Posts on ‘March 13th, 2008’

Our objectives are simple. We want Royal Dutch Shell executives to act at all times in accordance with Shell General Business Principles which include the claimed core principles of honesty, integrity, openness and respect for people in all of Shell’s dealings.  

This is surely not an unreasonable ambition given that the principles were devised by Shell, are promoted by Shell and are supposedly current and binding on all Shell operations everywhere. In other words, we are only asking Shell executives to do what they already claim to be doing. read more

By Mark Shenk

March 13 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose to a record $111 a barrel in New York as the sinking value of the dollar attracted investors to commodity markets.

The dollar dropped below 100 yen earlier today for the first time since 1995 and declined to a record low against the euro. Investors looking for higher returns have flocked to commodities. Oil surged 90 percent over the past year as the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 4.4 percent.

“Energy trading continues to be dollar dominated,” said John Kilduff, senior vice president of energy at MF Global Ltd. in New York. “The reverberations from the credit markets and U.S. economic policies are creating an inflation wave in hard assets and traditional inflation havens.” read more

LONDON, March 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ —

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC

Pursuant to Listing Rule 9.6.11 (3), the Board of Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE: RDS.A) (NYSE: RDS.B) announces that Christine Morin-Postel has been appointed Chairman of the Audit Committee in succession to Mr Lawrence Ricciardi. Mr Ricciardi will continue to serve as a member of the Committee. These changes are effective from 21 May, 2008.

SOURCE Royal Dutch Shell plc
 
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=109&STORY=/www/story/03-13-2008/0004773690&EDATE= read more

Speech given by Jon Chadwick, Executive Vice-President Shell Gas & Power Asia, at GasTech 2008, 10 March 2008 in Bangkok.
 
“Your Royal Highness, Ladies and Gentlemen, I am honoured to be part of this GasTech opening ceremony. GasTech is one of the most important events in the gas industry’s calendar. Thank you. Natural gas is one of the most exciting areas to work in at the moment. This is because of gas’s contribution to meeting the world’s energy needs today; and because of the developments that are taking place – including technology developments – which are aimed at securing future supplies.” read more

Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:48pm GMT 

LISBON (Reuters) – Oil company Galp entered into an agreement on Thursday with the Portuguese Engineering, Technology and Innovation Institute in order to research and produce biofuel from algae.

Galp said the venture would establish a pilot plant at its refinery in the coastal town of Sines, where it would produce microalgae-based biomass and vegetable oil using combustion gases captured at the refinery.

Algae has been identified by scientists as a potentially far more efficient source of biodiesel than land crops. Its production into fuel could address the problems associated with crops for biodiesel, which require land that could be used for food crops. read more

Thu Mar 13, 2008 5:32pm GMT

MOSCOW, March 13 (Reuters) – Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) is eyeing a high-sulphur gas project in Russia’s Astrakhan, the Web site of the southern region’s governor reported on Thursday.

“We have always paid great importance to the Caspian region, where we have been for over a hundred years,” the head of Shell in Russia Chris Finlayson was quoted as saying to the regional governor Alexander Zhilkinym. read more

Posted by Big Gav on March 13, 2008

Chevron Australia has been in the news this week after announcing plans to develop a new LNG plant on the WA mainland to process gas from its Wheatstone discovery on the north west shelf. Interestingly, as well as feeding gas into the domestic network, they are considering developing a gas-to-liquids facility as part of the plant – which may slightly reassure those who look at both our trade deficit (in which imported liquid fuels are a major factor) and the possible impacts implied by the export land model. read more

This Day (Lagos)
13 March 2008
Ahamefula Ogbu
Port Harcourt

Dutch oil giant, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), has said it was not true that it enlisted the Joint Task Force to intimidate Ogoni indigenes into allowing them to go back to their oil facilities in Ogoniland, but was directed by Rivers State government to re-activate its facilities there.

They were reacting to allegation by Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP), that SPDC recruited thugs and the JTF, to harass and intimidate them into allowing a surreptitious return to the wells it abandoned 15 years ago.
 
“Following a directive by Rivers State government, SPDC commenced a programme to secure its wells in Ogoniland, which have remained dormant since it suspended operations in the area in 1993. Fifteen wells in Eleme and Tai local government areas have been secured in an exercise that is set to be implemented in Khana and Gokana local government areas. SPDC wishes to assure that the exercise does not amount to any secret resumption of oil production in the area,” SPDC said in a statement. read more

By DAVID FUNKHOUSER | Courant Staff Writer
March 13, 2008

Gov. M. Jodi Rell blasted federal regulators Wednesday for their “ludicrous” assessment of the Broadwater natural gas plant proposal and called on them to reject the project as “an environmental nightmare.”

Rell made her remarks in response to a final report from a task force she set up two years ago to monitor the project. That report, due out today, says the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has failed to protect the public interest and consider other sources for the region’s energy needs. read more

Stanlow Oil Refinery at Ellesmere Port

Mar 13 2008 by Nick Coligan, Liverpool Echo

OIL giant Shell has been fined more than £260,000 for a potentially fatal gas leak from its Stanlow plant.

Twenty tonnes of a highly flammable toxic substance escaped through a corroded pipe, forming a cloud 50ft above the Ellesmere Port complex.

The company, which employs 800 people at Stanlow, admitted in a report how the incident could have caused “multiple fatalities” and damaged buildings over a “significant area”.  Stanlow Oil Refinery at Ellesmere Port read more

Mar 13 2008 by Richard Down, Liverpool Daily Post

OIL giant Shell has been ordered to pay £300,000 in fines and costs, and forced to spend millions on improvements after letting 20 tonnes of highly flammable and toxic gas escape through a corroded pipe.

Yesterday Judge Roger Dutton fined Shell UK Oil Products Limited £266,681, and ordered them to pay £37,131.62 in costs.

Warrington Crown Court heard workers had a “narrow escape” at the Stanlow plant, Ellesmere Port, when the lighter fluid and lethal hydrofluoride (HF) burst out of a relief pipe. read more

Dr Joseph Ackermann

By John Donovan
13 March 2008

The Board of Royal Dutch Shell plc has today announced its intention to propose to the 2008 Annual General Meeting that Dr. Josef Ackermann, Chairman of the Management Board and the Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank AG, be elected a non-executive director of the Company with effect from May 21st, 2008. 

Dr. Ackermann, a Swiss banker, joined Deutsche Bank’s Management Board in 1996. Prior to that he was at Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (SKA), where he was appointed to the Executive Board in 1990 and became its President in 1993. He is currently also a member of the Supervisory Board of Siemens AG. read more

By Ed Crooks, Energy Editor
Published: March 13 2008 02:00 | Last updated: March 13 2008 02:00

A package of modest tax breaks for North Sea oil and gas companies was set out by the Treasury yesterday, leaving the industry hoping for more substantial incentives to investment in the future.

The oil and gas industry was expected to pay £9.9bn in corporation tax and petroleum revenue tax in the coming fiscal year, the Treasury said, up from £7.7bn this year. In cash terms that would represent the biggest tax take from the North Sea since 1985-86. read more

By TAKASHI NAKAMICHI
March 13, 2008 4:18 a.m.

TOKYO — The dollar plummeted to near ¥100 and hit record lows versus the euro and the Swiss franc in Asia Thursday, as suspicions grew that the latest attempt by central banks to save the sliding U.S. economy won’t work.

Market participants ranging from hedge funds to bankers to Japanese exporters sold the dollar for yen, sending it down almost ¥2 to ¥100.02 on the EBS trading platform, traders said. That was the lowest level since ¥99.94 on Nov. 10, 1995. read more

By Dinakar Sethuraman

March 13 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SA may have to find more gas in Brunei to extend liquefied natural gas supplies to Asian customers, an official said.

Sales contracts to utilities in Japan and South Korea expire in 2013, Mohamad Damit, general manager of LNG marketing at Brunei LNG Bhd, said in Bangkok yesterday. Supplies from the 7.2 million metric tons-a-year plant fell 2.3 percent last year to 213 cargoes from 218 in 2006.

Dwindling gas discoveries in Southeast Asia may stall contract renewals by plants that supply a third of the world’s LNG. Demand for LNG is growing 10 percent a year, 14 times faster than that for crude oil, according to presentations by Shell and Total. Tokyo Electric Power Co. depends on Brunei LNG for 4.03 million tons of LNG a year or about two months of its consumption. read more

By Eduard Gismatullin

March 13 (Bloomberg) — BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s South African oil refinery, the country’s largest, stopped making fuel after flooding interrupted the boilers, Pretoria News reported, citing the Sapref plant spokeswoman Margaret Rowe.

The refinery was affected by a rainstorm in the Durban area on March 11, the newspaper said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at [email protected]

Last Updated: March 13, 2008 03:45 EDT read more

Energy deals face uphill battles
SHAWN MCCARTHY
GLOBAL ENERGY REPORTER

From Thursday’s Globe and Mail
Thursday, March 13, 2008 Page B1

OTTAWA — Alberta’s booming oil sands industry faces a chill in merger and acquisition activity as a result of rising construction costs and new federal rules aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from future projects, according to an international consultant on oil industry deal making.

Even in the face of crude oil prices close to $110 (U.S.), unconventional oil projects face serious issues that will likely cool investor interest, said Tom Biracree, senior vice-president at Connecticut-based consultancy John S. Herold, which yesterday released its widely watched annual study of global mergers and acquisitions in the oil industry. read more

Argus Biodiesel Trading in Asia

Meeting the sustainability challenge

Singapore

3 April 2008

H.E. Holger Standertskjold, the Ambassador and head of the delegation at the European Commission in Singapore, will give an overview of the EU renewable energy directive proposed in January 2008 to the biodiesel market in Asia.

Other topics to be discussed:

Indonesia biodiesel market development
Immanuel Sutarto, president director, PT Eterindo Wahanatama (Indonesia)

EU sustainability compliance — an Indonesian exporter’s perspective
Rosediana Suharto, executive chairman, Indonesian Palm Oil Commission (Indonesia) read more

Fuel producers currently get a 20p per litre discount for selling biofuels

By Russell Hotten
Last Updated: 1:00am GMT 13/03/2008

The Treasury aims to raise £550m through the abolition of a biofuel subsidy in a move likely to undermine Alistair Darling’s claims that he delivered a Budget for the environment.

Fuel producers, including giants like BP and Royal Dutch Shell, get a 20p per litre discount for selling biofuels. But this is being abolished, to be replaced by fines if companies do not meet targets for biofuel sales.
 
The subsidy was introduced to encourage development of alternative fuel sources, but has now been condemned as a revenue-generator for the Treasury. read more

Bolaji Ogundele, Port Harcourt – 13.03.2008

The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) has raised the alarm over moves of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) to return to Ogoniland through the back door.

MOSOP, in a statement in Port Harcourt by its Information Officer, Bari’ara Kpalap, said SPDC’s subterranean moves had resulted in two persons getting shot and wounded, which development had started causing serious concern in the Ogoni area.

Citing a few instances of the efforts of the company to re-enter the area without the peoples’ consent, MOSOP called on the oil giant not to test the will of the Ogoni people it shall be held responsible for break down of peace in the area. read more