The Times

Shell offloads Permian Basin assets to ConocoPhillips for $9.5bn

Houston, We Have A Problem. Oil Reserves Have Fallen Below 10 Years

Big oil has a big problem. It’s running out of oil.

Years of under-investment in exploration and a decline in project development has blown a hole in the reserves of the major international oil companies (IOCs), a group that includes ExxonMobil, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell.

Since 2015 the average reserves of the oil majors has fallen by 25% to now stand at less than 10 years of annual production.

Reserves in the ground is a critical measure of an oil company with a decline seen as a negative by investors. read more

Oil Giants Win Climate Suit as Judges Push For Political Fix

Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and ConocoPhillips were also sued in the case.

The Friday ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York is a setback for those trying to use the courts to hold the industry responsible for costs associated with rising seas and other consequences of a warming planet.

Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and ConocoPhillips were also sued in the case.

The court said global warming “is a uniquely international concern” that requires the federal government to step in rather than judges. Only the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate domestic greenhouse gas emissions, the unanimous three-judge panel held. read more

Rating agency S&P warns 13 oil and gas companies they risk downgrades as renewables pick up steam

Ben Butler: Wed 27 Jan 2021

Rating agency S&P has warned 13 oil and gas companies, including the some of the world’s biggest, that it may downgrade them within weeks because of increasing competition from renewable energy. On notice of a possible downgrade are Australia’s Woodside Petroleum as well as multinationals Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Imperial Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, Shell Energy North America, Canadian Natural Resources, ConocoPhillips and French group Total. read more

Barrett hears climate case against her father’s ex-employer Shell

Shell Explores Plans for North Slope Development

01 November 2020

Dutch oil major Shell is looking to further develop its North Slope oil position in Alaska. The company’s offshore unit applied to form the West Harrison Bay Unit offshore from the National Petroleum Reserve–Alaska with plans for drilling and exploration.

The proposed West Harrison Bay Unit comprises 18 leases in West ­Harrison Bay approximately 34 miles northwest of the Colville River Unit. Shell holds 100% working interest in those 18 leases, covering more than 78,000 acres in the proposed unit. read more

By Elizabeth May | Opinion | May 12th 2020

It has been an interesting week. On the morning of May 6, I held a press conference in West Block before the weekly in-person session of Parliament opened. I spoke about how virtual Parliament is working, and Green recommendations to make it work better.

When we got to questions, the first one was CBC’s Julie Van Dusen. She asked about a possible bailout to Big Oil. And I explained that the evidence was coming in thick and fast that oil’s day was done. And she zeroed in on: “Are you saying oil is dead?” read more

By Nick Cunningham – May 04, 2020, 5:00 PM CDT

Exxon posted its first quarterly loss in more than 30 years. But even as debt mounts and questions arise about peak oil demand, the oil supermajor nevertheless vowed to protect its dividend while also aiming to grow indefinitely into the future. Exxon lost $610 million in the first quarter, down from a profit of $2.4 billion a year earlier. Worse, the period only included a few weeks of oil prices at catastrophically low levels. As a result, the second quarter is bound to lead dramatically worse numbers. read more

Bloomberg News: Javier Blas: April 26, 2020

(Bloomberg) — Negative oil prices, ships dawdling at sea with unwanted cargoes, and traders getting creative about where to stash oil. The next chapter in the oil crisis is now inevitable: great swathes of the petroleum industry are about to start shutting down.

The economic impact of the coronavirus has ripped through the oil industry in dramatic phases. First it destroyed demand as lockdowns shut factories and kept drivers at home. Then storage started filling up and traders resorted to ocean-going tankers to store crude in the hope of better prices ahead. read more

Liz Hampton: SEPTEMBER 10, 2019

Sept 10 (Reuters) – A group of oil and gas companies has agreed to begin testing blockchain, a technology at the heart of digital currencies, in a bid to lower administrative costs in their field operations while also reducing payment disputes and chances for fraud.

The OOC Oil & Gas Blockchain Consortium, whose members include Chevron Corp, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp, Equinor and Royal Dutch Shell , among others, has awarded a contract to Data Gumbo to pilot the technology for water handling services in the Bakken shale field in North Dakota. read more

by Josh Siegel: April 04, 2019 12:00 AM

Shell’s move to leave a trade group because of its climate change position is being met with skepticism from fossil fuel critics and energy producers alike, because Shell remains in other groups that oppose policies to address climate change.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., perhaps the harshest critic of the oil and gas industry, said that Shell’s decision to leave American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers “begs the question as to how Shell justifies continued membership in the much larger lobbying behemoths that spend millions opposing the climate action Shell claims to support.” read more

March 12, 2019, 09:46:00 AM EDT By Reuters

By Ahmad Ghaddar

LONDON, March 12 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell has struck a deal with Dutch tank terminal firm HES International to partially restart a German oil refinery mothballed since 2011 in response to new restrictions on marine fuels, two trading sources told Reuters.

A new cap set by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) that will cut the sulphur content in shipping fuel to 0.5 percent from 3.5 percent from next year is set to be one of the biggest fundamental events to hit oil markets in years. read more

By Irina Slav – Dec 18, 2018, 10:30 AM CST

Shell is in talks to acquire Endeavor Energy Resources for US$8 billion, Bloomberg reports, citing sources close to the negotiations. Earlier, Shell was not the only suitor, with Exxon, Conoco, and Chevron also reportedly interested in the acquisition but not enough to pursue it.

The value of the deal Bloomberg’s sources mentioned is half the sum Endeavor was believed to be able to score when it announced earlier this year that it was selling. The talks with Shell are still at an early stage, and it is uncertain whether a deal will be agreed, especially since the founder of Endeavor, Autry Stephens, has insisted that he keeps a substantial part of the company’s mineral rights after the sale, if a sale takes place. read more

NOVEMBER 21, 2018 / 10:20 AM

MELBOURNE (Reuters) – East Timor has agreed to buy Royal Dutch Shell’s stake in the Greater Sunrise natural gas fields off the northern coast of Australia for $300 million, the government and Shell Australia said on Wednesday.

The agreement for Shell’s 26.56 percent stake in the project will allow the tiny nation to push for development of the field. The site, which was discovered in 1974, straddles the maritime border between Australia and East Timor and disputes between the two countries over the border has delayed development. read more

Shell exit from Greater Sunrise paves way for Chinese

East Timor has bought Shell’s stake in the Greater Sunrise project, giving it a majority share and putting more impetus behind the project’s development

East Timor’s decision to buy out Shell’s stake in the Greater Sunrise fields has revived momentum in the project, which will require billions of dollars of investment, and paves the way for Chinese participation.

Dili agreed on Tuesday to pay $300 million for Shell’s 26.56% stake in the fields, which straddle the Australian and Timorese sea beds. The move follows a recent agreement to buy out ConocoPhillips’ share of the fields.

The Greater Sunrise project was considered to be politically stranded and of negligible… read more

Shell, Exxon and ConocoPhillips all said they were pleased with the court ruling.

Brendan Pierson: JULY 19, 2018

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by New York City seeking to hold major oil companies liable for climate change caused by carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.

In dismissing the city’s claims against Chevron Corp (CVX.N), BP Plc (BP.L), ConocoPhillips (COP.N), Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N) and Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L), U.S. District Judge John Keenan in Manhattan said climate change must be addressed through federal regulation and foreign policy. read more

U.S. court dismisses climate change lawsuits against oil companies

(Reuters) – A federal court in California dismissed climate change lawsuits by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland against five oil companies, saying the complaints required foreign and domestic policy decisions that were outside its purview.

San Francisco and Oakland sued Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and BP Plc last year seeking an abatement fund to help the cities address flooding they said was a result of climate change.

Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said in the ruling that the dangers raised by the complainants were real and worldwide, and both parties accepted the science behind global warming. read more

Judge tosses San Francisco-Oakland climate change lawsuit against big oil companies

SAN FRANCISCO — A U.S. judge who held a hearing about climate change that received widespread attention ruled Monday that Congress and the president were best suited to address the contribution of fossil fuels to global warming, throwing out lawsuits that sought to hold big oil companies liable for the Earth’s changing environment.

Noting that the world has also benefited significantly from oil and other fossil fuel, Judge William Alsup said questions about how to balance the “worldwide positives of the energy” against its role in global warming “demand the expertise of our environmental agencies, our diplomats, our Executive, and at least the Senate.” read more

A federal judge yesterday said he needed more information before deciding whether to dismiss lawsuits by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland alleging that Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B), BP and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) should pay to protect residents from the impacts of climate change.

The judge also wants the companies to produce additional material backing up claims that they should not be a part of the case because the court lacked jurisdiction over them. read more

The five defendants are the world’s largest investor-owned oil companies: Chevron Corp., Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhillips, BP PLC, and Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

Five oil companies are due to ask a federal judge on Thursday to dismiss a pair of climate change lawsuits filed by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup will hear arguments on the companies’ motions for dismissal in his San Francisco courtroom at 8 a.m. Thursday.

The lawsuits filed last year claim the corporations created a
public nuisance by producing “massive quantities” of oil and natural gas and promoting their use while knowing they lead to global warming and rising sea levels. read more

By Jeremy Hodges, Lauren Leatherby and Kartikay Mehrotra
May 24, 2018

In the global fight against climate change, one tool is proving increasingly popular: litigation.

From California to the Philippines, activists, governments and concerned citizens are suing the biggest polluters and national governments over the effects of climate change at a break-neck pace.

“The courts are our last, best hope at this moment of irreversible harm to our planet and life on it,” said Julia Olson, an attorney for Our Children’s Trust, a legal challenge center in the U.S. that is involved in climate change litigation across 13 countries, including the U.S., Pakistan and Uganda. read more

By Bob Van Voris: 4 May 2018, 23:09 BST Updated on 5 May 2018, 02:09 BST

Case affects global economy, national security, companies say

New York argues oil companies denied climate change science

This lawsuit is based upon the fundamental principle that a corporation that makes a product causing severe harm when used exactly as intended should shoulder the costs of abating that harm. Defendants here produced, marketed, and sold massive quantities of fossil fuels—primarily oil and natural gas—despite knowing that the combustion and use of fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases (“GHG pollution” or “GHGs”), primarily carbon dioxide (“CO2”). Defendants have also known for decades that GHG pollution accumulates and remains in the atmosphere for up to hundreds of years, where it traps heat, a process commonly referred to as “climate change” or “global warming,” and that this process would cause grave harm.

Five of the world’s biggest oil companies asked a judge to throw out New York City’s lawsuit seeking to hold them responsible for costs related to the environmental changes caused by their products. 

BP Plc, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Plc argued that the court lacks the authority to resolve broad policy questions with “profound implications for the global economy, international relations and America’s national security.” read more

By Tsvetana Paraskova – Apr 04, 2018, 6:00 PM CDT

In the latest legal campaign against Big Oil, Friends of the Earth Netherlands vowed on Wednesday to take Shell to court if it doesn’t act on demands to align its corporate strategy with the global climate objectives.

“Shell is liable for its substantial contribution to climate change and for the associated social and environmental damages,” Friends of the Earth Netherlands, or Milieudefensie as it is known in Dutch, said in a letter sent to Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden today. read more

Dana Nuccitelli: Fri 23 Mar 2018 10.00 GMT

In a California court case this week, Judge William Alsup asked the two sides to provide him a climate science tutorial. The plaintiffs are the coastal cities of San Francisco and Oakland. They’re suing five major oil companies (Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP) to pay for the cities’ costs to cope with the sea level rise caused by global warming. FULL ARTICLE

David Levine: 21 MARCH 2018

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Five of the world’s biggest energy producers will be questioned by a federal judge on Wednesday about climate change science, part of a lawsuit that accuses the companies of misleading the public for years about their role in global warming.

The cities of San Francisco and Oakland, California sued Chevron Corp (CVX.N), Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), ConocoPhillips (COP.N), Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSa.L), and BP PLC (BP.L) last year, seeking an abatement fund to help the cities address flooding they say is a result of climate change. read more

Daniel Fisher: Writer and communications consultant and former senior editor with Forbes magazine; 21 March 2018

Five of the world’s largest oil and gas producers have filed a motion to dismiss a climate change lawsuit against them by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco even as they prepare to deliver an unusual “tutorial” on climate science to the federal judge overseeing the case.

In a 45-page filing on Tuesday, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell urged U.S. District Judge William Alsup to dismiss the lawsuit seeking billions of dollars to pay for costs associated with global warming. The oil companies argue the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit have repeatedly rejected similar lawsuits against oil companies, the auto industry and electric utilities because Congress has given authority to regulate CO2 emissions exclusively to the Environmental Protection Agency. read more

Forecasters at Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil major, have predicted that global oil demand could peak within a decade as electric cars and other clean energy technologies gain larger market shares.

March 5, 2018 Updated: March 5, 2018 8:42pm

Houston’s energy industry, which drives the local economy, has much brighter days ahead as global oil demand climbs, shale production booms and U.S. crude grabs larger shares of global markets, according to forecasts, industry officials and analysts.

The United States is already pumping oil at record levels above 10 million barrels a day, surpassing Saudi Arabia, and may take over from Russia as the world’s production leader by the end of 2018. Over the next five years, daily U.S. production is expected to climb 3.5 million barrels, or 35 percent, to more than 13 million barrels, according to a forecast by the International Energy Agency, which monitors the global oil industry. read more

By Madina Toure • 02/16/18

A little more than a month after Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that New York City will take the fossil fuel industry to court, Paris says it is following suit.

In early January, de Blasio announced that the city filed a lawsuit against five of the United States’ biggest oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell—on the grounds that they have contributed to global warming. The city will also divest from fossil fuel companies over a five-year period.

On Feb. 6, 350.org—which has been working on a divestment campaign for the last four years—announced that Paris was looking into the possibility of suing the fossil fuel industry as well.

The City Council passed a motion to study the possibility of taking legal action against oil companies to cover expenses associated with protecting Paris from the impacts of climate change.

The Council plans to lobby other major cities like London to ban fossil fuels from their investments through the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, whose president is Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo. read more

FILE PHOTO: Four rigs drill at the Super Pad in Seven Generations Energy’s Kakwa River Project in northwest Alberta, Canada in a photo provided January 19, 2018. Seven Generations Energy Ltd/Handout via REUTERS

Nia Williams: 29 JAN 2018

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – The revolution in U.S. shale oil has battered Canada’s energy industry in recent years, ending two decades of rapid expansion and job creation in the nation’s vast oil sands.

Now Canada is looking to its own shale fields to repair the economic damage.

Canadian producers and global oil majors are increasingly exploring the Duvernay and Montney formations, which they say could rival the most prolific U.S. shale fields.

Canada is the first country outside the United States to see large-scale development of shale resources, which already account for 8 percent of total Canadian oil output. China, Russia and Argentina also have ample shale reserves but have yet to overcome the obstacles to full commercial development. read more

The world’s largest energy companies plan to significantly widen a two-year effort to standardize the kit they use to pump oil and gas, hoping they can deliver significant cost savings, said people familiar with the matter.

The discussions, scheduled on Wednesday for a closed-door meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos, are the latest sign companies are seeking to tighten their belts permanently even as oil prices recover. Bespoke equipment designed on a project-by-project basis was common during the decade-long boom in crude prices, but looks less affordable after the industry’s worst downturn in a generation. read more

BY RICHARD A. EPSTEIN ON 1/17/18 AT 9:30 AM

New York City and a number of California municipalities, including San Francisco and Oakland, have filed lawsuits against five major oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell—for contributing to the increased risk of global warming.

These complaints cite recent scientific reports that project that sea levels will rise from 0.2 meters to 2.0 meters (or 0.66 to 6.6 feet) by 2100, with a major loss of land surface area and serious climate disruptions. read more

Each of the first six months of 2016 set a record as the warmest respective month globally. Credit: NASA/GISS

The New York City government is suing the world’s five largest publicly traded oil companies, seeking to hold them responsible for present and future damages to the city from climate change.

The suit, filed Tuesday against BP, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, claims the companies together produced 11 percent of all of global warming gases through the oil and gas products they have sold over the years. It also charges that the companies and the industry of which they are part have known for some time about the consequences but sought to obscure them. read more

Ernest Sheyder and Valerie Volcovici

HOUSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed opening up nearly all of America’s offshore waters to oil and gas drilling, but the industry says it is mainly interested in one part of it, now cordoned off by the Pentagon: the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

The industry’s focus on an area located near a sprawling network of existing platforms, pipes and ports could ease the path to new reserves, and assuage the drilling opponents near other places offered under the Interior Department’s proposed drilling plan issued last week, like California’s Pacific, the Atlantic and Arctic. read more

Norway is realizing it will have to do without the deep pockets of the biggest oil companies as it seeks to extend an era that has made it one of the world’s richest countries.

The most recent blow came when only 11 companies applied for new blocks in the Arctic Barents Sea, touted as the country’s most promising area for exploration. Chevron Corp. and ConocoPhillips were absent after bidding the last time, while Exxon Mobil Corp. and Total SA remained out of the race. Of the five super-majors, only Royal Dutch Shell Plc applied. read more

Shell, in an initiative called “iShale,” has marshaled technology from a dozen oilfield suppliers, including devices from subsea specialist TechnipFMC Plc that separate fracking sand from oil and well-control software from Emerson Electric Co, to bring more automation and data analysis to shale operations.

Ernest Scheyder: NOVEMBER 28, 2017

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Shale oil engineer Oscar Portillo spends his days drilling as many as five wells at once – without ever setting foot on a rig. read more

• Norway wants to dump its stakes in oil and gas companies
• Proposal adds to doubts over industry’s long-term outlook

Big Oil is under pressure, unloved and on sale.

Energy giants from Exxon Mobil Corp. to Royal Dutch Shell Plc are struggling back to their feet after a three-year oil slump, while also fighting to prove they can survive for decades to come amid an accelerating shift to clean energy. So getting dumped by the world’s biggest investment fund wouldn’t be welcome news.

Norway’s $1 trillion sovereign wealth fund said on Thursday that it wants to sell about $35 billion of shares in oil and gas companies to make the nation “less vulnerable” to a drop in crude prices. Global energy giants favored by long-term investors including Italy’s Eni SpA, PetroChina Ltd. and Russia’s Gazprom PJSC account for more than $20 billion of that total. read more

The $1 trillion fund that Norway has amassed pumping oil and gas over the past two decades wants out of petroleum stocks.  

Norway, which relies on oil and gas for about a fifth of economic output, would be less vulnerable to declining crude prices without its fund investing in the industry, the central bank said Thursday. The divestment would mark the second major step in scrubbing the world’s biggest wealth fund of climate risk, after it sold most of its coal stocks.

“Our perspective here is to spread the risks for the state’s wealth,” Egil Matsen, the deputy central bank governor overseeing the fund, said in an interview in Oslo. “We can do that better by not adding oil-price risk.” read more

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017 / 5:32 AM

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Wednesday gas companies have agreed to a two-year domestic supply deal to plug a projected shortfall in the country’s east, preventing threatened government intervention in the export market.

The agreement heads off the possibility of Australia forcibly curbing exports from Australia’s three east coast gas exporters – Royal Dutch Shell, which runs Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG), Origin Energy, which runs the Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) together with ConocoPhillips and Santos, which operates the Gladstone LNG plant. read more

UPDATE 2-Gas export curbs loom as Australia’s east faces gas shortfall

By Sonali Paul

MELBOURNE, Sept 25 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and Santos face curbs on exporting gas from Australia’s east coast in 2018 if they fail to plug a projected local supply shortfall, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull warned on Monday.

Eastern Australia faces a gas shortfall of up to 17 percent of market demand in 2018, the nation’s energy market operator and competition watchdog projected in reports submitted to the government on Monday that will be the basis for a decision by Nov. 1 on whether to limit exports. read more

Gary McWilliams: SEPTEMBER 21, 2017 / 2:34 AM

(Reuters) – California cities San Francisco and Oakland filed separate lawsuits against five oil companies on Wednesday seeking billions of dollars to protect against rising sea levels they blamed on climate change, according to public documents.

The lawsuits, filed in state courts in San Francisco and Alameda Counties, alleged Chevron Corp, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp, BP Plc, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, created a public nuisance and asked for funds to finance infrastructure to deal with rising sea levels. read more

‘Instead of owning up to it, they copied a page from the Big Tobacco playbook,’ says San Francisco’s city attorney

• Ian Johnston Environment Correspondent
• @montaukian
• Thursday 21 September 2017 13:09 BST

The Golden Gate Bridge across San Francisco Bay

The US cities of San Francisco and Oakland are suing five of the world’s largest oil companies for the coasts of walls and other defences against rising sea levels, saying the industry made vast profits from fossil fuels while knowing they were causing “an existential threat to humankind”.

Drawing a direct comparison to the tobacco industry’s sale of cigarettes despite knowledge of the health risks, the city attorneys announced they had filed separate lawsuits against BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips. read more

San Francisco and Oakland on Wednesday announced lawsuits against five major oil and gas companies. (Courtesy photo)

The lawsuits against Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell claim the companies have known for decades that global warming and sea level rise were accelerated by the investor-owned producers of fossil fuels, but the companies still continued to “aggressively produce, market and sell vast quantities of fossil fuels for a global market”

By Examiner Staff on September 20, 2017 10:59 am

The cities of San Francisco and Oakland have filed separate lawsuits against five major oil and gas companies for allegedly contributing to the costs of climate change and sea level rise by producing massive amounts of fossil fuels, city leaders announced Wednesday.

The lawsuits against Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell claim the companies have known for decades that global warming and sea level rise were accelerated by the investor-owned producers of fossil fuels, but the companies still continued to “aggressively produce, market and sell vast quantities of fossil fuels for a global market,” according to a news release from the San Francisco City Attorney’s Office. read more

AUGUST 22, 2017 / 2:13 PM

LONDON (Reuters) – French oil major Total (TOTF.PA) has overtaken rival Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) to become the second-largest producer in the North Sea with its acquisition of Maersk’s (MAERSKb.CO) Norwegian and UK producing assets.

The $7.45 billion deal by Total was welcomed by the market, with analysts saying it helped the French company rebalance its portfolio by adding assets in developed countries after going for projects in riskier places such as Iran and Russia. read more

By Nick Cunningham – Aug 20, 2017, 6:00 PM CDT

Canada’s oil industry has faced a lot of strain lately. The list of oil majors selling off assets and withdrawing from high-cost oil sands is long. ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Marathon Oil, Murphy Oil and Statoil have sold upwards of $25 billion worth of oil sands assets this year. ExxonMobil also wrote down more than 3.5 billion barrels of oil reserves in Canada at the beginning of 2017. The companies viewed Alberta’s bitumen and heavy oil as no longer competitive in a $50 market, and many of them are focusing on other types of production, such as shale. read more

Shell pivots to electricity. The FT reports on the strategic shift underway at Royal Dutch Shell, which is moving to sell electricity to industrial consumers. The move highlights the potential for an oil major to adapt to a rapidly changing energy landscape. Beginning next year, Shell will sell electricity in the UK, but the company has said it would like to expand to the U.S. In the past, oil companies have declined to enter the electricity business, but with long-term oil demand uncertain, oil producers can hedge their bets by getting into electricity.

By Tom Kool – Aug 15, 2017, 3:00 PM CDT

Oil prices remain in a game of tug of war as conflicting news sends both the bears and the bulls to the sidelines.

• In 2015, the U.S. spent the least on energy in over a decade, largely due to the collapse of oil prices.

• In real terms, the U.S. spent $1.27 trillion on energy in 2015, down 20 percent from a year earlier.

• In inflation-adjusted terms, as well as in terms of percentage of GDP, the expenditures were the lowest since 2004. read more

08/09/2017 07:17 am ET

In 2015, the Union of Concerned Scientists published its landmark exposé“The Climate Deception Dossiers,” which show that not only Exxon, but also Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Chevron and coal giant Peabody Energy were aware of the climate change reality since the 70s. Even so, through special interest groups, they invested tens of millions “to sow doubt and promote contrarian arguments they knew to be wrong.”

The fuel that powers this planetary sabotage is called greed. The fossil fuel industry worldwide has accumulated stratospheric levels of wealth over the decades. Moreover, according to a report just published by World Development, in 2015, fossil fuels received a staggering $5.3 trillion in subsidies around the world. This includes not only taxpayer money but also the costs of deaths caused by pollution and these fuels’ contribution to the climate crisis. read more

By Tsvetana Paraskova – May 30, 2017, 5:00 PM CDT

Royal Dutch Shell and ConocoPhillips struck deals in March to sell Canadian oil assets to two Canada-based producers. In both deals, parts of the consideration for the transactions were shares of the Canadian companies that Shell and ConocoPhillips received.

Although the share transactions are subject to lock-up periods of up to six months following the closing of the deals, Shell and ConocoPhillips are getting ready to sell those shares—possibly months after acquiring them—regulations and agreements permitting. read more

INVEZZ.Com: Group under fire over plans to abandon North Sea structures

Oil major sets out case for leaving concrete legs of Brent oil platforms

by Tsveta Zikolova: Thursday, 09 Feb 2017

Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSA) has come under fire over its plans to decommission the Brent oil and gas field in the North Sea. The move would see the company leave several structures in place, with the oil major arguing that removing them would be risky as well as costly.

The Financial Times reported yesterday that environmental groups had accused Shell of cutting corners to save costs as a public consultation began on the biggest decommissioning project of its kind in the oil industry. The Anglo-Dutch oil major said yesterday that it had submitted plans to the UK government which include removing the upper parts of the group’s four Brent platforms in the North Sea. The company, however, wants to leave behind the concrete legs, as well as 64 subsea storage tanks, and drill cuttings contaminated with oil. read more

Casey Hoerth: Dec. 14, 2016 11:09 AM ET

Summary

Shell plans on between $25 billion and $30 billion in capex next year, with flexibility to the downside.

I do not expect Shell to achieve cash flow balance in 2016, even with asset sales.

I continue to recommend other energy companies over Royal Dutch Shell, until either oil prices recover more or until Shell does something else to achieve balance.

Over the course of 2016 I haven’t recommended much when it comes buying to upstream or integrated oil companies. The reason was that I felt many still weren’t doing enough to balance their money coming in versus money going out. The CEO of one of my favorite companies, in their latest analyst day, recently quipped that energy companies couldn’t afford to wait to be ‘bailed out’ by higher oil prices. 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