Lobbyists bid to turn RBS, BP and Shell annual meetings into green referendums

Posting on Shell Blog on Feb 27th, 2010 at 10:19 am by “guest1”, a regular contributor.

What a load of nonsense in the Forbes article. Shell and IBM to team up etc. We HAD all the expertise but that was removed by the HR and FN idiots that run Shell now. What does IBM know about oil and gasfields? This surely looks like another project, doomed to fail, whereby IBM is going to suck a lot of money out of Shell. Presumably Brinded bought a lot of stock in IBM. RDS appears more and more like an overweight blob, unable to move, being sucked out by the service industry and governments and waiting to die. The sooner someone takes over RDS, splits it up and gets on with the business, the better. The fact they accept all the abuse by the Donovans and are unable and unwilling to defend themselves speaks volumes. If RDS cannot even handle two old codgers with a website, how will they handle real competition???? read more

Associated Press, 02.26.10, 12:52 PM EST

HOUSTON — Royal Dutch Shell PLC and IBM Corp. are teaming up to research how to extend the life of oil and natural gas fields.

IBM‘s analytic and simulation experience will be melded with Shell’s subsurface and reservoir expertise to create a more efficient and accurate picture of how to tap the reserves, the companies said.

The two companies will reformulate and automate the task of reconciling different sets of data, including flow rates and pressure, time-lapse seismic data from subsurface rock formations and sound wave data from between wells. read more

Tar sands are shaping up to be the thorn in BP (BP-) and Shell's (RDSB) sides as concerns over potential expense prove almost as rife as worries over the environmental impact.

BAGHDAD, Feb 26 (Reuters) – Talks between Iraq and Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) on a natural gas deal near the southern oil hub of Basra are taking longer than expected but still ongoing, a senior Iraqi oil official said on Friday.

“The heads of agreement will be extended and the project will be presented to the next government,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

The Iraqi government has been working to finalize the joint venture between its South Gas Company, Shell and Mitsubishi (8058.T). The deal would capture huge amounts of gas for domestic use or export, which is currently wasted by being flared at the oil fields. read more

Adeola Yusuf: 25 February 2010

Lagos — Federal Government came down hard on Royal Dutch Shell on Wednesday over its opposition to the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), insisting that the oil major was wrong in its assessment that the bill would block investment.

Ann Pickard, outgoing Regional Executive Vice President, Shell Exploration and Production, Africa, had on Tuesday described the PIB as “a cumbersome document that lacks insight into the very basics of our industry.”

While forecasting a bleak future for the oil and gas industry post-PIB, Pickard, during a public lecture, also criticised the fiscal provisions of the proposed law which she described as the “harshest in the world”. read more

REUTERS

Shell oil sands costs rise again, partner says

* Athabasca oil sands expansion’s costs rise to $14.3 bln

CALGARY, Alberta, Feb 25 (Reuters) – The cost of a 100,000-barrel-per-day expansion of Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s (RDSa.L) Athabasca oil sands project has climbed to $14.3 billion, Chevron Corp (CVX.N), one of its partners, said in a filing.

The new estimate amounts to $600 million more than the estimate provided by Chevron a year earlier.

Chevron, which hold a 20 percent stake in the oil sands mining and upgrading project, said the expansion will boost output to 255,000 barrels per day.

The cost of completing the project has steadily climbed well beyond Shell 2006 estimate of between C$10 billion and C$12.8 billion ($9.4 billion to $12 billion). Just a year ago, Chevron pegged the cost of the project at $13.7 billion. read more

We should not give the impression that we are over-concerned with the D’s website, or that management spends a lot of time worrying about it. (Shell)

By John Donovan

I am still studying the Shell internal documents and communications the company was recently obliged to supply to me in accordance with an application under the Data Protection Act.

It is interesting to note the way events in our unusual relationship with Shell have been spun by Shell lawyers, depending on who is being given the information.

Richard Wiseman (right) is now the Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. We crossed swords with him many times during the seven separate court actions we brought against the oil giant, which settled ALL of these claims, involving breach of confidence, breach of contract and libel.
read more

By Tom Burgis in Abuja

Published: February 24 2010 16:13 | Last updated: February 24 2010 16:13

Nigeria on Wednesday hit back at claims by Royal Dutch Shell and other foreign groups that planned reforms threaten $50bn of investment and the country’s status as Africa’s biggest energy producer. read more

Comments from our sources on recent statements about Shell’s operations in Angola made by it’s Executive VP for sub-Saharan Africa, Ann Pickard (Right).

Shell’s exit from Angola was not a success story and it throws a slightly different light on Ann Pickard’s remarks in Nigeria.

Her comment about Angola’s production exceeding that of Nigeria sounds like an attack on Bichsel et al who pulled Shell out of Angola a few years ago. It is Brinded and (especially) Bichsel who threw the Angola opportunity away. read more

LONDON (Dow Jones)--The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate downgraded total reserves at Royal Dutch Shell PLC's (RDSA) Ormen Lange gas field by around a quarter Wednesday.

The company has agreed terms for a ten-year lease with Canary Wharf on 200,000 sq ft of Docklands offices

February 24, 2010

A view of the London Eye, located along the Thames River at County Hall, is seen across from the Shell Oil Centre building.

Carl Mortished, World Business Editor

Staff at Royal Dutch Shell will be moved next year from the Shell Centre at Waterloo to Canary Wharf as part of a huge redevelopment of the oil company’s historic London headquarters.

The company has agreed terms for a ten-year lease with Canary Wharf on 200,000 sq ft of Docklands offices at 40 Bank Street, a building close to the tower at One Canada Square. read more

DENVER (AP) — Shell Oil Co. said Tuesday it is abandoning its quest for water rights from a northwest Colorado river to develop oil shale production, citing delays in the project due to the global economic downturn.

As a result of Shell’s actions, Colorado residents can breathe a little easier and the Yampa River lives to flow another year. ”

ABUJA, Nigeria -- Nigeria's acting president on Monday called for the passage of a bill that analysts say would sharply reduce the profits of foreign oil companies.Acting President Goodluck Jonathan said the Petroleum Industry Bill before lawmakers would allow more oil money to return to Nigeria's people. The bill would also require the government-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., to seek profits like a private business and not rely on government subsidies.

ABUJA, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Nigeria's proposed oil industry reforms could drive away $50 billion in investment if passed in their current form and make a bad situation for the sector even worse, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) said on Tuesday.

By Tom Burgis in Abuja

Published: February 23 2010 12:52

Royal Dutch Shell’s outgoing Africa chief on Tuesday delivered a blistering attack on Nigeria’s management of its vast oil and gas reserves but scotched rumours that the Anglo-Dutch group was looking to leave the country.

Echoing industry claims that planned legislation could deal a killer blow to investment in the fast-expanding deepwater sector, Ann Pickard, whose four-and-a-half-year tenure as Shell’s Africa boss ends in March, warned the continent’s biggest energy producer that it risked being eclipsed by its sub-Saharan African rivals. read more

By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany and Fred Pals

Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which is seeking to focus on exploration and production, may sell its liquefied petroleum gas distribution unit, four people with knowledge of the plan said.

Shell hired Credit Suisse Group AG to manage a sale of the division, which is valued at more than 800 million euros ($1.1 billion), said three of the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. The company sent information last week to potential bidders including private equity firms, they said. Rainer Winzenried, a spokesman for The Hague-based Shell, declined to comment. read more

Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:55am GMT

ABUJA, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Angola’s offshore oil production is likely to be double that of Nigeria by 2020, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) said on Tuesday.

The two countries rival each other as Africa’s biggest oil producer, but oil majors say Nigeria risks losing out if changes to its terms make it less profitable to develop deep water reserves.

“By 2020, Angola’s offshore production is likely to be double that of Nigeria,” Shell’s Executive Vice President for sub-Saharan Africa, Ann Pickard, told an industry conference in Abuja. read more

Financial Times

February 22, 2010 7:56pm

by Ed Crooks

One possible reason for that is that the deal will restrict competition. Anti-trust authorities will undoubtedly take an interest, especially in the US, where the two companies paid a $14.6m fine a decade ago for anti-trust violations. The deal will further extend Schlumberger’s dominance of the global oil services business, creating a group with more employees than ExxonMobil, BP or Royal Dutch Shell. read more

Following on its international acquisitions in steel and outsourcing in recent years, Essar is in talks with Shell to pay as much as $1 billion for three oil refineries in the U.K. and Germany, people close to the situation say. Last year, the company bought out the 50% stake that Shell, BP PLC and Chevron Corp. owned in a major refinery in Kenya.

“One of the principles underlying all of our work on the Web has been that we should be true to the spirit of New Shell. This means that we are seen to be open, listening, interested in the views of others…”: SHELL CENSOR – MARCH 1999

Shell Internet Censorship

By John Donovan

Printed below is a Shell internal email sent in March 1999. Shell was obliged to supply it to us in accordance with an application we made under the UK Data Protection Act. The “X’s” denote sections redacted (censored) by Shell, which includes the name of its author and apparently an extensive circulation list – 4 lines deep.
read more

CIVILSOCIETY.CO.UK

Vibeka Mair | 22 Feb 2010

Campaigning charities FairPensions and WWF have joined a coalition which is lobbying oil giants BP and Royal Dutch Shell over their investments in environmentally controversial oil sands developments.

The coalition, which also includes Unison, Greenpeace and the Co-operative banking group, is asking pension scheme members to email their fund managers to push them to support shareholder resolutions against oil sand projects that are due to be voted on at BP and Shell’s annual general meetings this spring. read more

When the recession hit, the major companies streamlined, cut costs and became more efficient, giving them a shot at a profit comeback

By BRETT CLANTON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Feb. 21, 2010, 4:32PM

Big Oil has had a little less swagger in its step of late, humbled by a global recession that halted a multi-year run of soaring profits and exposed weaknesses that had been less acute when times were good.

International giants like Exxon Mobil and BP have suffered the effects of the economic downturn, which brought the first significant decrease in global energy demand in nearly three decades, created wild gyrations in oil and natural gas prices and wreaked particular havoc on the oil refining business. read more

Printed below is an article by Tony Allwright, a retired Irish Shell EP manager. It is published on his blog. It was brought to our attention by a Shell insider who shares the views expressed and believes the article deserves wider publication.

By Tony Allwright

We are all familiar with elderly people sometimes being a bit forgetful.  This is no surprise, for just as the body gets weak over time, so can the brain.

What is surprising, however, is that organizations can likewise become forgetful and this can be very costly.  The memory of an organization is held in two ways: in its paper and electronic records and in the minds of its employees, however the latter are also relied upon to access the former. read more

February 21, 2010, 07:10 PM EST

By Eduard Gismatullin and Marianne Stigset

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc may falter in their campaigns to save billions in oil and gas project costs as a resurgence in drilling and demand for engineers threaten to revive inflation in the industry.

Crude prices doubled in the past year, prompting producers to resume projects put on hold during the recession. Oil and gas industry spending will rise 11 percent this year to $439 billion, according to Barclays Capital. read more

Financial Times

Review by Ed Crooks

Published: February 22 2010 05:00 | Last updated: February 22 2010 05:00

Beyond Business: An Inspirational Memoir from a Visionary Leader
By John Browne
Weidenfeld & Nicolson £20, 336 pages
FT Bookshop price: £16 read more

Financial Times

By Brian Groom, Business and Employment Editor

Published: February 21 2010 23:03

A two-tier market is emerging in executive pay in the UK’s largest listed companies, with those that have come strongly through the recession able to offer better remuneration than their rivals, according to new research.

Royal Dutch Shell, ranked ninth in 2007-08 with £11.4m, rose to third last year with £15.3m. But the company is now freezing executive directors’ salaries for a year as part of a new pay structure after an investors’ revolt. read more

“Risk Awareness has gone up; risk tolerance has gone down,” said Jon Unwin, vice president of safety, environment and sustainable development for Shell Upstream Americas' deep-water unit. Today, Shell, Chevron and others talk about cutting offshore incidents to zero.

REUTERS

Aref Mohammed
BASRA, Iraq

Sat Feb 20, 2010 7:56am EST

BASRA, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq has no further plans to use foreign firms to develop its oilfields beyond ones auctioned off last year, the country’s prime minister said on Saturday, ahead of a national election next month.

Analysts say that foreign companies may have accepted the tough terms in oilfield development contracts awarded in two rounds last year partly to secure an initial foothold in Iraq, with a view to possible access to other untapped reserves later. read more

SAN BERNARDINO SUN

REDLANDS – City attorneys entered into a jury trial in early February in an attempt to get Shell Oil Company to clean up a mess the city says Shell made. The city launched a lawsuit against Shell in 2004 over contaminated ground water. The lawsuit began a jury trial Feb. 4.

“The city brought the lawsuit to be proactive,” said Chris Diggs, the city’s water resources manager. “We want to ensure the sufficient supply of safe drinking water.”

Shell manufactured the chemical product D-D that farmers injected into the soil to kill nematodes – tiny worms that can attack root systems and kill crops. The use of D-D is common by farmers, but Diggs said Shell included an uncommon – and unnecessary – chemical. read more

News articles generated by royaldutchshellplc.com and its Shell insider sources in 2009

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Arrow Energy Ltd., Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s coal-seam gas partner in Australia, won government approval to build a pipeline to the proposed Fisherman’s Landing liquefied natural gas plant in the state of Queensland.

By Alexis Xydias

Feb. 19 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc shares are a “trading buy” before the company uptades investors on its strategy on March 16, analysts at Credit Suisse Group AG wrote in a report today.

“We argue that the market remains keen to call the ‘turn’ in Shell after seven years of production decline and operational struggles, and that the annual strategy update conducted by Chief Executive Officer Voser in his sophomore year in charge will, rightly or wrongly, be viewed as a catalyst in this turnaround process,” the note said. read more

The Irish Times – Thursday, February 18, 2010

LORNA SIGGINS Marine Correspondent

SHELL EP Ireland has confirmed that work on several key aspects of the Corrib gas project will not now take place this year.

The company told The Irish Times yesterday that the decision was taken for “operational and community reasons”.

It will undertake further work on the offshore pipeline this year, but intends to take an “integrated approach” to the offshore/onshore dimension next year, when it hopes that “permitting processes” will be “further advanced”. read more

TNK-BP and BP declined to comment yesterday on the decision from RosPrirodNadzor, which was reminiscent of the manouvering by Russian agencies that resulted in Shell losing control of its Sakhalin project in the Russian Far East in 2006.

The Press and Journal

Shell to re-tender main offshore maintenance, modification and projects deal ‘in near future’

By Ian Forsyth

Thursday 18 February 2010

Shell UK is looking to cut the cost of a major contract, currently carried out by around 1,000 workers.

The company said yesterday it would re-tender its main offshore maintenance, modification and projects deal in the near future.

The contract, which started in 2002, covers all Shell-operated assets in the central North Sea plus the Brent field in the northern North Sea. The work is carried out at the moment by Sigma 3, whose members are Wood Group, AMEC and PSN. read more

Financial Times

By Robin Harding, Louise Lucas, and Paul Betts

Published: February 17 2010 00:12

Let them eat cake. Following last year’s shareholder revolt at Royal Dutch Shell, the oil major has recalibrated executive pay. Basic salaries will be frozen for 18 months, to January 2011.

Executives can put up to half their annual bonus into the plan, half of which in turn will be matched at varying levels by Shell if it ranks in the top three. If the oil group ranks first among its peers, executives will receive double those shares – in short, half their annual bonus again. The underpinning concept, meantime, of ranking against a small peer group – over time, everyone gets a look-in at the top – remains flawed. read more

Last November, something interesting happened. It turned out that the headbangers of the Erris peninsula, the “extremists” who have been blocking the completion of Shell’s Corrib Gas project, were neither crazy nor extreme. An Bord Pleanála wrote to Shell’s planners, rejecting the proposed route for half of the gas pipeline, in terms that largely vindicated the protesters.

By Gordon Deegan

Wednesday February 17 2010

Shell Ireland has received a fresh €80m cash injection to finish works to allow gas to be taken from the Corrib gas field.

The boost to Shell E&P Ireland from its parent company is confirmed in documents lodged with the Companies’ Office.

The cash injection represents a 23pc increase in the company’s share capital to €424m.

A Shell spokesman yesterday confirmed the equity “is toward the operational expenses in relation to the ongoing development of the Corrib project”. read more

Daily Telegraph

Royal Dutch Shell has frozen the pay of its top executive directors and imposed new rules on bonuses, as it tries to appease investor anger over excessive remuneration.

By Rowena Mason, City Reporter (Energy)
Published: 9:11AM GMT 16 Feb 2010

Last year, Shell’s board suffered an embarrassing shareholder revolt over their pay packages, which awarded bonuses to executives who had failed to hit their targets.

Since then, the company has been consulting with major shareholders about more appropriate remuneration policies.

In a letter to investors , Hans Wijers, chairman of the remuneration committee, said the move would “better align remuneration policy with shareholder interests and long-term strategy”. read more

• Shell responds to last May’s shareholder revolt over pay

• Salaries frozen until 2011, with pledge on bonuses and targets

Zoe Wood
Tuesday 16 February 2010 10.36 GMT

Shell has frozen salaries after a row with shareholders. Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images

Royal Dutch Shell has today bowed to pressure from major investors by announcing a major overhaul of executive pay. It will freeze the salaries of top directors and set new limits on bonuses.

The oil group has been in talks with major shareholders since the embarrassing revolt at last May’s annual meeting when 60% voted against a pay deal that included discretionary bonuses for top directors who had failed to hit targets. read more

The Times
February 17, 2010

Robin Pagnamenta and Robert Lindsay

Royal Dutch Shell said that it would freeze the salaries of its top directors and reform a generous bonus scheme as the oil giant moved to soothe shareholders’ anger over excessive boardroom pay before its annual meeting.

In a letter to investors, Hans Wijers, the new chairman of the Anglo-Dutch company’s remuneration committee, said that the changes were being made after extensive talks with shareholders, 60 per cent of whom voted down the executive pay plans at a stormy annual meeting last year. read more

Financial Times

By Sheila McNulty in Houston and Anna Fifield in Washington

Published: February 16 2010 20:48

BP, Europe’s biggest oil company, has pulled out of the leading business group lobbying for curbs on US greenhouse gas emissions, a sign of fragmentation in the campaign for climate and energy legislation. read more

THE NEW YORK TIMES

Energy companies are on the prowl again.

After a two-year slowdown in mergers and acquisitions in the industry, companies are once again looking for ways to use their checkbooks to expand their reserves, buy new technology or snap up promising oil and gas fields.

Unlike the round of mergers that created today’s behemoths in the late 1990s, the current round is not expected to form new giant companies like Exxon Mobil or ConocoPhillips. This time, companies are focused on buying fast-growing small companies, or on acquisitions that expand their reserves in an era when it is hard for them to find new places to drill. read more

ITPRO

A document released with the stolen database suggests Shell could face more breaches.

By Richard Thurston, 16 Feb 2010 at 15:13

A lengthy document sent by allegedly disillusioned Shell employees to leading environmental and human rights activists sought to launch a corporate revolution at the oil giant.

The document, which was given to IT PRO, was attached to a leaked database containing contact details of nearly every Shell employee. It was sent by 116 disillusioned full-time employees in the US, the UK and the Netherlands to Greenpeace and other campaign groups active in Nigeria.

The document contained information on how the contact database could be used change the way Shell operates, by influencing employees, the public, top institutional investors and non-governmental organisations. read more

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

FEBRUARY 16, 2010

By JAMES HERRON

LONDON—Royal Dutch Shell PLC on Tuesday proposed changes to the way it pays its executive directors in an attempt to assuage concerns that led shareholders to reject its remuneration package last year.

The proposals constitute a significant step toward greater pay restraint at one of the world’s largest companies at a time when excessive awards to executives, particularly at banks, are a political hot potato.

The salaries of Shell Chief Executive Peter Voser and Finance Chief Simon Henry will be 20% lower than those paid to their predecessors and will be frozen from July 2009 until January next year, according to proposals outlined in a letter from the chairman of Shell’s remuneration committee, Hans Wijers. read more

REUTERS

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) said it was overhauling its pay practices for top management, including a pay freeze for its chief executive, Peter Voser, and a limit on bonuses, after a shareholder revolt last year.

The head of Shell’s remuneration committee said salaries for Voser and Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry, which are 20 percent lower than their predecessors’, were being frozen until 2011.

Directors will not, this year, be allowed to award management bonuses if they fail to meet pre-agreed targets. read more

16.02.10

Shell today bowed to shareholder anger over its senior staff pay by announcing it was freezing the salaries of its three top directors this year.

Chief executive Peter Voser and chief financial officer Simon Henry, whose salaries are 20 per cent lower than previous pay for their positions, will not get a rise until 2011. The international exploration boss, Malcolm Brinded, will also be affected by the freeze.

Shell also said it was preventing bonuses from rising this year and told shareholders of its decision. Last May, shareholders owning almost 60 per cent of the business voted against directors’ pay deals. read more