February 19th, 2008:

“I would tell audiences that we were facing not a bubble but a froth – lots of small, local bubbles that never grew to a scale that could threaten the health of the overall economy.” Alan Greenspan, The Age of Turbulence.

By Martin Wolf
Published: February 19 2008 18:21 | Last updated: February 19 2008 18:21

That used to be Mr Greenspan’s view of the US housing bubble. He was wrong, alas. So how bad might this downturn get? To answer this question we should ask a true bear. My favourite one is Nouriel Roubini of New York University’s Stern School of Business, founder of RGE monitor. read more

By John Donovan

19 February 2008

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY: ROYAL DUTCH/SHELL TRANSPORT SECURITIES LITIGATION

Earlier today, lawyers filed motions in a New Jersey Court, the purpose of which is to keep secret the negotiations and related matters which led to Shell agreeing to pay $27 million in legal costs to the New York attorneys acted for the lead U.S. plaintiffs in the above litigation.

The following are extracts from the BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO SEAL MATERIALS read more

Author: Babak: Bio & more articles

February 19, 2008 | about stocks: BP / CVX / RDS.A / XOM    

This is for all the chart junkies out there, especially the conspiracy theorists. (Remember, just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you!).

Whenever the oil companies’ profits wane, an “energy conflict” emerges on cue to restore them to giddy heights:

I’d love to see a similar chart comparing the relative stock market return of oil companies to a wide proxy like the S&P 500 Index (SPX). read more

Scottish & Newcastle shareholders could face a CGT bill following the deal with Carlsberg and Heineken

Last Updated: 5:42pm GMT 19/02/2008

Thousands of private shareholders could get stung with a hefty CGT bill in light of the bid made last month by Carlsberg and Heineken for Scottish & Newcastle, writes Paul Farrow

www.telegraph.co.uk/tax

Scottish & Newcastle, Britain’s largest brewer, whose brands include Foster’s and John Smith’s, is to be bought by Carlsberg and Heineken for £7.8bn – but as it stands S&N investors will only be offered cash for their shares.   read more

SEEING GREEN Air pollution in downtown Los Angeles.

By KENNETH CHANG
Published: February 19, 2008

If two scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory are correct, people will still be driving gasoline-powered cars 50 years from now, churning out heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere — and yet that carbon dioxide will not contribute to global warming.

The scientists, F. Jeffrey Martin and William L. Kubic Jr., are proposing a concept, which they have patriotically named Green Freedom, for removing carbon dioxide from the air and turning it back into gasoline. read more

Tue Feb 19, 2008 11:59am GMT 

ABUJA (Reuters) – Output of Nigerian Forcados crude has reached between 150,000 and 200,000 barrels per day, following a pipeline repair, but Bonny Light is still subject to force majeure, a Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) executive said on Tuesday.

“I can’t give the exact number, but it’s (Forcados) producing between 150,000 to 200,000 barrels a day. The pipeline has been repaired and there is good progress,” Ann Pickard, regional executive vice president of Royal Dutch Shell for Africa, told reporters. read more

Tue Feb 19, 2008 6:52am EST 
 
TRIPOLI, Feb 19 (Reuters) – Libya’s state-owned National Oil Corporation (NOC) ratified gas-focused exploration accords with Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and Occidental Petroleum Corp (OXY.N: Quote, Profile, Research) on Tuesday, detailing the firms’ commitments, NOC said.

Under one deal, Shell will undertake a three-dimensional seismic survey over 1,750 square km in contract area 89 in the Sirte Basin, it said.

Shell will also drill six wells, invest at least $95 million and pay NOC $103 million for permit rights, NOC said. read more

A militant guarding a waterway in the Niger Delta. Nearly a fifth of Nigeria’s oil capacity is shut down due to violence in the region. (George Esiri/Reuters)

By Randy Fabi ReutersPublished: February 19, 2008

ABUJA, Nigeria: A wave of violence aimed at the oil industry in Nigeria shows no sign of abating and may get worse, analysts and security experts say.

In the past two years, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta has bombed oil facilities, kidnapped foreign workers and attacked shipping in what it says is a bid to secure regional control over the area’s oil wealth. read more

By Christian Schmollinger

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, closed part of a chemical-making unit at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery yesterday for planned maintenance.

The heat exchanger at Olefins Unit-2 will be shut until March 19, the company said in a filing with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Olefins, including ethylene and propylene, are basic raw materials to make plastics used in the production of grocery bags, flat panel television and synthetic fibers. read more

By Shigeru Sato and Akira Matsui

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) — Inpex Holdings Inc., Japan’s largest oil explorer, will increase spending on overseas oil and natural gas projects by as much as 50 percent a year to keep pace with soaring material and engineering costs.

Annual spending on overseas projects may rise to as much as 300 billion yen ($2.8 billion) over the next three to five years compared with a year-earlier capital expenditure forecast of about 200 billion, Chairman Kunihiko Matsuo, 72, said in an interview broadcast today on Bloomberg Television. read more

By Upstream staff

The Nigerian arm of ExxonMobil is about a month away from starting production at a natural gas liquids project that will boost output by 45,000 barrels per day.

The project, known as NGL 2, is connected to Exxon Mobil’s Qua Iboe energy complex in Akwa Ibom state in the Niger Delta. The product is a high-value liquid hydrocarbon that occurs in some gas fields.

“It will be up and running in the next month or so,” John Chaplin, chairman and managing director of ExxonMobil’s subsidiary Mobil Producing Nigeria, told Reuters on the sidelines of an oil and gas conference in Abuja yesterday. read more

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: To $100: Crude’s Slippery Slope

As Oil Nears the Mark,
Its Stay There, if Any,
May Be Short-Lived
By GREGORY MEYER
February 19, 2008; Page C5

Oil prices appear to be one event away from again visiting triple-digit territory.

But even if oil futures recross the $100 mark breached in early January, many market watchers say prices won’t stay that high for long, arguing that oil’s rally from a recent settlement low of $87.14 a barrel on Feb. 6 to $95.50 on Friday was driven as much by technical factors as any new arithmetic of supply and demand.
 
In fact, last week, three of the main energy-forecasting bodies dropped their growth outlooks for oil consumption for 2008. The U.S. Energy Information Administration said world consumption will now grow by 1.4 million barrels a day, 200,000 barrels fewer than its previous forecast, “due to increased risks of a global economic slowdown.” That was followed by cuts in forecasts by the International Energy Agency and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. read more

By Thierry Dubois
February 19, 2008
Business Aviation

Airbus and Shell recently made the first ever commercial flight using liquid fuel processed from gas when an A380 airliner flew from Filton in the UK to the airframer’s Toulouse, France headquarters. The flight marked the start of a program to evaluate the environmental impact of alternative fuels in the airline market.

One of the A380’s four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines was powered by a blend of Shell’s gas-to-liquid (GTL) fuel and standard jet-A. The other three engines burned jet-A. read more