January 5th, 2008:

Sunday January 6 2008
By Tim Webb

Sarah Hall’s novel The Carhullan Army, which won this year’s John Llewellyn Rhys prize for literature, paints a bleak portrait of a world where the oil has almost run out. Set in the not-too-distant future, the Orwellian novel describes a Britain run by a dictatorship called the Authority, where electricity is rationed, the miserable population subsists on tinned food and mountain-dwelling outlaws revert to subsistence living.

Last week, in the real world, the price of oil finally went through the $100 a barrel mark, and was a whisker away from breaking the all-time record price of $101.70. While Britain is not about to turn its back on oil and become a dictatorship as a result, it makes investing in clean energy a better bet. read more

Source: Benoit Faucon Dow Jones
3 January 2007

Shell PLC is finalizing details of a shake-up aimed at cutting costs, as the effects of sky-high oil prices pose a challenge to profits at major oil companies.

High oil prices, once a key contributor to the earnings growth at oil majors, are hurting refining margins, or the profit refiners make by processing crude oil into fuels, by driving industrywide cost inflation and encouraging governments to seek better terms for their contracts at the expense of majors. As a result, most oil majors reported profit declines for the third quarter, even though crude oil flirted with $100 a barrel. read more

(This article was kindly supplied to us today by Dmitry Lisitsyn of Sakhalin Energy Watch:www.sakhalin.environment.ru/en)

Saturday 22nd December 2007 

MOSCOW: Sakhalin Energy, one of the world’s top liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, will delay first exports to Asia by six months to spring 2009 due to problems with pipelines, the governor of Sakhalin said.

The comment confirms a report that the project leader, Russia’s Gazprom, and its partner Royal Dutch Shell will effectively delay supplies due to project holdups. read more

This well in Scarborough reeked of fuel vapours, a sample which was taken to show to the Press.

Published on: 1/4/08.
by MICHELLE SPRINGER

THE APPEARANCE of a substance suspected to be kerosene oil in a freshly dug well in Oistins, Christ Church, has refuelled concerns of the Southern Farmers Group about leakage from an abandoned Shell Oil Company pipeline.

“This is not just a Southern Farmers’ problem,” president of the group Jacquelyn Bartlett told the Press yesterday at Scarborough in Christ Church. “This is a national problem that could adversely affect our tourism and fishing industries.” read more

Saturday,  January 5, 2008 3:08 AM
By Paul Wilson

High petroleum prices won’t just hit you at the gas pump. They could hit you at the cash register when you buy golf balls, lipstick and pantyhose.

Those and dozens of other products contain at least some oil, which passed $100 a barrel during trading for the first time this week.

“You’re talking perfumes, deodorant, food preservatives, lipstick,” said Terry Fleming, executive director of the Ohio Petroleum Council. “I think people do forget this. They get so angry at the prices at the pump.” read more

5 January 2008
11:37 GMT
Dow Jones International News

(c) 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.

LONDON (Dow Jones)– Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer is seeking to reassure staff after leaks over the company’s plans to transfer 3,000 IT employees, according to a document obtained by Royaldutchshellplc.com, a Web site critical of the oil giant.

The text, published over the company’s intranet earlier this week, quotes the CEO as saying “a significant number of staff, currently employed by IT Infrastructure will be transferred to the new suppliers,” and that contracts should be signed at the end of March. read more

Personal attention of Mr. Stuart Bruseth
Head of Global Media Relations
Royal Dutch Shell plc.

I have sent under separate cover by email a story that appeared in our local newspaper, The Daily Nation, this week.

I understand that Shell have accepted responsibility for the leaking of the A1, kerosene pipe sometime ago, but the settlement figure has yet to be agreed by the Southern Farmers group.

I personally witnessed this week, a bucket being lowered into a recently built well in a heavily populated residential area some distance from the original pipes. When hauled-up the bucket appeared to contain a highly flammable liquid that smelt like kerosene. read more

The Guardian: Shell to outsource 3,200 IT jobs read more

By Alistair Gray
Published: January 5 2008 03:49 | Last updated: January 5 2008 03:49

The BP oil spill in Alaska has allowed companies that provide support services for the sector to capitalise on safety concerns, Cape’s chief executive said on Friday after the company upgraded its outlook for the year.

Cape, which does much of its cleaning, maintenance and equipment rental for the oil and gas sectors, said its results for the year would beat analyst forecasts.

High energy prices helped sales in every region – the UK, the Gulf, Russia and the Far East – perform “well ahead of expectations”, the company said, as its customers spent more on investment and maintenance. read more

By Matthew Green in Abuja and Catherine Belton in Moscow

Published: January 5 2008 02:00 | Last updated: January 5 2008 02:00

Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned energy group, is seeking to win access to vast energy reserves in Nigeria in a move that will heighten concerns among western governments over its increasingly powerful grip on gas supplies to Europe.

A senior Nigerian oil industry official, who declined to be named, said the company was offering to invest in energy infrastructure in return for the chance to develop some of the biggest gas deposits in the world. read more

Daily Telegraph: Fortunes made and lost as oil price rises

By Sophie Brodie
Last Updated: 1:32am GMT 04/01/2008

Richard Arens, a local trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange, has shot to fame after a lifetime of obscurity thanks to his determination to print the golden $100-a-barrel trade ticket.

Mr Arens is part of a dying breed of risk-takers who rent their seats at a staggering $25,000 a month on the open outcry trading floor at the Exchange.
  
Traders on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange try to make a quick profit as crude oil rises read more