December 20th, 2007:

Luke Harding in Moscow
Friday December 21, 2007

An unprecedented battle is taking place inside the Kremlin in advance of Vladimir Putin’s departure from office, the Guardian has learned, with claims that the president presides over a secret multibillion-dollar fortune.

Rival clans inside the Kremlin are embroiled in a struggle for the control of assets as Putin prepares to transfer power to his hand-picked successor, Dmitry Medvedev, in May, well-placed political observers and other sources have revealed. read more

December 21, 2007

Russia’s decision to halt an art exhibition has more sinister overtones

Russia’s announcement yesterday that it had cancelled an important exhibition of French and Russian masterpieces is a heavy blow not only to the Royal Academy but to those who had hoped that the poor state of political relations between London and Moscow would not affect other areas of common interest. After weeks of increasingly polemical accusations, Russia’s state cultural agency said that the artworks would not be sent to London because Britain had failed to provide the necessary guarantees that they would not be impounded. This came despite the Government’s repeated assurances that the works would be protected against any lawsuit brought by descendants of those who owned the paintings before they were nationalised by the Bolsheviks. read more

December 21, 2007
Carl Mortished, World Business Editor

Shell and StatoilHydro have scrapped plans to build a green power plant that would capture and store carbon dioxide because the project was found to be uneconomic.

The decision to shelve the gas-fired power project, which was to be built at Tjeldbergodden in Norway, casts further doubt on the financial viability of power schemes that capture and safely store greenhouse gases.

In the UK, BP was forced to scrap plans to build a carbon-capture and storage scheme at Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, citing inadequate assurances of financial support from the British Government. read more

Thu Dec 20, 2007 12:51pm EST 

AMSTERDAM, Dec 20 (Reuters) – Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM), jointly owned by Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell Plc. (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research)(RDSb.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Thursday it will reopen a 1 billion-barrel Dutch oilfield.

NAM and its 40 percent partner in the project Dutch state owned Energie Beheer Nederland, have made a final investment decision on the reopening of the field near the Dutch eastern town of Schoonebeek, the companies said in a statement. read more

By Aasa Christine Stoltz
Published: December 20, 2007

OSLO: Energy groups StatoilHydro and Shell said on Thursday they would scrap plans to build an environmentally friendly gas-fired power plant in Norway, but the Oslo government is now seeking alternatives.

The Norwegian unit of Royal Dutch Shell said the 860 megawatt (MW) plant that was planned at Tjeldbergodden in Norway and which had been intended to capture and store polluting gases, turned out to be too expensive.

Norway’s Oil and Energy Minister, Aaslaug Haga, said she will now ask Shell to consider the possibility of building a gas-fired power plant at Aukra, also with capture and storage of carbon. read more

Filed from Houston
12/20/2007 6:12:07 PM GMT
 
USA/GULF OF MEXICO:  Shell personnel have commenced the Ursa/Princess facilities commissioning process to prepare for the initiation of water injection, projected sometime next year.  The Ursa/Princess waterflood project, located in the Mars-Ursa Basin of the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, will improve reservoir performance at the deepwater Ursa and Princess fields.

The waterflood topsides injection system will inject filtered and treated water via two separate flowlines to three subsea sites.  One will go to an existing well site northwest of Ursa, one to an existing well site southeast of Ursa and one to a new well site northeast of Ursa.  Producing wells will include three Princess subsea wells and as many as six Ursa tension leg platform (TLP) wells. read more

Former Shell brand Executive, Paddy Briggs

December 20th, 2007

Big Oil lets sun set on renewables
By Terry Macalister, The Guardian, Tuesday December 11 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2007/dec/11/oil.bp

Paddy Briggs says…

This report should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows Shell well. Over the past thirty years or so Shell has tried a variety of diversifications but failed to make any of them work:

Minerals: Billiton …………..……SOLD
Nuclear: General Atomic…..……SOLD
Coal: Shell Coal…………….……SOLD
Power Generation: Intergen……SOLD
Agrochemicals:………………….SOLD
Forestry…………………………..SOLD
Solar………………………………SOLD read more

Sergei Karpukhin/Reuters
Lukoil workers inspecting gas lines at a new Uzbek field.

By ANDREW E. KRAMER
Published: December 20, 2007

BUKHARA, Uzbekistan — In the scrub brush desert south of this ancient Silk Road town, the natural gas wellheads are built on modest concrete platforms about the size of basketball courts. Because the gas is naturally pressurized, pumps are not needed to bring it to the surface. Pipes simply kiss the ground and gas pours through them.

Executives from Lukoil and Russian and Uzbek officials inaugurated the latest Central Asia gas field on Nov. 29. The field is estimated to hold 400 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
The issue is where the gas goes from there. read more

19 December 2007

Shell to Sea protesters occupied the department of Natural Resources in Dublin today. Teh new Minister for Natural resources, Eamon Ryan, has done nothing to help the campaign of which he was once a leading member. Leafy, affluent Adelaide Road in Dublin 2 is the site of the Department of Communications, Natural resources, and The Marine (fishing to you or me). Since the summer the office of Minister for Natural Resources has been occupied by Eamon Ryan TD, a member of the Green Party, and, when he was in opposition, a strong supporter of the Shell to Sea campaign. read more

By BOB DAVIS
December 20, 2007

A Hunt Oil Co.-led gas project could start Peru’s long-overdue exploitation of its natural resources, and boost its battered economy. But environmentalists and indigenous groups have inquired: At what cost?

When oil was discovered in the northwest of Peru in the 1970s, the country expected more to be found and applied for membership in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

“Luckily, they said no,” said former mining minister Jaime Quijandría. “They’d have probably thrown us out by now.” Peru produces 100,000 barrels of oil a day and consumes 180,000. read more

A WSJ NEWS ROUNDUP
December 20, 2007

LONDON — Oil-rig operator Abbot Group PLC agreed to a £906 million ($1.82 billion) management buyout backed by U.S.-based private-equity firm First Reserve Corp.

Shares of Abbot, which announced Oct. 4 that it was in takeover talks, rose 14% to 379.50 pence ($7.64) in London trading, below the offer price of 390 pence a share.

Abbot’s executive chairman, Alasdair Locke, said First Reserve’s “combination of capital and industry knowledge will aid considerably the long-term development of Abbot and its employees, as well as the investment and growth plans that management have for the business.” read more

Lacking Prime Projects,
Texas Firm Bets on Peru;
A Bad 20 Years for Shell
By BOB DAVIS
December 20, 2007; Page A1

PAMPA MELCHORITA, Peru — Seven decades ago, Texas wildcatter H.L. Hunt used poker winnings to build an oil company. Juggling three wives and 15 children, he headed a legendary family whose soap-opera quality rivaled the one on TV’s “Dallas.”

Now Dallas-based Hunt Oil Co., the family-run company he founded, is playing another high-stakes hand — betting it can make money on projects in Iraq and other spots that big oil companies won’t touch. read more

By Winnie Zhu

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) — China National Petroleum Corp., the nation’s largest oil company, signed an agreement to expand cooperation with Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

The companies will “deepen” the work they do in oil and gas, Beijing-based China National, parent of PetroChina Co., said in a statement on its Web site today, without giving details of their accord.

The pact with Europe’s biggest oil company follows alliances China National has forged this year with Chevron Corp. and StatoilHydro ASA as it seeks to unlock less accessible reserves. PetroChina and Shell started joint gas output from the Changbei field in northern China in March. read more

Jason Corcoran
20 Dec 2007
Political unrest continued to play havoc with deals
 
A war for investment banking talent in Moscow during the past year led a senior executive at Deutsche Bank in Russia to compare the hiring spree with “a French farce”.

Competition between bulge brackets and domestic banks to sign Russia’s leading rainmakers resulted in remuneration packages comparable with those of footballers. Ed Kaufman is reputed to have been lured from UBS, where he was head of Russia, to become chief executive of investment banking at Alfa Bank by a guarantee of $20m (€13.6m) over two years while managing directors can net an average $3m pay packet, according to research by US publisher Forbes. read more