the measure at the Security Council today, providing their governments agree.

Vaziri-Hamaneh brushed off reporters’ suggestions that Iran’s energy industry would suffer as a result. read more

March 15, 2007, 5:56 pm
Posted by WSJ.com Staff

BP has been criticized for its safety standards since the deadly Texas City refinery explosion in 2005. But Royal Dutch Shell was a far more dangerous company to work for in the past two years.

Thirty-seven Shell employees and contractors died last year, the company reported in its annual filing with the SEC yesterday, compared with just seven BP employees. In 2005, 36 Shell employees died, compared with 27 BP employees. BP had about 97,000 employees at the end of 2006, compared with 108,000 for Shell. read more

Lisa Schmidt, CanWest News Service
Published: Thursday, March 15, 2007

CALGARY — The future of Shell Canada Ltd. could be decided Friday with an $8.7-billion buyout offer from its parent Royal Dutch Shell PLC set to expire.

Shell Canada minority shareholders have until this evening to tender their shares, although Royal Dutch still has the option to extend or increase the bid.

The offer is conditional on a majority of Shell Canada’s minority shareholders accepting the $45-a-share bid, which has been supported by Shell Canada’s board of directors. read more