May 17th, 2007:

EXTRACT: Royal Dutch Shell was not immune to the rumour mill. Its A shares jumped 54p to £18.31 on revived talk of a merger with BP, France’s Total or even Gazprom. It has also re-started oil production in Nigeria after the ending of a protest by villagers.

THE ARTICLE

Nick Fletcher
Friday May 18, 2007

Another splurge of bid speculation and a host of broker recommendations put some life into the market yesterday. Credit information business Experian – recently spun out of GUS – added 22.5p to 598.5p. The company moved into the takeover spotlight after US rival Acxiom Corporation was bought for $3bn by investment group Silver Lake, the offer being a 14% premium to its share price.
British Airways was also in the takeover frame after Goldman Sachs said the airline was the “jewel in the crown” for potential private equity and other predators. It said the shares, up 11.5p to 501.5p, were fundamentally cheap after they had fallen recently on worries about the implications of the “open skies” arrangements and weakening demand. read more

EXTRACT: Shell, up 66p at £18.59, was also the subject of renewed speculation about a mega-merger. BP, up 13½p, was the candidate most often mentioned by traders, although the names of Gazprom and Total also came up regularly. Such theories last appeared in February, when BP shares hit a two-year low and investors started looking at radical solutions. But with Tony Hayward taking over as BP’s chief executive only this month, any major strategy decisions appeared unlikely.

THE ARTICLE

May 18, 2007
Large caps
Bryce Elder read more

Friday May 18, 2007
By Simon de Bruxelles

The world’s biggest wind farm, with 370 turbines towering 150m (492ft) above the waves, is planned for the Bristol Channel.

The turbines would cover an area the size of the Isle of Wight and generate 1,500 megawatts, more than half the energy needs of the West Country and enough to power 1.1 million homes.

The farm’s 350 sq mile (906 sq km) area would be in an arrow-shaped box between Ilfracombe in North Devon and Swansea in South Wales. The nearest turbine to land would be 13 miles off shore. read more

*Shell shares up by 4% on speculation of Shell/BP or Shell/Gazprom tie-up 

Thu May 17, 2007 5:29 PM BST

(Recasts, adds analyst on research note)

LONDON, May 17 (Reuters) – Shares in oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research) rose more than 4 percent before closing at their highest level in six months on Thursday as traders cited rumours of a possible tie-up with a rival.

“There’s a mutter of a BP/Royal Dutch tie-up,” said one trader.

Other traders also noted the BP rumour while one analyst reported talk of a tie-up with Russia’s Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile , Research), which the analyst said may have stemmed from a research report from Shell’s house broker ABN AMRO. read more

17 May 2007

Shell has announced the launch of a new loyalty scheme, the Shell Drivers’ Club, to replace the ‘pluspoints’ loyalty card.  The scheme rewards motorists with one point for every litre of petrol.  Customers can redeem their points in two environmentally friendly ways:

* via donations to carbon reduction projects

* giving donations towards CO2 emission reduction projects which have been verified in accordance with UN procedures.  Shell will match all customer points donations in this area and email certificates to customers every quarter to inform them of their contribution.  read more

Dublin Shell to Sea are continuing their campaign of bringing Shell’s theft of our natural resources back to their headquarters on Leeson Street. After a very successfull blockade on Friday 27th of April

(http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82200) Dublin Shell to Sea is organising a further day of action on the 18th of May. Assemble 7.30 am at Shell HQ Leeson street Bridge.

For more info
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/82115
http://www.corribsos.com/index.php?id=442&event=1

By Jack Kaskey

May 16 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company, shut two ethylene plants at a Texas production complex this month after it lost steam power and released tons of chemicals into the air around Houston.

The Deer Park, Texas, complex lost steam from an external supplier on May 2 and flared chemicals from the Olefins 2 and Olefins 3 units for most of the next day, the London-based Shell said today in a filing on the Web site of the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission. Shell said it didn’t disclose the incident earlier because the state reporting system was unavailable. read more

Thu May 17, 2007 10:37 AM BST

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, May 17 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research) has started work to restore 170,000 barrels per day of crude oil production in Nigeria after a protest at a major pipeline hub, a spokesman said on Thursday. The six-day protest raised the tally of oil supply hit by violence in the world’s eighth largest exporter to about 900,000 bpd, or one third of the country’s total capacity.

“We have regained access to the site,” said a Shell spokesman. read more

Updated: 06:15, Thursday May 17, 2007

Congressional investigators have turned up a “mountain” of evidence the oil spill in BP’s Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska was caused by heavy cost cutting.

The cuts led to the worst oil spill on the North Slope last March, the people investigating the spill said.
 
The root causes of the spills in Alaska showed “striking similarities” to those that caused a 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City, Texas, committee members found.

The spill at that refinery left 15 workers dead and at least 170 injured. read more

Thursday, May 17, 2007 
 
LONDON, May 17 (IranMania) – US lawmakers introduced new legislation that would protect fund managers and state pension programs from shareholder lawsuits if they divest stakes in energy companies that do business with Iran, Reuters reported.  

Rather than taking punitive action, the new legislation would authorize state and local governments and private fund-managers to divest assets for companies that invest over $20 mln in Iran’s energy sector, which the US government would publish in a list every six months. read more

By Trisha Huang

May 17 (Bloomberg) — Formosa Petrochemical Corp., Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings Corp. and other Asian producers may benefit as escalating steel and labor costs delay projects to boost output in the Middle East.

Two ventures in Iran and a third in Qatar to turn natural gas into ethylene, the raw material for plastics, may be postponed, said Steve Zinger, Asia managing director of Chemical Market Associates Inc. Construction costs have risen 60 percent in four years as the price of stainless steel more than doubled, said Formosa Director Lin Keh Yen. read more

Published: May 17 2007 03:00 | Last updated: May 17 2007 03:00

They run some of the world’s largest listed companies. Their products are indispensable in modern society. They hobnob with world leaders regularly, discussing geopolitics and climate change. Sadly, this is not enough to get their share prices rerated.

Energy and mining chief executives have a problem. Despite high commodities prices and record cash flows, their stocks have suffered the worst derating of earnings multiples of any sector barring technology since 2003. It is a particular problem for the big boys – those with market values above $100bn such as Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Rio Tinto. Maintaining growth is a struggle. Meanwhile, an equity market hungry for mergers and acquisitions is focused on mid-cap stocks and investors seem unwilling to buy into the notion of a commodities supercycle. read more

EXTRACT: Young entrepreneurs have always attracted public interest. Alex Tew succeeded in selling $1m (£500,000) in advertising on his Million Dollar Homepage website. James Murray-Wells, Shell Livewire Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2005, created the more durable glassesdirect.co.uk, which sells spectacles online.

THE ARTICLE

By Jonathan Guthrie, Enterprise Editor
Published: May 17 2007 03:00 | Last updated: May 17 2007 03:00

Andrew Hildreth, a leading young entrepreneur, has condemned government plans to keep children in school or training until 18. His comments were echoed by other young entrepreneurs, who said the policy risked stifling youth enterprise, which the government has previously tried to foster. read more

(The Delta’s problems have been ignored for too long)

Posted by Mike Pflanz on 16 May 2007 at 16:57

Nigerian president-elect Umaru Yar-Adua has something of a towering in-tray waiting for him when he gets his feet under the big desk in Abuja in a couple of weeks.

Top of the pile – and to be frank middle and bottom of it as well – will be the perennial problem of the Niger Delta. Nigeria is critically dependent on the proceeds from its oil, which make up 80 percent of foreign currency earnings. read more

(Nigerian vice-president Goodluck Jonathan was elected in the heavily criticised poll last month)

By Mike Pflanz in Nairobi
Last Updated: 1:59am BST 17/05/2007

Gunmen blew up the house of Nigeria’s vice-president-elect yesterday and kidnapped a child in the latest attacks in the oil-rich south, which has seen crude output reduced by a third.
  
Armed men arrived in speedboats and stormed the creek-side home of Goodluck Jonathan. They used dynamite to destroy the sprawling villa in Bayelsa state, where Mr Jonathan was governor until recently. read more

17/05/2007  05:54

Shell to Sea campaigners will take part in the annual Irish/Norwegian community’s Dublin parade today.

The activists, who are protesting against the controversial Mayo refinery, are applauding how well the Norwegian Government treats its citizens.

Through its ownership of Statoil, the Scandinavian state will profit from 25 per cent of the Corrib gas field. But campaigners claim the Norwegian government would not inflict such a refinery on its own people because of health and safety concerns. read more

Daily Champion (Lagos)
16 May 2007
Malachy Uzendu

Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) yesterday returned to the court as it filed a new suit against three foreign companies that participated in last Friday’s bidding exercise for oil blocs that had been subject of litigation and pending at a Federal High Court in Abuja.

SPDC in the suit, is asking the court to award the sum of five hundred million dollars (USD500m) as damages against the three companies for unlawful interference with SPDC’s contract in respect of Oil Mineral Licencees (PLM) 13 and 16.
 
The company also prayed the court to compel the companies to pay the huge sum if it is satisfied with appropriate reasons within 30 days. read more

Associated Press – May 16, 2007 2:14 PM ET

As gasoline prices reach new highs leading up to the Memorial Day travel weekend, one station owner is charging rates shocking even San Francisco drivers: $$4-33-cents per gallon for economy grade, and an astonishing $$4-53-cents for premium.

But station owner Bob Oyster says the prices are meant to raise eyebrows. He set his prices far above competitors as a means of protesting onerous franchise rules imposed by Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

After 22 years at the station at the station at Sixth and Harrison, he’s vacating at the end of the month. He says he can’t afford to keep operating on razor-thin margins. read more