April 15th, 2008:

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Oil major BP confirms Chinese investment fund has accumulated one per cent stake

Published: Tuesday, April 15, 2008 | 10:17 AM ET
Canadian Press: Jane Wardell, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON – A Chinese investment fund has accumulated a stake of just under one per cent in British oil company BP PLC, the giant energy company confirmed on Tuesday.

BP spokesman David Nicholas said that BP was aware of the stake, which had been built up over a few months.

“We are a publicly traded company and we welcome all shareholders,” Nicholas said. read more

Associated Press: Oil sets new high above $113 a barrel

By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
Tuesday 15 April 2008

VIENNA, Austria – Oil prices set yet another intraday trading record Tuesday, surging close to $114 a barrel as the U.S. dollar fell and crude oil shipments along one U.S. pipeline were said to be moving below capacity.

Light, sweet crude for May delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange traded as high as $113.66 a barrel by afternoon in Europe. That was $1.45 above the trading record set last week and $1.90 above Monday’s record settlement close of $111.76 a barrel. read more

Times Online: BG shares surge on Petrobras oil find off Brazil

April 15, 2008
Kevin Crowley

Shares in BG Group shot up this morning after Brazil’s Petrobras discovered potentially the biggest oil field to be found in 30 years.

BG, with 30 per cent stake in the field, saw its share price rise 5.16 per cent in early trading on the news.

Last night Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency said that a field in the Santos Basin off the coast of Rio de Janeiro could contain 33 billion barrels of oil, which would make it five times the size of the giant Tupi oil field, discovered last November. read more

Times Online: Tempus: Shell shocked

April 15, 2008
Robin Pagnamenta

Executives at Shell must be biting their nails in frustration.

Reports overnight indicating that the Carioca oilfield offshore Brazil could contain as much as 33 billion barrels of oil — making it the biggest discovery in 30 years — may still be unconfirmed but they still sent shares in BG Group rocketing by over 5 per cent this morning.

BG, which has long been spoken of as a potential takeover candidate for Shell, holds a 30 per cent stake in the project. read more

China is dependent on being able to import
oil to power its rapid development

Daily Telegraph: Chinese fund builds up £1bn stake in BP

Last Updated: 2:23am BST 15/04/2008

Beijing’s share-buying in Britain’s largest company, which has so far reached nearly 1pc, is being closely watched by Downing Street. Katherine Griffiths reports

A Chinese sovereign wealth fund has built up a stake of about £1bn in BP, in a move which has caused a stir within the British Government.
 
The sovereign fund is understood to have quietly acquired the shares in the market over a period. It has accumulated just under 1pc of BP, which is the UK’s largest company with a capitalisation of £104bn. read more

San Francisco Chronicle: Controversy mires choice for Goldman Prize

Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 15, 2008

San Francisco — The award Monday of the Goldman Environmental Prize to a pair of Ecuadoran activists fighting Chevron Corp. to clean up oil contamination in the Amazon rain forest brought a raging controversy over an international ecological disaster home to San Francisco.

The two men, lawyer Pablo Fajardo Mendoza and community organizer Luis Yanza, were among half a dozen grassroots environmentalists from around the world who were feted at the San Francisco Opera House on Monday and awarded $150,000 apiece to continue their work on projects that range from improving sanitation in Mozambique to protecting wetlands in Puerto Rico to shutting down polluters in Russia. read more

Bloomberg: Oil Rises to Record as Falling Dollar Prompts Commodity Buying

By Christian Schmollinger

April 15 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose to a record on speculation the dollar will extend declines and China will report economic growth of more than 10 percent in the first quarter.

Oil for May delivery climbed as much as 72 cents, or 0.6 percent, to $112.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest since futures began trading in 1983. Crude also gained after Mexico shut its fourth export terminal because of bad weather. China said today diesel imports surged 49 percent in March. read more

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Russian Oil Slump Stirs Supply Jitters

Production Decline
Is First in 10 Years;
Squeeze in Siberia
By GUY CHAZAN and NEIL KING JR.
April 15, 2008

Russian oil production, for years a vital source of new supplies for world markets, is showing signs of a slump, adding to uncertainties that have helped push oil prices to record highs.
 
Russian output fell for the first time in a decade in the first three months of this year, according to the International Energy Agency, which represents industrialized oil-consuming countries. It said Russian production averaged about 10 million barrels a day, a 1% drop from the first-quarter of 2007. read more

Financial Times: China builds stake in BP

Published: April 15 2008 03:00 | Last updated: April 15 2008 03:00

China has built up a stake of about 1 per cent in BP via a sovereign wealth fund. The stock market value of the stake is estimated to be about £1bn.

The move follows the purchase of 1.6 per cent in French oil company Total by China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange.

Gordon Brown, the prime minister, on a visit to China in January urged the country’s new $200bn sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp, to use London as a hub for its international operations, contrasting Britain’s “open door” policy with protectionist signals from the US. Mr Brown’s words won a warm response from Wen Jiabao, Chinese premier, who said the fund would operate on “a totally corporate basis, without intervention from the government”. FT Reporters read more

Financial Times: Russia a prime location for retail invasion

By Alistair Gray
Published: April 15 2008 03:16 | Last updated: April 15 2008 03:16

British retailers, facing fragile prospects in their domestic markets, may be missing out on a “unique” expansion opportunity offered by Russia, according to senior figures at Ernst & Young and KPMG.

Ongoing concerns about corruption and bureaucracy have deterred many retail companies from the country. DSG, for example, walked away from a planned Russian acquisition last year after almost two years of due diligence, deciding it was not “appropriate” because of “corporate, economic and political risks”. read more

Financial Times: Fears emerge over Russia’s oil output

By Carola Hoyos and Javier Blas in London
Published: April 14 2008 22:10 | Last updated: April 15 2008 07:40

Russian oil production has peaked and may never return to current levels, one of the country’s top energy executives has warned, fuelling concerns that the world’s biggest oil producers cannot keep up with rampant Asian demand.

The warning helped on Tuesday to push crude oil prices to a fresh all-time high above $1112 a barrel, threatening to stoke inflation in many countries. read more

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Oil Rises to Trading Record Above $112
 
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 15, 2008
Filed at 12:54 a.m. ET

SINGAPORE (AP) — Oil prices rose to an intraday trading record above $112 a barrel Tuesday after the U.S. dollar fell further and crude supplies to the U.S. and elsewhere were disrupted.

The main driver of crude’s rally was a decline in the greenback relative to the euro on Monday, analysts said. Crude oil’s recent run above $100 a barrel has been largely attributed to a steadily depreciating U.S. currency because a weakening dollar prompts investors to seek a safe haven in hard commodities such as oil and gold. read more

Iraq can reach a geologic potential of 10m barrels a day with substantial foreign investment. But output will depend on security improvements (Daily Telegraph image)

Daily Telegraph: Iraq opens door to foreign contracts at major oil fields

By Damien McElroy, Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:23am BST 15/04/2008

Foreign oil companies are poised to enter Iraq later this month after Baghdad signalled it was prepared to sign five oil field services agreements covering its biggest fields.
 
Five years since the US and Britain toppled Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, there have been few forays by oil’s major players into Iraq, even though the country accounts for almost 10pc of world reserves. read more

Daily Telegraph: Biofuel rules ‘could make millions homeless’

By Charles Clover, Environment Editor
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 15/04/2008

Millions of people face eviction from their land to satisfy demand unleashed by new rules requiring petrol and diesel from today to include a proportion of plant-based “bio-fuels” according to protesters.

The aid charity, Oxfam, has warned that 60 million people in Asia, Africa and South America are threatened with possible eviction to make way for “green” fuel plantations, whether palm oil, soya or sugar cane.   read more

neftegaz.ru: Oil Prices: Anyone To Be Blamed But Shell 
 
15.04.2008 08:59

Shell Oil Co. president said Monday his industry isn’t to blame for the soaring prices of gasoline and said America must produce for more domestic oil even in spite of the fact that biofuels and other alternative sources gather pace.

Regarding an alternative-fuels conference in Sacramento Mr. John Hofmeister addressed with following words: “We see no alternative” in the short run, he said in his keynote speech to the Low Carbon Fuels conference. He hailed the potential of new forms of ethanol and other futuristic fuels but also delivered an old-school message: Conventional fuel from crude oil will continue to dominate for the foreseeable future. read more

The Times: Need to know: Tuesday April 14, 2008

Natural resources

Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil and gas group, is facing pressure from the Nigerian Government and increasingly violent opposition in the Niger Delta oil producing region, raising questions over its long-term future in the country. (The Independent on Sunday)

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/article3740830.ece

The Times: Shell boss Jeroen van der Veer says EU carbon plan could destroy oil industry in Europe

April 15, 2008
Robin Pagnamenta, Energy and Environment Editor

Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, has given warning that a proposed European Union scheme to force companies to pay for carbon emissions permits previously handed out free threatens to destroy Europe’s petrochemicals and refining industry.

Mr van der Veer told The Times that the EU needed to be careful not to trigger an exodus of European jobs and investment offshore with no net reduction in global emissions. read more