THE SUN

OPL 245 Saga: Anti-corruption groups applaud President’s stance

27 MAY 2021

By Henry Uche

Human & Environmental Development Agenda, HEDA, Re: Common, Corner House and Global Witness have applauded President Buhari’s insistence that the oil field could not be developed until corruption cases had concluded.

HEDA’s Chairman, Olarenwaju Suraj in a statement revealed that the license for Nigeria’s offshore OPL 245 oil block has expired, as Eni confirmed in response to questions at their 2021 annual general meeting. The expiry of the license returns control of the oil field to the Nigerian Government. read more

Ron Bousso: APRIL 24, 2019

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell is in talks to buy BP’s stake in the Shearwater oil and gas field in the British North Sea for around $250 million, three industry sources told Reuters. Shell, the field’s operator, announced plans last year to expand a gas hub around Shearwater, including the construction of a new pipeline.

Shell has a 28 percent stake in Shearwater, BP holds 27.5 percent and Exxon Mobil has the remaining 44.5 percent. read more

BY DR. BENNY PEISER, GWPF ON MARCH 27, 2017

Hurricane Energy has made a further oil discovery west of the Shetland Islands days after Royal Dutch Shell and BP won exploration licences in an area the UK is counting on to breathe new life into its struggling oil and gas industry. The latest find adds to a series of successful wells drilled by Hurricane in a geological formation that analysts say looks likely to be the biggest new oil discovery beneath UK waters this century.

FULL ARTICLE

The oil and gas industry risks losing public support if progress is not made in the transition to cleaner energy, Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said on Thursday.

The world’s second largest publicly-traded oil company plans to increase its investment in renewable energy to $1 billion a year by the end of the decade, van Beurden said, although it is still a small part of its total annual spending of $25 billion.

The CEO said that the transition to a low carbon energy system will take decades and government policies including putting a price on carbon emissions will be essential to phase out the most polluting sources of energy such as coal and oil. read more

By Ron Bousso | LONDON

Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Anadarko Petroleum (APC.N) are renegotiating their five-year-old joint venture in the Permian shale basin in Texas, Shell Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said on Thursday.

The 50-50 JV in the Delaware basin, which expires this year, will likely see the operatorship of the asset “consolidated in a different way”, Henry said in an earnings presentation to analysts.

Henry also said that Shell’s position in the Haynesville basin to the east of the Permian, which it acquired through its takeover of BG Group last year, “won’t necessarily stay in our portfolio.” read more

By Ed Crooks, November 4, 2016

If you are looking forward to the oil industry recovery, you shouldn’t break out the champagne just yet.

Over the past eight days, the world’s largest listed oil companies have released third quarter earnings reports. From all of them, the message was that while the worst might be over, they were still facing a long hard road ahead.

The snap reactions from the stock market were mixed: positive for  Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell, Total and ConocoPhillips; negative for ExxonMobil, BP, Eni, Statoil, Petrochina and Cnooc. read more

By Freya Berry and Ron Bousso

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> is working on selling out of its onshore assets in Gabon, according to two sources familiar with the matter, seeking to refocus its African presence.

Bids are due in June for the fields, which one source estimated could be worth around $700 million (488.55 million pound). However the second person said that price indications were currently below Shell’s expectations and that no sale may occur.

“Shell continuously evaluates opportunities for our global portfolio in line with our business strategy,” a company spokesman said on Thursday. read more

by Rakteem Katakey: August 3, 2015: BLOOMBERG.COM

Royal Dutch Shell Plc will swap a stake in one of its international energy assets for part of Gazprom PJSC’s Sakhalin-3 project as Europe’s biggest oil company extends ties with Russia.

The companies are discussing which asset would be offered to Gazprom, Shell Chief Executive Officer Ben Van Beurden said last week in London. For Shell, the prize is greater involvement in the world’s biggest gas reserves.

“Russia sits on 25 percent of the world’s gas reserves and is very, very close to markets that we are very familiar with,” Van Beurden said July 30, on the sidelines of the company’s earnings presentation. Shell is also pushing “to see how we can work with Gazprom internationally.” read more

FROM A BBC ARTICLE PUBLISHED 24 FEB 2015

Oil and gas industry in ‘bleak’ 2014, finds survey

The UK offshore oil and gas industry has reported its worst annual performance for four decades.

Industry body Oil & Gas UK said falling oil prices and rising costs meant the sector spent and invested £5.3bn more than it earned from sales during 2014.

That outflow of cash was the biggest since massive investment in platforms in the 1970s preceded the flow of oil.

The body’s annual survey also indicated that investment in the industry is set to fall this year, as well as drilling.

Oil & Gas UK said the “bleak” findings emphasised the urgency of government action to secure the industry’s long-term future. read more

From an article by Zoltan Ban published 23 Feb 2015 by Seeking Alpha under the headline:

Shell Replaced Only 26% Of Its Produced Reserves In 2014

Summary

• Shell replaced only 26% of its produced reserves in 2014.

• The three year average rate of reserve replacement is 67%.

• Even with potential for growth in the downstream, Shell is likely to undergo a continued process of shrinkage as a company in the longer term.

Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) produced 1.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent in 2014. Only 26% of that was replaced with new reserves, which means that just over 300 million barrels of oil equivalent were added. Over the past three years, 67% reserve replacement was achieved, which looks much better, but still suggests that Shell is a shrinking upstream producer (link).

Shrinking oil production has already been a well-established trend with this company since 2010, but the current low reserve replacement ratio suggests that there is much worse to come. read more