Volume: 25, No. 9 March 3 – 9, 2008
ANCHORAGE:
Royal Dutch Shell is looking for oil and gas in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas off the coast of Alaska, but the finds will have to be significant to justify the huge cost of development, a senior Shell executive said.
Shell surprised many in the oil industry when it bid $2.1 billion for acreage in this month’s controversial auction of drilling rights in the Chukchi Sea, a large polar bear habitat, and one of the least explored areas in US federal waters.
However, after conducting two years of seismic surveys in the Chukchi ahead of its bid, Shell is confident the area is one of the most promising exploratory basins in its portfolio.
“We’ve picked up licenses and blocks based on those surveys, and we’ve been confident to put that kind of money there,” Annell Bay, vice president of exploration for the Americas at Shell, said in an interview. The US Minerals Management Service, which regulates oil and gas activities in federal waters, thinks 15 billion barrels of oil and 75 trillion cubic feet of natural gas can be found in the Chukchi Sea.
Shell’s aggressive bidding in the Chukchi comes two years after it picked up acreage in the adjacent Beaufort Sea, where the Anglo-Dutch giant is aiming to tap oil fields that were found decades earlier but were left undeveloped due to high costs.
Previous drilling in the Chukchi also turned up signs of large hydrocarbon deposits, including a large gas prospect called Burger, which some industry observers have suggested could be large enough to support a liquefied natural gas project.
“I think there is scope for both oil and gas (at Burger), but we’ll have to drill first to get an idea of the scope,” Bay said. “It’s too early to talk about development options.”
A 2004 MMS study estimated Burger holds 14 trillion cubic feet of gas and 724 million barrels of condensate.
Developing a find in the Chukchi Sea would be particularly challenging as it is hundreds of miles away from the nearest oil and gas infrastructure and is covered by ice for much of the year.
Bay said the prospect that climate change would lead to longer ice-free summers on the Chukchi had not played a role in Shell’s planning for the bid round.
http://www.oilandgasnewsonline.com/News.asp?Article=24065
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.
