Reuters article published by ArabNews.com Monday 7 July 2014
DUBAI: Royal Dutch Shell is ending investments in a gas development project in Saudi Arabia, complicating the top oil exporter’s efforts to exploit its huge gas reserves.
The search for gas has been a priority for Saudi Arabia as it struggles to keep pace with rapidly rising domestic demand.
But the emergence of the shale gas industry has opened up more lucrative opportunities for energy companies elsewhere.
“Shell has decided to end further investment in the Kidan development,” it said in a e-mailed statement.
“This was a difficult decision but Shell remains committed to the Kingdom and we are keen to grow our investments, both in upstream and downstream.”
Shell did not give a reason for the decision to shelve the joint venture in the Kidan area of the Empty Quarter, the sea of sand dunes that cover south-east Saudi Arabia.
Last year, industry sources said the company was set to end investments in the venture due to disagreements with the government over terms.
At least three foreign firms — Italy’s, Spain’s Repsol and France’s Total — have already abandoned the search for commercially viable gas deposits in that part of Saudi Arabia.
Shell has stuck it out longer in its South Rub Al-Khali Co. (SRAK) project with Saudi Aramco after finding small quantities of gas.
Kidan is rich in sour gas and is near the 750,000 barrels per day (bpd) Shaybah oilfield, one of the biggest in the country. Sour gas has high levels of potentially deadly hydrogen sulphide and therefore is tougher to produce than conventional gas reserves.
The relatively high cost of developing challenging deposits in a country where gas sales prices are fixed at a fraction of probable production costs were possible reasons to discourage Shell too, industry sources familiar with the matter told Reuters last year.
Saudi Arabia, which holds the world’s fifth largest proven reserves of gas, expects domestic demand for natural gas — which it uses mainly for power generation — to almost double by 2030 from 2011 levels of 3.5 trillion cubic feet per year.
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.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
