May 13th, 2007:

By Simon Watkins
13 May 2007

Royal Dutch Shell is set to be drawn into the controversy surrounding the takeover of ABN Amro this week as rebel shareholders are expected to vote against the appointment of the bank’s boss to the oil giant’s board.
 
Shell plans to appoint ABN boss Rijkman Groenink as a non-executive director of its board at its agm on Tuesday.

But it is understood that rebel Dutch shareholders are set to vote against Groenink’s appointment because of his handling of the ABN takeover. read more

May 13, 2007, 12:21AM
She knows there’s more to diversity than lip service

By MARY FLOOD
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Cathy Lamboley’s epiphany changed both her wardrobe and the way some Houston law firms do business.

Lamboley, who last week announced her upcoming retirement as general counsel of Shell Oil Co., used to wear corporate-issue business suits with those ubiquitous pouffy bow ties.

Now she leans toward expressive buttery-soft leather jackets adorned with carefully chosen Mexican and Southwestern jewelry. read more

SHAUN POLCZER

Global oil production has peaked and will soon decline resulting in higher prices for consumers, Talisman Energy Inc. CEO Jim Buckee said Wednesday.

“I believe we’re already here (at the peak),” Buckee said at the company’s annual meeting in Calgary. “I think it’s fair to say the era of cheap energy is over.”

In 1956, Shell geologist Marion King Hubbert correctly predicted that United States production would peak in 1970. Buckee received a doctorate in astrophysics from Oxford that same year. read more

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — President Evo Morales vowed to move forward with his campaign to nationalize Bolivia’s oil and gas industry while presiding Saturday over ceremonies marking the transfer of two Brazilian-owned oil refineries to state hands.

Bolivia this week agreed to buy back formerly state-owned refineries from Brazilian state energy company Petroleo Brasileiro SA for $112 million.

On Friday, the government announced it would negotiate the purchase of a majority share in the Bolivian operations of four more foreign companies, as dictated by Morales’ nationalization decree last year. read more

Heather Connon
Sunday May 13, 2007

Share buy-backs are booming: BT is apparently about to spend £2bn on one – roughly double the cost of its annual dividend payment. Vodafone, Shell and BP have already spent a combined £21bn on them. According to Morgan Stanley, British companies will have spent £46bn buying back their shares in 2006, close to the £62bn they paid out between them in dividends last year.

But there is a growing body of research to suggest that buy-backs are not the best way for a company to return cash to its shareholders. The theory is sound enough: if there are fewer shares available on the stock market, the price of the remaining ones should rise. Simple arithmetic dictates that earnings per share will also rise, as the profits have to be divided between fewer shares. And rising earnings usually means higher share prices. read more

May 13, 2007

Oil titans: In last week’s Business Focus you claimed that Browne transformed BP from an also-ran into one of the titans of the oil world.

If you look at Schindler and Zittel’s analysis of Exxon Mobil, Shell and BP in Analysis of the Annual Reports of the Oil Majors, which I translated, you’ll see all three “titans” have cut their exploration spending and have instead bought back their own shares. You will also see that none of the three managed to replace its spent oil reserves. read more

Last Updated: 12:39am BST 13/05/2007

The oil industry is bracing itself for a return of the hurricane season. Sylvia Pfeifer takes the temperature in the disaster-prone Gulf of Mexico

Some 130 miles off the south-east coast of Louisiana, a small city sits floating in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Food and supplies are shipped in on a regular basis but otherwise its 150 inhabitants operate as a self-sufficient unit, generating their own power and producing their own drinking water.

But Ursa, as it is called, is much more than a mini-city. It is one of the world’s largest and most innovative oil platforms, sitting in 3,800ft of water. Moored to the seabed by a series of steel pipes attached to a foundation, the entire structure displaces nearly 100,000 tonnes of water.   read more

EXTRACT: One major Dutch institution is also attempting to block his appointment as a non–executive director of Royal Dutch Shell, which is due to be ratified at the oil giant’s annual meeting this week.

THE ARTICLE

By Iain Dey,
Last Updated: 12:39am BST 13/05/2007

Sir Tom McKillop, the chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, has been warned of a potential shareholder revolt against the bank’s proposed £50bn break-up bid for ABN Amro, the Dutch bank.
  
Sir Tom McKillop: Legal complications look set to drag out the ABN bidding war
In meetings last week, at least four major institutions told McKillop that they would not tolerate RBS paying too high a price for ABN assets. read more

By Mandi Zonneveldt
May 12, 2007 12:00am

GLOBAL oil giant Shell earned more than $1.7 billion from its Australian operations last year, but the company’s chairman has failed to guarantee the future of its refineries here.

Shell Australia chairman Russell Caplan said yesterday the company was competing with large refineries in Asia and could consider importing its products rather than producing petrol, jet fuel and diesel in Australia.

“Our refineries in this country are very small by world scale,” he said. read more