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July 3rd, 2012:

BASF, Shell told to pay $382 mln by Brazil court

FRANKFURT, July 3 | Tue Jul 3, 2012 6:49pm IST

(Reuters) – German chemicals maker BASF and oil major Shell have been told by a Brazilian court to pay $382 million into a compensation fund for former employees at a pesticides plant who said their health suffered from working there.

BASF said on Tuesday it would appeal the ruling and would continue talks with the plaintiffs and with Shell to reach an out-of-court settlement.

A Shell spokeswoman said: “Shell does not agree with this decision, but we will abide by it until appeals have been ruled on by higher courts”. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Safety failings led to closure

APPARENTLY SHELL’S “TOUCH F*** ALL” SAFETY CULTURE ON NORTH SEA PLATFORMS IS STILL IN FORCE – READ THIS ARTICLE PUBLISHED TODAY

OIL AND GAS

TUESDAY 3rd July 2012

BY ROSS DAVIDSON

A North Sea installation run by Shell was shut for nearly three months because of failings in the offshore giant’s measures to prevent a blast.

The company was served with a Health and Safety Executive prohibition after an inspection revealed its efforts to avoid a fire or explosion on the Leman Alpha platform were not up to scratch.

The firm said yesterday it had restarted production after assessing its procedures.

But one union leader said he could not believe Shell would allow standards to slip so far that the HSE issued an order to suspend operations. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Saudi- Motiva shutdown may call for Aramco FDI review

The Port Arthur refinery is one of three refineries in the Gulf of Mexico region owned by Motiva Enterprises, LLC, which is another 50-50 joint venture between Saudi Aramco and Shell Oil Company. Its expansion took 5 years and $10 billion to complete. But with the bad news of shutting down the expansion project on June 9, nine days after the opening ceremony, due to fire and unexpected extensive corrosion in the new distillation unit, the company executives declined to answer questions about the duration of the shutdown, causes of the problem, expenses of the repairs and losses of potential revenues.

MENAFN – Arab News – 03/07/2012

By 2005, Saudi Aramco had concluded that oil refining should go side by side with petrochemical production to compensate for the high operational costs or even losses of producing only refined oil products.

This major shift in Aramco’s investment planning was reflected on all but one partnerships and joint ventures.

Locally, Aramco established a joint venture company with Sumitomo Chemical, named Rabigh Refining & Petrochemical Company (PetroRabigh), to operate a 400,000-barrel capacity refinery in Rabigh city on the western coast of Saudi Arabia, which produces naphtha, kerosene, gasoline, diesel, fuel oil and many other petrochemical polymers. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

A loose cannon at Sakhalin Energy

It seems to me slightly over-the-top for the Sakhalin Energy source to compare the Russian Federation Government dealings with the Donovans to “another mistake similar to signing The Non-Aggression Pact between the USSR and Germany of 1939…”

By John Donovan

Definition of a “loose cannon” – An unpredictable or uncontrolled person who is likely to cause unintentional damage.

Over the last few days I have received many emails from a disgruntled translator, apparently a lady, who has been involved for some years in the Sakhalin 1 and 2 oil and gas projects.

The number, frequency and length of the emails has increased. An email received yesterday was several A4 pages in length. Eight more emails were received last night.

The most recent emails are all addressed to me and copied to many people in Sakhalin Energy and the ExxonMobil Sakhalin project. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Shell’s biggest regulatory challenges in Arctic Alaska may yet lie ahead

Alex DeMarban | Jul 02, 2012

Editor’s note: This is the third installment of a three-part series regarding Shell’s upcoming offshore activity in Alaska’s Arctic region. Part 1: Shell readies to roll dice on multibillion-dollar bet in Arctic. Part 2: Will offshore oil development in Alaska’s Arctic make state rich? Don’t count on it.

A chunk of ice the size of a small stadium, perhaps a rogue remnant of a distant ice island, recently ground ashore near the Northwest Alaska village of Wainwright, providing a textbook example for the kind of subsea phenomena Royal Dutch Shell must watch for as it considers where to build hundreds of miles oil pipelines.

Those pipelines won’t be built unless the Netherlands-based oil giant finds a huge cache of oil — a very real prospect, given Shell is giving itself 1 in 2 odds it could discover commercial quantities of crude off Alaska’s northern coastline. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Will offshore oil development in Alaska’s Arctic make state rich? Don’t count on it.

Alex DeMarban | Jul 01, 2012

Editor’s note: This is the second of a three-part series. Part three will focus on the pipelines Shell must build to ship offshore oil to the trans-Alaska pipeline. Read Part 1: “Shell readies to roll dice on multibillion-dollar bet in Arctic.”

Royal Dutch Shell is on the verge of starting its exploratory drilling campaign in the Arctic waters off Alaska’s shores, a move that comes after years of false-starts, litigation and other challenges. At stake for the company is a nearly $5 billion investment so far, with billions more to be spent if it strikes it big. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Brazil judge: Shell, BASF must put $382 million into workers compensation fund pending suit

SAO PAULO — A Brazilian judge has ruled that the local subsidiaries of oil company Shell and the world’s largest chemical company, BASF, must pay $382 million into a compensation fund to potentially cover more than 1,000 workers who allege they were contaminated and sickened at an agricultural chemical plant.

By Associated Press, Published: July 2

SAO PAULO — A Brazilian judge has ruled that the local subsidiaries of oil company Shell and the world’s largest chemical company, BASF, must pay $382 million into a compensation fund to potentially cover more than 1,000 workers who allege they were contaminated and sickened at an agricultural chemical plant.

BASF SA said in a Monday statement that it would appeal the ruling by judge Maria Ines Correa Targa. Shell SA said it would abide by the decision pending a higher court’s ruling on the workers’ class-action lawsuit that is before a court in the national capital, Brasilia.

Prosecutors said any money actually paid into the fund would be frozen until the workers’ damage suit is finalized — but they wanted it in the fund as a guarantee.

The companies were earlier ordered to make payments by two courts. But the case revolving around a plant in the city of Paulinia, 75 miles (120 kilometers) northwest of Sao Paulo, was appealed to a higher court.

Targa wrote in her ruling Thursday that Shell and BASF engaged in “reprehensible conduct” seeking to “circumvent their obligation.” read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.