February 12, 2008: 10:02 AM EST
BUENOS AIRES -(Dow Jones)- The Argentina unit of Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) has decided to resume full-capacity operations at its Dock Sud refinery after the government authorized renewed exports for surplus fuel and petrochemicals.
The decision, announced in a letter sent by the company to its service station operators Monday night, came after a meeting with the government’s top price controller, Interior Commerce Secretary Guillermo Moreno.
Shell had warned service station operators Friday that refinery output was going to fall because the company had run out of room to store surplus products that would otherwise be exported.
“A dialogue has opened that we believe will be productive for all parties,” Shell said in its Monday night letter. Monday’s meeting was the first in about a year with Moreno, who had excluded Shell from talks with other fuel retailers after the company bucked price controls.
Tension between Shell and the Argentine government boiled to the surface three years ago, when former president Nestor Kirchner called on Argentines to boycott the company after it raised pump prices.
Since then, the government has fined the company several times for allegedly failing to supply the domestic market. Environmental agents also shut down the refinery for alleged violations. Kirchner was replaced by his wife, President Cristina Fernandez, in December.
The government threatened to cut fuel exports for all retailers last month after pump prices began creeping higher across the board. Gasoline exports have given refiners a profit window amid Argentina’s price control scenario, which provides consumers with some of the cheapest fuel prices on the continent.
The nation’s three other main fuel retailers – local units of Repsol YPF SA ( REP), Petroleo Brasileiro SA (PBR), or Petrobras, and ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM) – dropped their prices immediately following the threat, while Shell demurred. A such, the government stopped authorizing fuel exports for Shell, although the company later agreed to drop pump prices some.
Argentine refiners are operating at maximum capacity. The nation faces chronic diesel shortages during key harvest and planting periods, although there remains an excess supply of gasoline.
The Dock Sud refinery, the only one Shell operates in South America, has storage capacity for up to 770,000 cubic meters of crude and refined products.
Shell supplies about 13% of Argentina’s diesel fuel and about 18% of its gasoline.
-By Drew Benson, Dow Jones Newswires; 5411-4311-3127; andrew.benson@ dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
02-12-08 1002ET
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This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
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.
