Mon Nov 26, 2007 9:34 PM GMT
(Adds comment and detail)
CALGARY, Alberta, Nov 26 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell
Shell will advance the timetable of maintenance work at the Muskeg River mine while repairs at the 155,000 barrel per day Scotford upgrader are completed following a Nov. 19 fire.
Storage facilities at the mine are full, and with the upgrader damaged, there is no place to send the bitumen for processing.
“Production has been curtailed,” said Randy Provencal, a spokesman for the company. “As a result, there was maintenance work that was originally scheduled for January 2008 that has been advanced.”
Shell’s extensive Canadian oil sands operations have been disrupted since last week’s fire at the upgrader site. The fire was ignited after a release of light hydrocarbons and deadly hydrogen sulfide gas at the complex, which is northeast of Edmonton, Alberta.
The outage has further squeezed tight oil supplies and has contributed to higher prices for the commodity.
The upgrader supplies synthetic oil to Shell’s 98,000 bpd Scotford refinery, which has operated at reduced rates since the fire. Provencal said Shell will buy synthetic crude to replace the lost feedstock but declined to specify how much would be acquired.
“I don’t know the exact amount of synthetic crude volumes that we are going to be securing,” Provencal said. “But we have exercised those contracts.”
The company said it is still working to restart one of a pair of key residue hydroconversion units to boost volumes from the upgrader. The other unit was damaged by the fire. No date for a restart is yet available.
Shell is the sole owner of the Scotford refinery and has a 60 percent stake in the oil sands mine and the Scotford upgrader. Its partners in the oil sands venture are Chevron Corp
(Reporting by Scott Haggett; Editing by Peter Galloway)
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
