Iraq opened its giant oilfields to foreign firms on Monday, putting British and U.S. companies in pole position five years after U.S.-led troops invaded the country to oust Saddam Hussein.

Shell chief says making progress on Iraq deal

Shell’s Chief Executive Officer Jeroen van der Veer attends the opening day of the 19th World Petroleum Congress in Madrid, June 30, 2008.

REUTERS/Susana Vera

MADRID (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) is making progress in talks on a deal to invest in Iraq’s oil and gas industry, but is unsure when a contract will be agreed, Chief Executive Jeroen van der Veer said on Monday.

Van der Veer told a press conference at the World Petroleum Congress he hoped a deal could be concluded in weeks rather than months, but said on specific timing: “I don’t have a clue.” read more

"No Shell flow station, including Oloma, was attacked over the weekend," said Precious Okolobo, a spokesman for Shell in Nigeria.

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Unidentified gunmen attacked an oil- pumping facility run by the Nigerian unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, killing at least five people, the Guardian reported, citing military spokesmen.

Global economy faces deep slowdown and deflation threat, BIS warns

The Dutch pension fund for oil group Shell, Stichting Shell Pensioenfonds, one of the largest corporate schemes in the Netherlands, is overhauling its ethical policies and has sold out of one company that makes landmines. The Shell fund said in documents posted on its website that it had “broadened its existing corporate governance policy to include social and environmental aspects of business management”.

James Schlesinger, the first U.S. energy secretary, has said for decades that when it comes to energy policy, the U.S. toggles between complacency and panic.

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is heading up a test venture in Hawaii to turn oil-rich algae into fuel. If the process is found commercially viable, the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate could build algae-processing plants elsewhere.

Betting that in a few years algae will be ready for prime time, companies ranging from start-ups like GreenFire Energy of Salt Lake City to energy giants such as ChevronCorp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC are investing in projects aimed at finding an economical way to turn algae into fuel.

Some suggested that the international oil companies such as ExxonMobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell would have to change their business model to become more like service companies if they were to prosper.

Shell sent shockwaves through the offshore market recently, when it pulled out of the London Array, a proposed development in the Thames estuary. Shell cited cost issues and said it could get a better return by investing in onshore wind assets in the US. Mr Cooper says that Shell's decision raised doubts over the economics of offshore wind.

When news first broke late last year of the discovery of potentially massive deposits of oil and natural gas off the Brazilian coast, Dilma Rousseff, chief of staff to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and a former energy minister, predicted Brazil would soon become "a new Saudi Arabia"

Production at Kashagan, one of the world's biggest oilfields, has been postponed by two years to 2013, Kazakhstan said at the weekend.

Shell and BP are also exploring the possibilities of second-generation biofuels, the latter in partnership with the chemicals company DuPont.

With prices skyrocketing and supply fears growing, energy ministers from the world's major producing nations and multinational oil company heads face unprecedented challenges at this year's World Petroleum Congress.

At a time of spiraling oil prices, the no-bid contracts, in a country with some of the world’s largest untapped fields and potential for vast profits, are a rare prize to the industry. The contracts are expected to be awarded Monday to Exxon Mobil, Shell, BP, Total and Chevron, as well as to several smaller oil companies.

Shell has been floating a 650,000-barrel cargo of Australian Northwest Shelf condensate off Singapore for about a week, likely due to maintenance of some units at its refinery on the island-state, shipbrokers and traders said on Monday.

SUSPECTED militants yesterday attacked a houseboat owned by Shell in Oloma area of Rivers State, killing two security operatives.

Shell Chemicals, the petrochemicals unit of Royal Dutch Shell, is seeking potential partners for a $500 million styrene monomer/propylene oxide (SMPO) manufacturing facility it plans to build in Singapore...

June 30 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose for a third day, trading near a record $142.99 a barrel in New York, as the slumping dollar and concern that supply may be disrupted spurred demand for commodities.

Exxon Mobil Plc, Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plcinvestors are losing money in the best year for oil prices as they cede control of production to state-owned energy companies.

Chief Technology Officer Jan van der Eijk told a reporter from Earthsky – whose science podcasts are heard on broadcast outlets around the world – that the “increase in energy demand and also the need to use all kinds of sources of energy will lead to an increase in C02 emissions, and we all know that the C02 emissions are related to global warming. That’s a major concern and also something that calls for aggressive action.”

The trigger for the concern was the Shell tanker drivers winning a 14% pay rise....

Royal Dutch Shell's Bonga field, the biggest deep offshore field in Africa and holding more than 1 billion barrels of crude reserves, thus became a showpiece of success in the Gulf of Guinea. Other oil majors such as Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp and Total also followed with huge offshore oil discoveries that helped make the waters offshore Nigeria a leading global oil exploration hotspot.

However, the aura of invincibility that surrounded the deep-water oilfields in Nigeria is no more. It was shattered on 19 June when the main guerrilla group in the oil region, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), launched an overnight raid on the Bonga oilfield's floating, storage, production and offloading vessel, forcing it to shut down.

Russia Could be Trigger for $200 Oil and Global Recession

In August 2004, the SEC fined Royal Dutch/Shell Group $120 million – one of the largest penalties against a company in an accounting case – in connection with the overstatement of oil and gas reserves. The Anglo-Dutch oil giant’s disclosure that year of reserve inflation stunned shareholders and the oil industry, and led to the dismissal of several top executives.

Mr Grieve owns at least £240,000 worth of shares in companies operating in the southern African country such as Shell, mining firms Rio Tinto and Anglo American and the Standard Chartered bank. Mr Cameron, speaking last week, warned that businesses and individuals "must not make investments that prop up the regime".

Anthony Steen said he did not know that Unilever or Shell was involved in Zimbabwe.

Mr Cameron has called on all companies and individuals with "any dealings" in Zimbabwe to examine their consciences and ensure that they are not keeping Mr Mugabe in power.

The companies include Anglo American, the mining giant rebuked last week for pushing ahead with a new £200m platinum mine in Zimbabwe, Rio Tinto, Standard Chartered, Barclays, Shell and BP. Between them, Shell and BP control 40 per cent of Zimbabwe's petrol market, distributing fuel to more than 200 sites around the country through BP/Shell Marketing Services Ltd

The oil ministry is expected within days to award six two-year service contracts to develop six giant fields to Shell, BP, ExxonMobil and Total.

The US Congress... is on the point of introducing measures to limit speculation in oil futures...

So far, the federal government has reacted by sending more troops to the Niger Delta. Shell has also resumed operations at the said station but under the watchful eyes of two naval frigates as guards.

Shocks are occasionally necessary to change human behaviour. High prices are painful, but will ensure the world does not run out of oil.

These features could make BG a takeover target for a larger rival, such as Shell.

Shell Canada spokesperson Heather Cooper said it is far too early to predict whether the ban would impact the proposed refinery, which will process heavy crude from Alberta’s oil sands.

Other looming issues include:

• Shell Canada's plans for a heavy-oil refinery near Sarnia that could produce 150,000 to 200,000 barrels per day of gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

The consortium consists of large international companies: Italia's ENI, France's Total, the English-Dutch corporation Royal Dutch-Shell, the American Exxon-Mobil and Conoco-Phillips companies, the Japanese corporation Inpex and Kazakhstan’s KazMunaiGaz.

The trifecta of skyrocketing crude-oil prices, slumping stocks and a weaker U.S. dollar haunts global markets...

A year earlier, Royal Dutch Shell was pressured to sell a controlling stake in the world’s largest oil and natural gas development, Sakhalin-2, to Gazprom. In that case, the government cited environmental damage in a pipeline project.

EU officials believe that the Russian shareholders will eventually sell their stake to Gazprom or another state-run entity. Their battle against BP is a ruthless attempt to drive up the multibillion-dollar price of any deal, they say.

Gordon Brown has made energy a priority for his Government and in April encouraged BP and Shell to spend more in the UK. “We do need the oil coming out of the North Sea; we do need to encourage the new exploration,” he said.

Four oil giants - Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP - are to announce next week no-bid contracts to start servicing the creaking Iraqi oil infrastructure, crippled for decades by lack of investment and often targeted by insurgents.

Iraq: ...the reason that Shell and ExxonMobil and the rest are confident of riches is because they have the best supporter of all to guarantee it for them. The United States military.

Shell Oil Co. plans to modernize and expand its Westhollow Technology Center in Houston and rename it Shell Technology Center-Americas.

Moreover, there are a number of plausible scenarios—taken from today’s headlines—that could greatly impact world oil prices and take an even greater toll on US consumers. We doubt that these risks are fully priced into the market.

Of the 15 former Soviet republics, Kazakhstan is sitting on the sole "superfield" discovered in the last three decades. With proven reserves of 35 billion barrels, Kazakhstan potentially contains the world's third largest reserves of oil, after Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Shell has leased storage in South Korea from Korea National Oil Corp (KNOC) for Iraq's Basra Light crude, trade sources said on Friday, a rare move that could help the major bypass uncertainties at the loading port.

SEC Proposes Change In Oil, Gas Reporting: The SEC plan would allow oil and gas companies to include previously excluded sources of oil, such as tar sands, and disclose "probable and possible" reserves, not just those proven to exist.

With oil prices having doubled over the past year, political leaders, Wall Street investors, commuters, airlines and car makers are all scrambling to divine where prices will head next.

Capitol Hill has jumped on the blame-the-speculators bandwagon.