By MAARTEN VAN TARTWIJK: Sept. 2, 2015 

AMSTERDAM—A Dutch court ruled Wednesday that Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Exxon Mobil Corp must compensate homeowners for a drop in house prices caused by earthquakes linked to production at the Groningen gas field.

The ruling could open the door to a wave of compensation claims against the energy companies, which operate the field through a joint-venture called the Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij BV, or NAM.

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Shell, Exxon ordered to pay Groningen earthquake compensation

Sep 2 2015, 12:33 ET | By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor read more

Nils Pratley: Wednesday 2 September 2015 

As its £55bn purchase moves closer, falling oil prices mean Shell’s offer is looking less compelling than it did when first announced read more

• The actress broke a legal injunction aimed at stopping Greenpeace activists from crossing a line drawn around the South Bank building 
• She stuck a giant paw print on the offices with the names of opponents of drilling in the Arctic
• Shell has been given permission by the US government to drill for oil and gas in Arctic waters off Alaska 
• Greenpeace a giant model polar bear and placed it outside Shell’s HQ
• The envoronmentalists aim to keep it there for 27 days, which will mark the end of the window for drilling in the Arctic

By ANTHONY JOSEPH FOR MAILONLINE: 2 September 2015

Emma Thompson and a roaring giant model polar bear led the protests against Shell’s plans to drill in the Arctic outside its London headquarters.

The actress broke a legal injunction, aimed at stopping Greenpeace activists from crossing a line drawn around the South Bank building, to stick a giant paw print on the offices with the names of opponents of drilling in the Arctic.

The paw carries thousands of names which make up some of the seven million people worldwide, including 600,000 signatures from the UK, who have pledged support to save the Arctic from drilling for oil and gas. read more

Emma Thompson joins Arctic drilling protest against Shell in London

Seven million people have joined the Arctic movement by signing up at savethearctic.org/ArcticRoar. More than 600,000 from the UK.

02 Sept 2015

Acclaimed British actress and screenwriter Emma Thompson has just announced she will be joining an act of mass defiance against a Shell legal injunction later today, in protest against the company’s Arctic oil drilling.

Speaking after performing a self-penned poem in front of the oil giant’s HQ, Ms Thompson told the press she is going to be the first of scores of people to break a legal injunction banning Greenpeace UK staff and activists from crossing a line drawn around the Shell building on the South Bank. read more

THE HAGUE, September 2, 2015 /PRNewswire/ —

NOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN OR INTO ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OF SUCH JURISDICTION 

Royal Dutch Shell plc (“Shell”) (NYSE: RDS.A) (NYSE: RDS.B) today announced that its recommended combination with BG Group plc (“BG”) has received unconditional merger clearance from the European Commission.  Together with the previously announced pre-conditional clearance in Brazil, two of the five pre-conditions to the combination have now been satisfied.   read more

By REUTERS SEPT. 2, 2015

AMSTERDAM — A court in the Netherlands ruled on Wednesday that a natural gas company, a joint venture by Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil, must compensate homeowners for declines in the value of their properties because of earthquakes linked to production at the Groningen field.

The ruling by the court in Assen could result in billions of euros of claims against the venture, known as NAM. Hundreds of thousands of homes and buildings lie in the affected area, which covers wide parts of the northern Netherlands. read more

Wed Sep 2, 2015

BG Group Plc (BG.L) said the European Union’s antitrust regulators had approved Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s (RDSa.L) $70 billion takeover bid for the oil and gas producer.

The deal, which will help Shell compete better with world No. 1 oil major ExxonMobil (XOM.N), has already received the green light from regulators in the United States, Brazil and South Korea.

BG and Shell still require approvals from Australia’s anti-trust and foreign investment bodies and clearance from the anti-trust authority in China. read more

Rose Troup Buchanan: Wednesday 02 September 2015

Greenpeace campaigners, including actress Emma Thompson, installed an inflatable polar bear the size of a double-decker bus outside Shell’s London headquarters to demonstrate against the company’s drilling in the Arctic on Wednesday.

The sixty-odd activists, six of who are attached to the three-tonne bear named Aurora, moved into place at around 4am this morning. The bear will “roar” throughout the morning.

Greenpeace is demanding Shell halt drilling in Arctic, which the environmental group says is placing the area at extreme risk of an oil spill. Researchers claim the company’s drilling is incompatible with limiting global warming to no more than two degrees above pre-industrial levels. read more

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD SEPT. 1, 2015

A version of this editorial appears in print on September 2, 2015, on page A24 of the New York edition

A presidential trip has enormous power to focus attention on a place and an issue, and President Obama’s trip to Alaska has been minutely choreographed with visits to glaciers, threatened Inuit villages and the like to provide a stunning and alarming context to his message on the urgent need to address climate change.

Four times in a 24-minute speech in Anchorage he declared that “we’re not acting fast enough,” a message especially true in the countdown to December’s United Nations climate conference in Paris. This will be the most ambitious effort by the world’s nations to produce an equitable deal on reducing greenhouse gases, and the United States, as the world’s second-largest emitter of carbon gases (after China), must be at the forefront of the effort. read more

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Sep 2, 2015, 12:31 AM ET

By DAN JOLING Associated Press

The president of Shell Oil Co. said Tuesday exploratory drilling off Alaska’s northwest coast is going well despite stormy weather last week that caused the company to halt operations for a few days.

And in an interview with The Associated Press Marvin Odum said he expects further protests against the company’s plans for Arctic drilling like the ones in Seattle and Portland where activists in kayaks tried to block Shell vessels. read more

State leader sees the oil era ending, but development still vital to Alaska’s economy.

By Daniel J. Graeber     |   Sept. 1, 2015 

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Sept. 1 (UPI) — Alaska needs to exploit its vast natural resources, but do so in a way that heeds the growing threats of climate changes, the state’s lieutenant governor said.

President Barack Obama is in Alaska touting the dual agenda of taking the steps needed to slow the impacts of climate change while ensuring state revenue from the oil and gas industry remains durable. Obama’s plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions while at the same time signing off on arctic drilling permits for Royal Dutch Shell has earned both praise and condemnation. read more