Posts on ‘July 1st, 2008’

ABC News quoted an unnamed senior Pentagon official as saying there is an "increasing likelihood" that Israel will strike Iran's nuclear facilities before the end of the year. Such an attack could prompt Iran to retaliate, potentially disrupting oil supplies in the strategically vital Persian Gulf.

Showa Shell Sekiyu KK plans to build one of the world's biggest solar panel plants at a cost of more than 100 billion yen ($940 million), Wednesday's online edition of Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported.

The Iraqi government sued dozens of companies, including oil giant Chevron, for more than $10 billion (5 billion pounds) on Monday, saying they paid kickbacks to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's government under the U.N. oil-for-food program.

ExxonMobil Canada has gone on a search for floating living accommodations to hitch up to its Thebaud production platform at the Sable natural gas project.

The appetite for Arctic oil has surged in line with rocketing crude prices but environmental concerns and a diplomatic stalemate stand in the way of exploration, experts say.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which owns half of South Africa's biggest refinery, sold 25 percent of its local refining unit to Thebe Investment Corp. to meet government requirements for ownership by black investors.

A civilian who said to be on a visit to a naval relative was also killed, while another civilian was beheaded by the gunmen at Oloma where the Dutch oil giant, Shell Petroleum Development Company has an oil flow station.

Iraq has the fourth largest known reserves of oil -- after Saudi Arabia, Iran and Canada.

The data provided more proof that high oil prices are taking a toll on consumption in the world's largest market for crude.

Saad al-Shuwaib, chief executive of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, the state oil company, told the Kuwait news agency that “precautionary plans” to export Kuwaiti crude if the Strait of Hormuz was closed were in place, but not yet finalised.

A partnership with Shell to rebuild Iraq's gas sector assures a role for TPAO in Iraq. "Shell is working on a master plan for the entire Iraqi gas sector. When this is approved, we're ready to start work."

Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, said he hoped the agreements could be signed in "a matter of weeks".

Jeroen van der Veer, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest international, integrated energy group, said on Monday: “We don’t think that the financial markets are leading the speculation. Probably they follow what other people fear as long-term fundamentals.

BP’s grip on its Russian oil joint venture was slipping on Monday after authorities in Moscow refused work permits to many of the company’s foreign executives in a ruling that could see all of them forced out of the country by the end of the month.

The floods have helped send the price of ethanol up 19 percent in a month. They appear to have had little effect on the price of gasoline at the pump, as ethanol represents only about 6 percent of the nation’s transport fuel today.

...this remote patch of desert could hold the key to the soaring price of gasoline around the world.

The BP chief, Tony Hayward, said it was a "myth" that financial investors buying oil futures were behind the four-year rally.

The world has changed all of a sudden.

Figures due on Tuesday from the Nationwide, the country’s biggest building society, are likely to confirm that the housing down turn has turned into a full-blown slump

The central bankers' bank renews fear of second depression, writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard

Shell's chief executive, Jeroen van der Veer, said: "We don't think that the financial markets are leading the speculation, Probably they follow what other people fear as long-term fundamentals."

Yesterday, Moscow refused work permits for about 75 staff. BP described the ruling as “utterly disgraceful”.

But the long-awaited news was soured by the revelation that five big Western oil companies had refused to sign smaller, short-term service contracts to renovate the country’s dilapidated oil infrastructure unless they were guaranteed a slice of the massive oil-pumping deal.

...some Iraqi nationalists as well as anti-war activists will be strengthened in their delusion that the real reason for the 2003 invasion was the US wish to gain control of Iraqi oil.

"We did not finalise any agreement with them because they refused to offer consultancy based on fees as they wanted a share of the oil,"...

The likes of BP, Shell, and ExxonMobil are keen to point out the increasing difficulty they have in accessing new reserves, thanks to the hardening stance of state-owned oil companies which are unconvinced that they need the help of private groups to extract the resource.