Vast amounts of oil lie in the bitumen-rich sands of Northern Canada, but whether oil companies choose to spend billions extracting them will hinge on decisions made 6,000 miles away in Denmark next month.
The Times
Copenhagen talks could leave oil industry with a sinking feeling
Saudi Aramco seeks solution to crude problem
Most of the worlds refineries were designed to take lighter, sweeter crudes, which are now in short supply. According to BP, as much as two thirds of the worlds crude oil supply is now sour. New refineries with expensive desulpherisation units and hydrocrackers are chasing the sour discount, hoping to make more profit margin buying cheaper, heavier crude oil. A refinery such as Shells Stanlow plant in Cheshire is designed to process expensive North Sea crude; it is no wonder that Shell wants to sell its last British fuel plant.
Shale gas blasts open world energy market
The reason is shale gas a new and abundant source of natural gas, trapped in rock formations. Oil companies have known about it for decades but always dismissed it because it was too expensive and difficult to extract. In the past few years new technologies that pump water underground to fracture the rock and free the gas have been perfected. The breakthrough has opened a new frontier for the energy industry and turned long-held assumptions about the worlds dwindling supplies on their head. Suddenly, America is awash with gas. Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, said it had created a a revolution in the gas fields of North America.
BP CEO Tony Hayward rules out mega merger with Shell
The Sunday Times
November 1, 2009
The era of the oil industry mega merger is over, according to the chief executive of BP.
Tony Hayward said that there is no industrial logic at all to the type of big-ticket takeovers that transformed the industry a decade ago. The industry will be defined instead by partnerships between the big companies and the new generation of state-owned rivals and governments of resource-rich countries.
We need access to new resources and we need access to new customers. Combining with another oil giant gives us neither, he said in an interview with The Sunday Times.
Over 400 hundred British Shell managers being axed
From The Times
October 30, 2009
Hundreds of British managers to go as Shell steps up restructuring drive
Robin Pagnamenta Carl Mortished
More than 400 British managers in Royal Dutch Shell are facing the axe this Christmas as the oil giant intensifies a drastic restructuring drive.
Peter Voser, the new chief executive of the Anglo-Dutch group, announced yesterday that 5,000 jobs worldwide would be cut by the end of this year as the company reported a 73 per cent collapse in third-quarter profits from $10.9 billion (£6.6 billion) last year to $3 billion.
Shell, whose weak results contrasted with robust earnings reported by BP, its rival, on Tuesday, said that more than half the cuts in its Transition 2009 programme would fall in the UK, the US and the Netherlands.
The oilman who went back to nuts and bolts
Outsourcing more activities to China and India is the next stage, and BP appears to be embracing it wholeheartedly with the recession adding to the opportunity to strike new, long-term contracts. Other oil companies appear to be following BPs lead, with Royal Dutch Shell whose results are out tomorrow heading down a similar path.
Royal Dutch Shell expected to report a 70 per cent fall in profits to $2.5 billion
On Thursday, Royal Dutch Shell, BPs Anglo-Dutch rival, is expected to report a 70 per cent fall in profits to $2.5 billion.
Government aims to impose rules on armed guards
It is hoped that big corporate clients, such as BP and Shell, which often use private security in countries such as Nigeria, will also use only companies that are code-compliant.
royaldutchshellplc.com publishs a relentless stream of insider leaks
Two men and a website mount vendetta against Shell – SUNDAY TIMES ARTICLE 19 JULY 2009: “Their site has become a major thorn in the side of Shell, publishing a relentless stream of insider leaks and negative commentary.”
Europe fails chemistry test as industry heads east
Europes oil refining industry is voting with its feet. A swath of less competitive oil refineries are to be sold or closed over the next year. Three plants in Britain are threatened: Shells huge facility at Stanlow in Cheshire; the Ineos plant in Grangemouth, Scotland; and the Petroplus Teesside refinery, which will close if a buyer is not found. Shell is talking to buyers Essar, the Indian conglomerate, is in the frame.
Shell joins ScottishPower Longannet consortium
Oil company Shell has joined ScottishPower in a consortium to develop the project and it is believed to have made rapid progress in working out plans to pipe the captured carbon out to exhausted North Sea oilfields where it will be permanently stored underground.
Hunger for biofuels will gobble up wheat surplus
Wilton will require 1.2 million tonnes of the crop to produce 450 million litres of wheat-based biofuels. Built with capital supplied by Carlyle Group and Riverstone Holdings, the American private equity companies, it will supply Shell with the renewable fuel for use in cars and lorries in Britain.
The Squeeze: Oil, Money and Greed in the 21st Century by Tom Bower
As Bower notes, over the past two years Shell and BP have mounted a rapid retreat from their green postu-ring: Shell has sold its solar business and its stake in a planned giant wind farm called the London Array, while BP has closed its renewable headquarters at County Hall.
A battle waiting to happen
Shell is friends again with Mr Putin, but only three years ago it was given an almighty kicking for its arrogance.
Putin thaws on foreign firms as gasfield proves too big too handle
In 2006 Shell was forced to give up control of Sakhalin, a big liquefied natural gas project in Eastern Siberia, ceding half of its interest to Gazprom after a dispute over costs and alleged environmental violations.
Gale Norton at centre of corruption inquiry over oil-shale awards to Shell
Carl Mortished World Business Editor
Up to 10,000 jobs expected to go in Shell restructuring
THE TIMES: Saturday 12 Sept 2009: Mr Voser, who took over from Mr van der Veer two months ago, is forcing through an aggressive cost-cutting programme that has already led to the departure of more than 150 senior managers. Up to 10,000 jobs are expected to go during the restructuring.
BGs huge find propels Brazilian oil to centre stage
A vast new oilfield off the coast of Brazil could contain up to two billion barrels of crude, providing fresh evidence that a spate of discoveries in the region is opening up a new frontier for the global oil industry.
Heavyweights of the black stuff size up the competition
September 10, 2009
David Wighton: Business Editors Commentary
Size matters. In the oil industry, your worth is measured in hundreds of millions of barrels and yesterday BP and BG Group were standing at the bar sizing up each other’s discoveries.
Last week, BP was crowing about Tiber, an offshore discovery at record depths beneath the Gulf of Mexico, with between 4 and 6 billion barrels of oil in place. Yesterday, BG was yesterday claiming that Guara, another deepwater prospect, this time off the coast of Brazil, was bigger.
Libya and Britain: the new special relationship
When Tony Blair went to Libya in March 2004, it provided a huge international boost for Gadaffi and British businesses. During the trip it was announced that Shell had won a deal worth £550m for gas exploration rights off the Libyan coast.
BAE Systems Serious Fraud Office deal could include settlement of al-Yamamah oil-for-arms scandal involving Shell
ROYAL DUTCH SHELL INVOLVEMENT IN SAUDI ARABIA / AL YAMAMAH BAE ARMS SCANDAL
BP lobbied Jack Straw before he changed mind over Lockerbie bomber
Jack Straw was personally lobbied by BP over Britains prisoner transfer agreement with Libya just before he abandoned efforts to exclude the Lockerbie bomber from the deal. The Times has learnt that the Justice Secretary took two telephone calls from Sir Mark Allen, a former M16 agent, who was by then working for BP as a consultant, on October 15 and November 9, 2007.
Lockerbie bomber ‘set free for oil’
The British government decided it was in the overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom to make Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, eligible for return to Libya, leaked ministerial letters reveal.Gordon Browns government made the decision after discussions between Libya and BP over a multi-million-pound oil exploration deal had hit difficulties. These were resolved soon afterwards.
When truth about Britains dealings with Libya turns out to be a mirage
Both of Mr Blairs trips coincided with the announcement of big trade agreements for Shell and then BP.
They thought it was a mirage, but black gold is gushing in the Indian desert
Shell sold its final 50 per cent stake in its Rajasthan blocs to the Scottish company for only £4.4 million in 2002 and the total sale price was less than $20 million... in January 2004, Cairn struck oil at least one billion barrels of it.
Lockerbie release casts dark shadow over Britain’s ties with US
Shortly after the former Prime Minister Tony Blair flew to Libya to meet Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2007, BG Group, Shell and BP secured substantial contracts with Libya.
Essar bids for British oil refinery in Shell auction
The Times
// <![CDATA[// August 18, 2009Carl Mortished, World Business Editor
Essar, the Indian energy, steel and shipping group, has made a bid for Royal Dutch Shells Stanlow refinery at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, part of a £1.2 billion offer for three fuel manufacturing plants. The other two are in Germany, at Heide and Harburg.
Essars bid came as the deadline closed yesterday in an auction of the three refineries that is likely to provoke anxiety about employment in the North West of England.
Stanlow is Shells last remaining refinery in the UK. The company closed Shell Haven, its Thames Estuary refinery, in 1999 and the site was redeveloped by P&O Ports, later taken over by DP World, the Dubai company.
Oil giants destroy rainforests to make palm oil diesel for motorists
Shell had the best record of the major companies for declaring the sources of its biofuel. It said that it did not use any palm oil last year because it could not find any from a sustainable source. Luis Scoffone, vice-president for biofuels, said that Shell could have met its biofuel obligation more cheaply if it had bought palm oil.
Libyans bid for Shell sites
The Sunday Times
// <![CDATA[ // August 9, 2009Danny Fortson
LIBYAs national oil company and two billionaire Indian brothers are among the contenders to buy Britains second-largest oil refinery.
Shells Stanlow complex near Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, produces a sixth of the UKs petrol and is the oil giants only refinery in Britain. However, the company has put it up for sale as it tries to rein in its huge cost base and struggles with the effects of an oil price that is half the level of the historic high hit last year.
Shell last month reported a sharp fall in profits and Peter Voser, chief executive, has launched a savage efficiency drive that is expected to cost thousands of jobs.
Shell and Irish Police Force sued for defamation
ODonnell said four men in wetsuits boarded his boat. Two of them were armed with guns, said the statement. They told Pat and Martin to be quiet. Two of the men held Pat and Martin in the wheelhouse at gunpoint while the other two went below. After a while the two men returned from below and joined the others.
Shell takes to high seas to escape oil gloom
Shell, like its rivals, is facing a harsh reality. A combination of the recession, last years drop in the oil price, weak gas prices in America, high costs and dwindling natural resources could lead, say insiders, to a reshaping of the sector as profound as the 1990s merger frenzy in which several big names disappeared.
Shell Armageddon scenario
The senior management at Shell are dropping like cavalry in the cross hairs of a Gatling gun. Five thousand could go, roughly the same number let loose by BP over the past year. Shell has more layers than its British rival, a bigger refining and marketing business across many continents. It has managers in Kuala Lumpur writing the same memos and ticking the same boxes as they are in Taipei.
740 senior Shell managers asked to reapply for 600 jobs
The Times
July 31, 2009Shell axes thousands of white-collar jobs
Robin Pagnamenta and David Robertson
Royal Dutch Shell accelerated its cost-cutting campaign yesterday, warning of further substantial job reductions as the oil giant feels the effects of the biggest slump in global demand for crude since 1980.
Shell profits plunge 70% on falling oil demand
Times Online: Shell's performance was worse than BP's, which reported its second quarter results two days ago.
10,000 of Shells global workforce of 102,000 likely to go?
The Times
// <![CDATA[ //July 27, 2009
Shell cuts up to 600 top jobs in Voser’s overhaul
Robin Pagnamenta, Energy Editor
Royal Dutch Shell is poised to announce a fresh wave of cuts in senior jobs this week as Peter Voser, the new chief executive, intensifies an aggressive restructuring drive within Europes largest company.
The Anglo-Dutch oil company will reveal alongside its interim results on Thursday that up to a quarter of its senior management between 500 and 600 people globally will lose their jobs in the coming weeks. The cuts represent the climax of a huge shake-up under way in Shell, of which Mr Voser, who is Swiss, took full control from Jeroen van der Veer this month. The redundancies will mark one of the most far-reaching management overhauls in a successful multinational group undertaken by an incoming chief executive.
Voser sweeping cost-cutting expected to include thousands of redundancies
The Sunday Times
UK oil giants profits plunge $10bn
July 26, 2009
Danny Fortson
Two men and a website mount vendetta against an oil giant
It is an awkward position for Shell, which was this month crowned by Fortune magazine as the worlds largest company. Trying to shut the website down would draw even more attention to it but letting it continue subjects the company to a constant barrage of negative news, allegations and insults, some of which is picked up by the mainstream media.
Heritage Oil up on talk of Shell making bid
Shares in Heritage Oil, of which Mr Buckingham is chief executive and in which he has a 33 per cent stake, soared by more than 11 per cent amid speculation that Royal Dutch Shell may gatecrash its £3.5 billion merger with Genel Energy of Turkey.
Fool on the drill
The Sunday Times
// <![CDATA[// July 12, 2009The man who handed the Corrib gas field to Shell must be the greatest fool we ever produced. The gas field is worth 45 billion Russia or Venezuela wouldnt hand over such a resource. The Corrib gas field will add to Shells profits while Ireland is in dire straits.
Mary Corkery-Deane,
Dunmanway, Co Cork
High time to hit the City cheats very hard
The biggest FSA fine ever was a £17 million penalty meted out to Shell for misleading its own shareholders. Since no Shell manager was successfully pursued, the consequence was that the shareholders, the victims of the scandal, ended up indirectly paying the fine.
Fines to double or triple as FSA gets tough with City wrongdoers
The biggest fine was £17 million paid by Shell in 2004 after it misled shareholders about the size of its oil and gas reserves.
Boat sinking claim denied
The Sunday Times
July 5, 2009 Mark Tighe The head of the security firm employed by Shell at Glengad beach has dismissed allegations by two prominent protesters that his staff were involved in an assault or sank a boat.Jim Farrell, a director of IRMS security, said he could not believe claims made by both Willie Corduff, one of the Rossport Five, and Pat ODonnell, a Shell to Sea campaigner.
Corduff alleges that masked men beat him on the morning of April 23 after he lay under a truck near Glengad. He has refused to make a statement to gardai.
Focus: D-Day: the Mayo landing
Some hardline Shell to Sea protesters are preparing for a final conflict over the Mayo gas pipeline