August 7th, 2006:

HOUSTON -(Dow Jones)- Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) said Monday that its West Coast refineries do not anticipate a crude shortage in the near term as a result of BP PLC’s (BP) decision to shut its Prudhoe Bay oil field in Alaska.

The company’s 143,000-barrel-a-day Puget Sound refinery in Anacortes, Wash., does run a fluctuating percentage of Alaskan North Slope, or ANS, crude, like that produced at Prudhoe Bay, said spokesman Stan Mays. But the refinery “has sufficient supply on hand or en route to secure sufficient supply from alternate sources to maintain full operations,” Mays said. read more

Markets Brace For Possibility
That Repair Could Take Weeks
By ANNA RAFF
August 7, 2006 1:17 p.m.

Oil prices jumped by more than $2 a barrel Monday following a shutdown at an Alaskan oil field that accounts for about 8% of daily U.S. production.

Gasoline futures also rose, and experts expect prices at the pump to increase by about 10 cents a gallon.

BP Exploration Alaska Inc., a unit of BP PLC, began shutting down 400,000 barrels of daily oil production Sunday at Prudhoe Bay, in Alaska’s North Slope region, due to severe corrosion on a pipeline. read more

EMAIL SENT TODAY TO MR. ERIC SIOW, THE LAWYER ACTING FOR SHELL WHISTLEBLOWER DR JOHN HUONG IN THE DEFAMATION ACTION BROUGHT AGAINST HIM COLLECTIVELY BY EIGHT COMPANIES WITHIN THE ROYAL DUTCH SHELL GROUP

EXTRACT: Of course the best solution of all would be for Shell management to stop using the unfortunate Dr Huong as a surrogate for attacking our activities and instead take legal action directly against us in the appropriate legal jurisdiction. Shell management self-evidently does not have the courage to take that step.  Shell would sue us for defamation if our allegations and comments were without foundation.  There is no defamation if what is being published is true. The fact that Shell management is taking a hammering almost every day on our websites, without returning fire, speaks volumes.  read more

Monday, August 07, 2006

0859 GMT [Dow Jones] The prospect of a quick restart looks slim says UBS following BP’s (BP.LN) announcement that it was shutting down its Alaskan Prudhoe Bay oil field. UBS bases its view on the fact that production shut in from a spill in 1Q has yet to be restarted. Notes BP is already in the middle of a seasonal tightening trend and calculates Alaska’s oil outage equals 4% of 10.5M b/d (barrels a day) of crude import.

UBS warns if the shut in continues to the end of the year the impact on BP for this year would be 40K boe/d (barrels of oil equivalent per day) and BP could well miss its production target of 4.1-4.2M boe/d. BP -2% at 623.75p. Peer Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA.LN) -0.5% at 1,926p. (KHO)
 
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Last Updated(Beijing Time):2006-08-07 15:09
 
Russia said it will sue Royal Dutch Shell Plc to halt the development of oil and gas fields at Sakhalin Island because the US$20 billion project’s pipelines may cause environmental damage.

The Ministry of Natural Resources plans to sue the Shell-led group in a bid to overturn authorizations for developing the Piltun-Astokhskoye and Lunskoye fields, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement at the weekend, Bloomberg News reported.

The same ministry told Shell it should suspend construction of a pipeline at the project until it can complete environmental and safety studies. read more

LAGOS (AFX) – Five Nigerian oil workers were killed by unidentified gunmen in the country’s oil-rich but restive Niger Delta region, police and industry sources said yesterday.

The incident occurred on Thursday in the Egbema area of Rivers State in southern Nigeria when the men, working as contractors to Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell, were killed during an ambush on their way to work, an oil company executive who requested anonymity told Agence France-Presse.

He said the motives of the killings were unknown as no group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack. read more

TO celebrate Shell Malaysia’s newly launched Fuel Economy Formula campaign, its retail dealers nationwide decorated their station sites with banners, flag lines, balloons and touches of “bunga manggar”, giving it a carnival-like atmosphere.

These carnivals nationwide were held to encourage customers to experience the benefits of the new Shell petrol.

Many customers won fabulous prizes at the station carnivals in their residential neighbourhoods. They also got to enjoy the 3,000 Bonuslink points that were offered at every carnival. read more

Published: Aug 07, 2006

ROYAL DUTCH Shell is one of the world’s largest and most powerful corporations. Bolivia is one of the planet’s poorest countries; its economy is a mere 3 per cent of Shell’s annual revenues. Recently, Shell chief executive Jeroen van der Veer noted, somewhat meekly, that his company was resigned to accept Bolivia’s decision to break the contracts it had signed.

Further, he said, it was no longer a good idea for oil companies to put up a legal fight against the nationalistic policies of countries like Bolivia. read more

Published: Aug 07, 2006

Kommersant

Denis Rebrov and Irina Granik article details report on implementation of production sharing agreements presented by Industry and Energy Ministry on 4 August. Report notes companies have been breaching technological production schemes. Three projects are currently under way on production sharing agreement basis: Kharyaginskoye field operated by French Total and two offshore projects in Sea of Okhotsk: Sakhalin-1 operated by ExxonMobil and Sakhalin-2 operated by Shell; p 2. read more

By Sheila McNulty in Houston and Tom Griggs in London
Published: August 7 2006 03:14 | Last updated: August 7 2006 07:38

BP on Sunday night said it was shutting down its Alaska oil field after tests mandated by regulators found ”severe corrosion” in a pipeline, a move which would take 400,000 barrels a day from the market.

The news sent the price of a barrel of Nymex crude up 1.6 per cent to $75.95.

The shutdown is embarrassing for the UK oil major, which has been attempting to portray a March spill – the largest ever at Prudhoe Bay – as a one-off and not indicative of the state of the Alaska field. read more

Aug 6, 10:40 PM (ET)

By MARY PEMBERTON
 
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – In a sudden blow to the nation’s oil supply, half the production on Alaska’s North Slope was being shut down Sunday after BP Exploration Alaska, Inc. discovered severe corrosion in a Prudhoe Bay oil transit line.

BP officials said they didn’t know how long the Prudhoe Bay field would be off line. “I don’t even know how long it’s going to take to shut it down,” said Tom Williams, BP’s senior tax and royalty counsel. read more

EXTRACT: Militant attacks and pipeline leaks have cut production in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest producer, by about 800,000 barrels a day. Gunmen killed five Nigerian oil workers and injured three others contracted to a Royal Dutch Shell Plc venture, Shell said Aug. 5. The Philippine embassy in Nigeria has sent a two-man team to Port Harcourt to help obtain the release of three Filipino workers kidnapped in Rivers State Aug. 4. 

THE ARTICLE 

Aug. 7 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil surged 1.7 percent to $76 a barrel after BP Plc said it will shut Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay field, the largest in the U.S., because of corrosion in a pipeline. read more

CALGARY – SHELL CANADA has issued a formal proposal to its partners to proceed with Phase I expansion of the Athabasca oil sands project, that includes the Muskeg River mine. WESTERN OIL SANDS (20%) and CHEVRONTEXACO (20%) have 90 days to respond.

Only two weeks ago, Shell said the anticipated cost of expanding the project had grown 50% to $7.3 billion (see CMJ Net News, July 16, 2006).

Shell wants to boost daily production by 100,000 bbl, reaching a rate of 255,000 bbl/day by late 2009. The project will be integrated with the existing facilities. It includes developing a new mine on Lease 13 and adding capacity at the Scotford upgrader. Within the next decade, the company wants to reach daily production of 550,000 bbl. read more

Monday, August 7, 2006. Issue 3469. Page 5.
The Associated Press

The Natural Resources Ministry said Friday that it would file a court challenge to the Shell-led Sakhalin-2 consortium’s plans to develop oil and gas fields off Sakhalin Island, a day after it called for a halt in pipe-laying at the $20 billion project.

Analysts have said the ministry’s probe into Sakhalin-2 is aimed at pressuring the Sakhalin Energy group to offer Gazprom better terms as it jostles to join what will be the world’s biggest liquefied natural gas development. read more