February 24, 2008
Iain Dey
CENTRICA, the owner of British Gas, is plotting an offer worth up to $600m (£305m) for a clutch of North Sea gasfields owned by Shell and Exxon Mobil.
Sam Laidlaw, the Centrica chief executive, plans to spend at least £1 billion a year over the next few years buying gasfields to supply its customers.
In particular, the utility giant is thought to be eyeing an offer for the Nogat fields, which were put up for sale late last year.
The move is part of the group’s plans to cut its dependence on buying gas from the wholesale market, where prices have fluctuated wildly in recent months.
Centrica came under fire last week after it emerged it had made record annual profits of £1.9 billion, a month after raising customer prices by 15%.
The company has attempted to argue that the huge profits emerged after it misjudged the movement of prices in the gas market. Centrica raised its prices after anticipating that the market price for gas would be 45p a therm in the depths of winter. In the end, the price was only 25p a therm.
Npower, owned by Germany’s RWE, announced on Friday it had seen a 40% jump in profits in its UK business to £545m.
Ofgem last week announced an investigation into the gas market in response to the profits.
Shell and Exxon Mobil are divesting a string of oil and gas assets across their joint ventures in the North Sea, including interests in the Cormorant, Tern and Pelican fields.
International Power is set to join the bidding for a stake in rival power company Intergen. It is understood to have appointed Deutsche Bank to examine the purchase of a 50% stake in Intergen.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/natural_resources/article3422355.ece
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.
