December 7th, 2007:

By David L. Stern Published: December 7, 2007

ALMATY, Kazakhstan: Kazakhstan wants either to raise its stake or receive compensation for cost overruns and delays in the Kashagan offshore field, the world’s largest oil find in more than three decades, the Kazakh president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, said Friday.

Nazarbayev, speaking after a regular meeting with foreign investors in the capital, Astana, said he was not seeking to replace Eni of Italy as project operator. That deflated speculation that Kazakhstan wanted the leading role for its own state company, KazMunaiGaz, which is also a consortium member, or to assign it to another company, possibly ExxonMobil. read more

December 07, 2007

What A Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday around 1 p.m., the EIA released its weekly “This Week in Petroleum” report. As always, the market was poised to jump (or dump) on any deviation from expectations. Depending on who you read, Reuters or the Financial Times, analysts expected distillates inventories (which include heating oil) to drop between 1.3 and 1.4 million barrels and crude oil stocks to drop between 800,000 to 900,000 barrels. Gasoline stocks, on the other hand, were expected to increase, with expectations ranging from 600,000 and 1 million barrels. Well, the analysts got the directions right at least. read more

Jon Harding, Financial Post 
Published: Friday, December 07, 2007

CALGARY — A unit that upgrades oilsands bitumen into synthetic crude oil at the giant Syncrude Canada Ltd. oilsands joint-venture will be shut down for the next two-to-four weeks following a fire early Monday, impacting output.

Repairs are underway and there were no injuries after the fire ignited inside the Coker 8-3 unit, Syncrude’s newest upgrading facility.

The joint-venture’s largest partner, Canadian Oil Sands Trust, said Friday the fire occurred in an area of the plant called the electro-static precipitators, where fine dust particles are knocked from the coker flue gas. read more

07 December 2007

For years, the United States has resisted mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions because of the perceived cost to the national economy.

But a new report suggests that significantly reducing U.S. carbon emissions could cost far less than the trillions of dollars some have projected. McKinsey & Co., a privately owned management consulting firm, predicts that making substantial emissions cuts may cost the economy only a few billion dollars, and that at least 40 percent of the reductions would actually bring economic savings. read more

Vol. 12, No. 49  Week of December 09, 2007

On Dec. 4 a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit heard oral arguments in the appeals by the North Slope Borough, the Alaska Eskimo Whaling Commission and several environmental organizations against U.S. Minerals Management Service approval of Shell’s oil and gas exploration plans in the U.S. Beaufort Sea.

The 9th Circuit Court judges must now rule in the case. It is not clear how long it will be before that ruling will appear. read more

7 December 2007
By Paddy Briggs

Just when you thought it was safe to buy a newspaper or a serious magazine again up pops Shell with more of its absurd corporate advertising. The “Say No to No” campaign, running again this week, almost defies belief in its self-congratulatory and disingenuous copy and tone. Let’s first take a look at one of the ads – the one with the teacher writing on the blackboard – here, word for word, is what it says:

“Say No to No

Isn’t it high time someone got negative about negativity?Yes it is.Look around. The world is full of things that, according to nay-sayers, should have never happened.”Impossible.””Impractical.””No.”And yet “yes.”Yes, continents have been found.Yes, men have played golf on the moon.Yes, straw is being turned into biofuel to power cars.Yes, yes, yes.What does it take to turn no into yes?Curiosity. An open mind. A willingness to take risks.And, when the problem seems most insoluble, when thechallenge is hardest, when everyone else is shakingtheir heads, to say: let’s go.” read more

December 07, 2007: 04:15 AM EST

OSLO -(Dow Jones)- Norwegian gas field Ormen Lange started back up during the night, and will ramp up to full capacity during the course of Friday, a spokeswoman for operator Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) said.

The field was out of action for a week for repairs and testing after leakages were detected at the export compressors at onshore processing plant in Nyhmana Nov. 30

Shell spokeswoman Lillian Aasheim said: “It started again last night and we will be in full production during the day.” read more

Videotaped Deposition of DAVID ANDREW SEXTON taken in Washington, D.C. 16 Wednesday, September 13th, 2006: David A Sexton, President of Shell Oil Products U.S.: His Deposition plus associated confidential exhibits.

Main Deposition (85 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/364.pdf

Exhibit 277 (20 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex277_364_2.pdf

Exhibit 278 (35 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex278_364_3.pdf

Exhibit 279 (75 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex279_364_4.pdf read more

JANE BRADLEY
([email protected])
7 December 2007

TREASURY officials have proposed a change in rules which could extend the lifespan of North Sea oil fields and generate “millions of barrels” of extra oil.

The plans would see a relaxation of the rules governing tax relief on the cost of winding up the fields at the end of their life – encouraging oil majors to squeeze every last drop out of the sites.

Currently, companies can only claim decommissioning costs against the profits of the last three years – which means many close down the oil fields early, leaving oil still in the ground. read more

By Ed Crooks, Energy Editor
Published: December 7 2007 03:58 | Last updated: December 7 2007 03:58

North Sea oil and gas companies are to be given new tax breaks to offset the cost of decommissioning old facilities, the Treasury has said.

However, a more general reform of the tax regime for the industry has been put off until the Budget in 2009, with a new round of consultations taking place before next summer.

In spite of oil prices hitting about $90 a barrel, the industry has argued that high costs in the North Sea and the decline of the UK’s oil and gas reserves make the region a difficult area in which to operate. Capital investment this year is believed to be down on last year. read more

· Relaxation of rules is victory for oil firms
· Announcement part of paper on green initiatives
 
Terry Macalister 
Friday December 7 2007

Oil and gas firms have persuaded the government to give them more favourable tax treatment to encourage them to keep North Sea fields running longer than expected.

The move was announced by the Treasury yesterday under the banner “securing a sustainable future”, but critics are likely to see it more as an attempt to maintain domestic supplies of gas and oil than part of a green agenda. read more

Renewables must compete with a resurgent nuclear industry and this ex-jockey knows which horse to back
 
Terry Macalister
Friday December 7 2007 
 
Given booming demand for wind power in a world consumed by fears of climate change, you would expect the head of the world’s biggest turbine builder to be happily rushed off his feet.

Ditlev Engel, chief executive of the Danish group Vestas Wind Systems, gives a good impression of being rushed all right, providing rapid-fire answers to questions while gobbling down a sandwich lunch and then literally running out the door. read more

Picture the scene: Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, gets in a lift with yours truly and answers my opportunistic question about a takeover of Shell with an unambiguous “it’s very likely”. Just for good measure he adds that BP would probably have to pay £75bn to snap up its rival.

Rio Tinto would consider formal Chinese offer

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/12/05/cnrio105.xml

A day or so after I report this conversation, causing a minor explosion in the share prices of both companies, Dr Hayward tells a rival newspaper “I did not say this. It is a fabrication of the media”. read more

By Dinakar Sethuraman and Yuji Okada

Dec. 7 (Bloomberg) — Asian utilities led by Korea Gas Corp., the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas buyer, are expanding import terminals to receive the world’s biggest tankers and meet soaring demand for the fuel.

Korea Gas’s terminals at Incheon and Pyongtaek are ready to receive the new Q-Flex and Q-Max ships, investor relations manager I.K. Kim said yesterday by phone from Seongnam, South Korea. Tokyo Electric Power Co. will complete a study by April 2008 to upgrade the Futtsu terminal, spokesman Daiki Ohashi said. read more

Flowserve Provides Further Details about Orders for the Pearl Gas-to-Liquids Plant Being Developed by Qatar Petroleum and Shell in Qatar

Flowserve Corporation, a leading global provider of fluid motion and control products and services (NYSE: FLS), announced yesterday that it had received orders for the Pearl Gas-to-Liquids (GTL) plant being developed by Qatar Petroleum and Shell in Qatar.

Flowserve provided further details today, noting that orders for major projects of this type are typically received over several quarters. The company included a substantial majority of the orders for this project in the bookings reported in its previous 2007 quarters. The company expects the remaining orders for this project to be reflected in bookings reported in the fourth quarter of 2007 and potentially into 2008. The company also added that it is unable to provide additional details about the business terms for the project due to confidentiality agreements with the applicable customers. The company said that its overall bookings for the fourth quarter, including those related to the Pearl GTL project, are expected to be in-line with quarterly booking levels of the three previous quarters of 2007. read more

IHEANYI NWACHUKWU on 07 December, 2007

As part of efforts to boost small scale enterprises in Nigeria, Diamond Bank Plc has entered into a strategic partnership with Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and GroFin of South Africa in floating N3.75billion ($30million) Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) Fund branded ‘Aspire Nigeria’.

This partnership, Business Day checks reveal is in recognition that the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) are key drivers in economic growth and development. read more

Claudia Cattaneo, Financial Post 
Published: Thursday, December 06, 2007

CALGARY — Long-time Shell Canada Ltd. employee Dave Collyer is the new leader of Royal Dutch Shell PLC in Canada, replacing Adrian Loader, who is retiring at the end of the month.

Mr. Collyer, 52, who holds a petroleum engineering degree and an MBA from the University of Alberta, is the first Canadian in 15 years to lead Shell’s 5,000-staff Canadian unit.

As part of Shell Canada’s integration into the Anglo/Dutch oil multi-national, Mr. Collyer’s title and responsibilities are different from those of his predecessors. read more