May 7th, 2007:

By Paul Gordon and Trisha Huang

May 7 (Bloomberg) — Nexus Energy Ltd., an Australian oil and gas producer, expects to start exporting condensate from its Crux field in 2010, Managing Director Ian Tchacos said.

Crux, off Australia’s northwestern coast, will produce 30,000 barrels day of sweet condensate, a low-sulfur liquid produced in association will natural-gas drilling, Tchacos said in an interview. The company will start developing the field in the first quarter of 2008, he said.

“Our key focus now is getting that project into development,” Tchacos said. “There’s no problem at all exporting those liquids. There’s a real shortage of sweet, light crudes into southeast Asia.” read more

EXTRACT: Militant raids in Africa’s largest oil-producing nation forced Royal Dutch Shell Plc to halt output of about 500,000 barrels a day, almost a quarter of the country’s production. Nigeria produces low-sulfur, or sweet, crude oil, prized by U.S. refiners because of the proportion of high-value gasoline it yields.

By Mark Shenk

May 7 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil fell to a six-week low and gasoline plunged on speculation that U.S. refiners will increase output of the motor fuel before the peak-demand driving season. read more

2007-05-07 21:04:31 –

HOUSTON, May 7 /PRNewswire/ — William C. Lowrey has been appointed to succeed Catherine A. Lamboley as general counsel of Shell Oil Company effective July 1. Lamboley, a leader in the Houston legal community, is retiring after 28 years with Shell. She has served as senior vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary of Shell Oil Company since 2000.

Bill Lowrey is currently associate general counsel for Shell Trading and Shell Gas & Power. A 27-year Shell veteran, he has legal experience encompassing all facets of the business from exploration and production through oil products. He has been particularly active in mergers and acquisitions. read more

May 7, 2007 

CALGARY (CP) _ Inter Pipeline Fund (TSX:IPL.UN) says its Cold Lake Pipeline Limited Partnership will invest $11 million to expand shipping capacity to handle oil from Shell Canada‘s Orion oilsands project in east central Alberta.

The Calgary company said Monday the new pipeline and related infrastructure will transport about 13,500 barrels a day of blended bitumen from the first phase of the Shell Canada Orion project.

Under a long term shipping agreement, Shell Canada has the option to transport up to 30,000 barrels a day through the phased expansion of the Orion project. read more

By Michael Schwartz 
 
The struggle over Iraqi oil has been going on for a long, long time. One could date it back to 1980 when President Jimmy Carter — before his Habitat for Humanity days — declared that Persian Gulf oil was “vital” to American national interests. So vital was it, he announced, that the U.S. would use “any means necessary, including military force” to sustain access to it. Soon afterwards, he announced the creation of a Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, a new military command structure that would eventually develop into United States Central Command (Centcom) and give future presidents the ability to intervene relatively quickly and massively in the region.  read more

EXTRACT: The Mail on Sunday claims Lord Browne was masterminding a merger between Shell and BP to create the largest company in the world, and that the oil giant threatened to quit Britain with potentially damaging consequences for the Treasury and the City. BP paid £1.34 billion in corporation tax last year and employs thousands of workers in London.

The Article

FORMER Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University Sir Alec Broers is among the arts and business leaders giving support to embattled Madingley peer John Browne. read more

07 May 2007 10:34:59 GMT
By Tom Ashby

LAGOS, May 7 (Reuters) – Villagers with sticks and machetes staged a protest at a major U.S-operated oil production facility in Nigeria on Monday, forcing it to halt output as a precaution, security sources said.

It was the latest in a string of attacks on Western oil industry targets in the world’s eighth largest exporter, which has already curbed output by a quarter and helped fuel a global oil price spike.

The protest at the gates of Chevron’s Ebite flow station in the western Niger Delta, which is a primary feeder for the 160,000 barrel per day Escravos export terminal, was triggered by alleged delays in compensation for an oil spill. read more

Huge Sakhalin Project
Is Mostly on Track,
As Shell Feels Pinch
By GREGORY L. WHITE and JEFFREY BALL
May 7, 2007; Page A1

NOGLIKI, Russia — On the beach of Sakhalin Island, some of the roughest, remotest terrain in the world, Exxon Mobil Corp. scored a major technical victory last month: It finished drilling a seven-mile-long hole, the longest between an onshore oil rig and an undersea oil field. Done in record time, the well marked a triumph in Exxon’s bid to unlock one of the planet’s juiciest remaining oil troves. read more

www.mmorning.com

A boycott by leading Moscow officials cast a cloud over the opening last week of a showcase event for Russian businesses.  
 
  The blow fell after a Russian press report suggested that the Kremlin ordered the no-show because of increasing strains between Moscow and London.

Missing from the 10th annual Russian Economic Forum was Alexander Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s energy giant Gazprom, and the president of the country’s oil company Rosneft, Sergei Bogdanchikov.

“There won’t be any high officials this year at the forum”, said Jonti Small, spokesman for event organisers Eventica. read more

By Leony Aurora

May 7 (Bloomberg) — The Indonesian government may lower a fee given to state oil company PT Pertamina to distribute gasoline, kerosene and diesel in the country next year.

Pertamina receives a premium above the fuel prices in Singapore to cover transportation and distribution costs as well as a profit margin. The energy ministry has proposed that the premium be cut to 13.5 percent in 2008 from 14.1 percent this year, Luluk Sumiarso, director general of oil and gas at the ministry, said by telephone today. read more

EXTRACT: A sulfur plant at Royal Dutch Shell Plc.’s refinery in Martinez, California, went offline May 2, according to a report on a state-administered Web site. The Martinez refinery, located near San Francisco, can process about 156,000 barrels of crude oil a day, according to the U.S. Energy Department.

By Dan Thomas

(Bloomberg) — U.S. gasoline at the pump rose 20 cents during the past two weeks to $3.07 a gallon, the first time the price has been above $3 since Aug. 11, Trilby Lundberg said, citing her survey of 7,000 filling stations nationwide. read more

LAGOS (Thomson Financial) – Armed men kidnapped a Briton from an oil rig in southern Nigeria at the end of a week of politically-motivated abductions of foreigners, industry and diplomatic sources said.

“We can confirm a British national was kidnapped overnight in the Niger Delta,” a diplomat told Agence France-Presse yesterday, adding that he could not release further details.

“A group attacked Trident 8,” said Guy Cantwell, a spokesman for Transocean Inc, referring to a Transocean rig drilling for Conoil off Brass, in the southern Bayelsa state. read more

EXTRACT: Oil companies have been the first to feel the pressure, with BP and now Shell being engaged by local authority pension funds. The funds argue that factors like health and safety should affect awards under long-term incentive plans since they are long-term issues.

Tom Powdrill,
Published: May 07, 2007

What do shareholders pay directors to do? It might sound like a rather easy question to answer. Clearly, we pay directors to run the company effectively in order to generate returns that will help pay people’s pensions. The problem comes when we start to think about what we are going to measure to decide whether the company is being run properly. The push to encourage companies to focus on ‘shareholder value’ resulted in the widespread belief that linking rewards to maintenance of the share price should align the interests of directors with those of shareholders. read more

By Steve Johnson, Financial Times
Published: May 07, 2007

The total pension fund deficit of the UK’s 100 largest listed companies halved to £20bn in the year to March 31, according to research by Pension Capital Strategies, an adviser, and Numis Securities.

However, the true deficit could be nearer £80bn if companies factored in more accurate estimates of future improvements in longevity, the report concluded.

“While the total pension deficit of FTSE 100 companies has improved, we still believe that they are underestimating future life expectancy by two to four years,” said Charles Cowling, managing director of PCS. read more

May 7, 2007
Carl Mortished, International Business Editor

The grasshopper manager, the executive who hops from job to job leaving a trail of destruction behind him, is under attack at the big oil companies.

Jeroen van der Veer, Shell’s chief executive, has imposed a job-tenure rule of four to six years for all but the most junior staff. Last week BP followed the Dutch company, signalling that the here-today, gone-tomorrow culture of the globe-hopping oil executive had to come to an end.

In his first speech as chief executive after the abrupt departure of Lord Browne of Madingley, Tony Hayward told a staff meeting in Germany that he wanted to stop the rapid circulation of managers, which prevented them from gaining on-the-job experience. read more