MONDAY 21 December 2011: Pressure is mounting on the Federal Government and its agencies to compel telecom firms like giant MTN, GLO, Airtel, Etisalat and oil producing firms like Shell and Exxon Mobil, to list their shares on the Nigerian Stock Exchange, following the clamour to broaden access to their ownership, Business Day has learnt.

From AFRICA ENERGY INTELLIGENCE 24 AUGUST 2011

After ten years of maneuvering and court cases, Shell ended up by offering to buy Malabu Oil & Gas’ offshore block OPL 245 (see our report in AE1 656). The stakes in the game were indeed high. lying alongside Total’s Akpo block, the acreage could contain up to 9.23 billion barrels. Amid rising calls for local ownership of Nigeria’s oil resources, the transfer of the country’s most promising license to a Western major could prove politically dangerous to the new government of president Goodluck Jonathan. read more

By MARK LANDLER and ALAN COWELL

A version of this article appeared in print on November 19, 2011, on page A8 of the New York edition.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration plans to impose a new round of sanctions against Iran’s petrochemical industry, a Western official briefed on the plans said Friday, less than two weeks after a United Nations report published evidence that the Iranian government was working on a nuclear weapon.

The sanctions, expected to be announced on Monday, build on existing measures against Iran’s oil and gas industry, which aim to curb foreign investment in refineries or other facilities. European nations are expected to announce similar measures when their leaders meet later in the week, the official said. read more

Hélène Michaud: 18 November 2011

Cleaning up extensive oil pollution in the Niger Delta is the primary responsibility of the Nigerian government, Dutch Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal told a parliamentary commission on Thursday.

He was supported by the Deputy Minister of Economic Affairs, Henk Bleker, who pointed out that the Nigerian government, like all governments, is responsible for the well-being of its population. On top of that the Nigerian state is the majority shareholder in the SPDC joint venture of oil companies that includes Royal Dutch Shell, Bleker added. read more

The big question is: Can Shell keep riding this tiger? What prevents PetroChina’s parent, CNPC, from exploiting the Western producer for what it wants and then tossing it aside or perhaps even taking it over?

November 18, 2011 at 1:56 pm by Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A 2008 lease sale in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast remains legally flawed and should be cancelled, Alaska Native and environmental groups say in a court filing.

Earthjustice attorney Erik Grafe said Thursday the sale does did not follow federal environmental law despite Interior Secretary Ken Salazar’s conclusion last month that shortcomings identified by a federal judge had been addressed. Top federal government scientists acknowledge gaps in what is known of basic features of the Arctic Ocean, Grafe said, such as areas important to bowhead and beluga whales, walrus, seals, birds and fish. read more

English.news.cn 2011-11-18 11:34:39

The well is located in the Tobago Field 200 miles (322 kms) southwest of Houston in the ultra-deep water of the Gulf of Mexico, the company said in a written announcement.

Shell, the operator, has a 32.5 percent ownership stake in the Tobago Field, while Chevron has a 57.5 percent share and Nexen 10 percent.

Tobago breaks the world water depth record for subsea oil production, previous held by Shell’s Silvertip field, at 9,356 feet (2852 meters) of water, Shell said. read more

The Associated Press November 17, 2011, 11:59AM ET

ANCHORAGE, Alaska

The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management has opened public comment periods for Shell Oil’s drilling exploration plan in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast.

BOEM announced Wednesday that the plan by Shell Gulf of Mexico, Inc. and its supporting documentation were sufficient for the agency to begin a full analysis.

The agency by law has 30 days to analyze and evaluate the exploration plan.

Shell has proposed wells 70 miles off the coast in about 140 feet of water starting next year. The company’s drill ship would be accompanied by support vessels. read more

November 18, 2011, 6:28 AM EST

By Aydan Eksin

Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — An oil and gas exploration agreement Turkey will sign with Royal Dutch Shell Plc next week is not “a political move”, Turkey’s Energy Minister Taner Yildiz said.

The accord for exploration on land and in sea, including the Mediterranean, is planned to be signed on Nov. 23 or Nov. 24, Yildiz said in televised comments in Istanbul today.

–Editor:

To contact the reporter on this story: Aydan Eksin in Istanbul at [email protected] read more

Nov 17 2011, 9:00 AM ET

International groups have long been using a 1789 tort to sue corporations for acts on foreign soil. An upcoming Supreme Court case might put an end to that.

REUTERS

This past October, a 15-year legal battle between Royal Dutch Petroleum and a Nigerian political movement finally went before the Supreme Court — of the United States, that is. On October 17, the Court decided to hear a lawsuit filed by Esther Kiobel, whose husband, Dr. Barinem Kiobel, was one of nine activists from the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People hanged by Sana Abacha’s military government on November 10, 1995. Kiobel alleges Shell was partly responsible for her husband’s death, and for other human rights violations committed in the oil-rich Ogoniland region. read more

By Eduard Gismatullin – Nov 17, 2011 9:15 AM GMT

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and BP Plc (BP/) will benefit from a plan to reverse the direction of the Seaway pipeline in the U.S. and pump crude to the Gulf of Mexico coast, RBC Capital Markets said.

Shell and BP will each pump about 13 percent of their total oil output in North America through the pipeline, said Peter Hutton, a London-based analyst at RBC. The reversal will ease the glut of West Texas Intermediate oil at the U.S. benchmark’s delivery hub at Cushing, Oklahoma, and narrow the spread with Brent oil. That will boost adjusted earnings for Shell and BP by 3.2 percent and 3 percent respectively, Hutton said. read more

By Dan Springer FoxNews.com: Published November 16, 2011

An estimated 27 billion barrels of oil are sitting just off the northern coast of Alaska in waters controlled by the United States, but despite spending more than five years and $4 billion, Shell Oil Company still can’t get to it.

The company was planning to announce this week plans to move ahead with drilling three test wells in the Beaufort and Chukchi Seas next summer, but it’s still lacking several permits and a roadmap of how to get them. read more

The Anglo-Dutch energy giant and state-owned PetroChina have teamed up to get gas out of the ground in China—and to tap new sources of energy worldwide

November 16, 2011, 11:10 PM EST

By Stanley Reed and Dexter Roberts

The hilltop city of Yulin, about 500 miles southwest of Beijing, was once a strong point in the defensive wall that protected the Chinese heartland from the tribes to the north. An ancient fortress survives in the old part of the city, the Chinese characters for “Suppress the Barbarians” carved over its gate. Today, Yulin’s a boomtown in the oil- and gas-rich Ordos Basin. In the streets not far from the fortress walls, where men sell roasted goat heads from carts, young boys hand out brochures for apartment towers built for newly wealthy oil workers and coal miners. If fresh characters were carved into the old fortress gates now, they might say “Resource Barbarians Welcome!” Or they might simply be a pair of corporate logos: one for PetroChina (PTR), the publicly traded wing of CNPC, China’s largest oil company, and a second for its foreign partner, Royal Dutch Shell, the second-largest Western oil company. read more

LONDON | Wed Nov 16, 2011 7:39pm EST

Nov 17 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc has pulled out of oil-development talks with the Kurdistan regional government in an effort to protect lucrative investments in southern Iraq, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.

The newspaper cited people familiar with the discussions as saying Baghdad is seeking to impose a de facto ban on companies operating in Kurdistan, a semi-autonomous region in northern Iraq.

Over recent days Iraqi government officials have threatened to cancel an existing oil field contract with Exxon Mobil Corp and on that basis, Shell’s move is precautionary to protect a potential $17 billion natural gas deal, according to the FT’s sources. read more

After 11 years and $39 billion of investment, Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and their partners have yet to sell a drop of oil from what was touted as the world’s biggest discovery in four decades.

FINANCIAL TIMES

November 16, 2011 10:05 pm

By Sylvia Pfeifer and Javier Blas in Erbil, northern Iraq

Royal Dutch Shell has pulled out of oil-development talks with the Kurdistan regional government in an effort to protect lucrative investments in southern Iraq, including a potential $17bn natural gas deal.

FULL FT ARTICLE

Honeywell, Siemens, Others Sued Over Robotics Patents

By Megan Leonhardt

Law360, New York (November 16, 2011, 5:07 PM ET) — A Washington state-based software provider on Tuesday targeted Honeywell International Inc., Siemens Corp., oil refinery operator Motiva Enterprises LLC and others in three separate patent infringement suits over integrated software used to control robotic manufacturing machines.