December 10th, 2007:

Shell has quietly shed most of its solar power, while BP is buying into dirty tar sands
 
Terry Macalister
Tuesday December 11 2007

Shell, the oil company that recently trumpeted its commitment to a low carbon future by signing a pre-Bali conference communique, has quietly sold off most of its solar business.

The move, taken with rival BP’s decision last week to invest in the world’s dirtiest oil production in Canada’s tar sands, indicates that Big Oil might be giving up its flirtation with renewables and going back to its roots. read more

Dec. 10, 2007, 3:29PM
By BRETT CLANTON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman today said a $7 billion expansion of a Motiva oil refinery in Port Arthur is a “good investment” despite efforts by President Bush and Congress to curb gasoline usage in coming years.

“It’s clear we’re going to use a lot of oil and gas in this country over the next several decades. That’s why this investment makes sense,” Bodman told reporters after a groundbreaking ceremony for the Motiva project. read more

By Ian McKinnon

Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) — UTS Energy Corp. and partner Teck Cominco Ltd. may spend as much as C$2.3 billion ($2.28 billion) to develop an oil-sands mine in northern Alberta.

The mine may start operations by 2014 and produce 50,000 barrels a day of bitumen, a heavy oil extracted from Alberta’a tar sands, Chief Executive Officer William Roach said today in an interview in Calgary. The mine would exploit reserves estimated at about 400 million barrels, he said.

The project, known as Lease 14, is too small to support an upgrading plant to process the bitumen into more valuable synthetic crude, which is used to make gasoline, diesel and other fuels, he said. read more

Videotaped Deposition of RODNEY SIDLE, held at the offices of LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae LLP, 125 West 55th Street, New York, New York. October 30 & 31, 2006:Rodney Sidle, Senior Reserves Consultant for Shell International Exploration & Production Inc. Includes confidential Shell internal correspondence and documents

Exhibit 284 (295 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex284_364_9.pdf

Exhibit 285 (35 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex285_364_10.pdf

Exhibit 286 (44 pages) read more

By Alfred Donovan

(Correspondence with Shell on 10 December 2007 relating to this article is published at the foot of the article)

At first sight this appears to be an outlandish question to pose about the world’s third largest transnational corporation in terms of revenue – an oil giant operational in over 143 countries. However, a mounting pattern of evidence about Shell’s behaviour in relation to its employees in non-Western countries suggests this is a legitimate question.

We have previously published information about Shell employee retirement fund machinations in South Africa: – read more

Dignitaries scheduled today at site of future 600,000 barrel-per-day refinery include U.S. Secretary of Energy Samuel Bodman

PORT ARTHUR, Texas, Dec. 10 /PRNewswire/ — Motiva Enterprises LLC today will officially break ground for its recently announced 325,000 barrel-per-day (b/d) refinery expansion in Port Arthur, Texas. The expansion will increase the refinery’s crude oil throughput capacity to 600,000 b/d, making it the largest refinery in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world. The upgrades and modernization will lead to new supplies of transportation fuels for U.S. markets, add jobs to the local economy and decrease the refinery’s ozone precursor emissions from present day levels. read more

Monday, December 10, 2007 4:29 AM EST

Talk about a flip-flop. Elements of the environmental movement that once abhorred whaling as a cruel slaughter of highly intelligent creatures now give whaling their blessing, as long as it allows the environmental left to take a swipe at Big Oil in the bargain.

Royal Dutch Shell wants to begin offshore oil exploration north of Barrow and Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, where huge reserves are believed waiting. Though the drilling sites are well to the west of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, opposition has arisen because drilling would divert bowhead whales to the north, out of range of Inupiats who kill about 60 of the animals annually. read more

President Vladimir Putin has backed First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the chairman of Gazprom, as presidential candidate in the next elections.

Monday, December 10, 2007
By Russia News Blast  

President Vladimir Putin has backed First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, the chairman of Gazprom, as presidential candidate in the next elections after he was nominated by United Russia and three other parties (Fair Russia, the Agrarian Party and Civil Force). “I have known him very closely for more than 17 years and I completely and fully support this proposal,” Putin said.
 
United Russia will not officially announce its presidential candidate until a convention next Monday. The election results are now official, having been approved by the Central Elections Committee. “I don’t think United Russia got more than 40% of the vote. If you look at Moscow and St Petersburg, the results were much lower. It’s very clear in big cities … where information is available they vote differently,” said Garry Kasparov. Gennadi Zyuganov’s Communist Party now “seems to represent the only viable force remaining against Putin’s Kremlin”. Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov, owner of Polymetal, Russia’s largest silver producer, will become a member of the Federation Council, the upper chamber of parliament. The Finance Ministry, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade and Central Bank of Russia are to present a report to the government on the causes of inflation at the end of this year, together with measures to reduce it in 2008. read more

Mon 10 Dec 2007, 14:01 GMT
By Austin Ekeinde

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria, Dec 10 (Reuters) – A protest outside an oil company compound, a high-profile kidnapping and a troop incursion into a militant stronghold on Monday were all signs of the renewed tension in Nigeria’s oil delta.

Violence had subsided for a few months in the impoverished Niger Delta, which produces about 2.1 million barrels of oil per day, as rebel groups held talks with the government about their demands for local control over oil money and an end to neglect. read more

10.12.2007 

Customers of Russia’s Sakhalin 2 liquefaction project are becoming increasingly concerned that the project will not be able to find bridging supplies if the start-up date is delayed, sources close to the project said Dec 6.

Liquefaction projects often buy LNG from other sources to meet contractual commitments to customers if their planned start-up dates are delayed. Such deliveries are called bridging supplies.

The sources told Platts that the first shipments from the Sakhalin 2 project in far eastern Russia could be delayed until the spring of 2009 from the planned startup of December 2008. read more

This Canadian wilderness is set to be invaded by BP in an oil exploration project dubbed … ‘The biggest environmental crime in history’

By Cahal Milmo
Published: 10 December 2007

BP, the British oil giant that pledged to move “Beyond Petroleum” by finding cleaner ways to produce fossil fuels, is being accused of abandoning its “green sheen” by investing nearly £1.5bn to extract oil from the Canadian wilderness using methods which environmentalists say are part of the “biggest global warming crime” in history. read more

December 10, 2007

ConocoPhillips said it would boost its spending 13% to $15.3 billion to get precious crude and natural gas out of the ground. The oil giant approved a 2008 capital budget of $14.3 billion, including cash capital expenditures and capitalized interest. Loans to affiliates and contributions to its venture with Encana Corp. bring the total to $15.3 billion, up from $13.5 billion approved for this year. About 80% of the company’s authorized capital program will go toward exploration and production, down from 84% last year. read more

By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Published: December 10 2007 02:00 | Last updated: December 10 2007 02:00

Iran signed a $2bn oil contract with Sinopec of China yesterday, sending a signal to western companies that they might miss out on potentially lucrative contracts with one of the world’s biggest energy exporters if they continued to heed US-inspired sanctions against Tehran.

“If other countries who like to invest in oil and gas hesitate, they will lose opportunities,” said Gholam-Hossein Nozari, Iran’s oil minister. read more

By James Drummond, Financial Times
Published: Dec 10, 2007

Butagaz! Butagaz!” the man on the donkey-drawn cart calls. As he does so he bangs the side of the canister with the main tool of his trade – his spanner. It is a familiar sound in Cairo still, despite widespread piping of gas to wealthier neighbourhoods of the Egyptian capital and lower Egypt. It may not be for much longer.

Egypt has long been known more for the potential of its gas than its oil. It is home to two big liquefied natural gas plants, one controlled by BG and partners at Idku, and the other by SEGAS, a consortium headed by Union Fenosa, the Spanish utility, and ENI of Italy, at Damietta. Both are on the Mediterranean coast. read more

SHOWA SHELL SEKIYU K.K., headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, is mainly engaged in the oil and real estate businesses. The Petroleum segment is involved in the purchase and sale of crude oil for overseas market, as well as the process, refinement and sale of oil products for domestic market. This segment also provides storage, payment receiving and transportation services of its oil products. In addition, the segment is engaged in the management and supervision of related project companies, as well as the provision of information for exploration and development. The Real Estate is involved in the real estate leasing and management. The Other segment is engaged in the sale of automobile-related products, the leasing of machinery, the provision of non-life insurance services, the design, management, construction and inspection of industrial facilities, the sale of urban gas and electricity, as well as the manufacture and sale of solar cell modules.
Quick Financial Synopsis read more

The Pan-African music entertainment network MTV Networks Africa and Shell, one of the world’s leading energy brands have joined forces to develop the continent’s music video industry to improve creative and technical skills among up-and-coming music video directors and movie makers. by Jacquiline Afua Bondzi  
 
The two brands will be rolling out a series of five music video workshops under the title of MTV Making the Video with Shell.

The quest of these two brands is to bring together the world’s hottest and most critically acclaimed music video directors and artists, including talented African music video directors throughout the continent. read more

By R.A. Dillon
Staff Writer
Published December 9, 2007

Dutch oil giant Shell is making a major splash in Alaska offshore exploration after a nearly decade-long absence.

Rick Fox, Shell’s Alaska asset manager, said the company is committed to developing its holdings in the federal waters along the state’s northern coast despite legal setbacks to its plan to search for oil starting this fall in the Beaufort Sea.

Since 2005, high oil prices and the promise of major discoveries have spurred the company to invest hundreds of millions of dollars on drill rigs, leases and office space in the state. read more