October 6th, 2006:

Matt Weaver and agencies
Thursday October 5, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

The Foreign Office today issued a warning against travelling to parts of Nigeria, following the kidnapping of four British oil workers in the country.

The men were among up to seven foreigners abducted from a residential compound in the country’s southern Akwa Ibom state on Tuesday night.

The Foreign Office advised against all but essential travel to the state, and said it is feared there may be more kidnappings in the Niger delta. read more

Published: Oct 06, 2006

WHAT a coincidence that Shell should choose the day on which all eyes were focused on Bertie’s apologia to impose its will on the people of Mayo.

If Bertie has succeeded in his struggle to distinguish what is fundamentally right from what is legally acceptable, could he now address the fundamental rights involved in the crisis that confronts the Erris community?

Is it right that the clearly expressed wish of the people for offshore gas processing and a clean environment should be dismissed upon Shell’s insistence on pursuing the cheaper alternative? read more

By: Lorna Siggins and Tom Shiel, Irish Times
Published: Oct 06, 2006

The Garda says it has withdrawn its “public order unit” from north Mayo and has scaled down numbers deployed in and around the Shell Corrib gas terminal.

A force of 170 has been cut to 110, according to gardaI, and road-blocks were not in place on approach roads yesterday morning – the third day of a peaceful protest by some 240 people as Shell staff arrived for work on the terminal site.

However, Garda spokesman Insp Ray McHugh has denied reports that several staff had put in personal requests to be taken off duties in the area, and has said that no such requests would be entertained in any case. read more

Oct. 6, 2006, 12:13AM
By BRETT CLANTON
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

The Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that BP and Royal Dutch Shell will pay $1.5 million in fines to settle allegations that they sold gasoline that failed to meet federal clean air standards.

The agency said the settlements were reached Sept. 27 and resolve alleged violations that occurred between 1999 and 2004 at gas stations, fuel-handling terminals and refineries.

Under the voluntary settlements, BP will pay a civil penalty of $900,000 and two Shell affiliates will pay $600,000 in fines. The Shell allegations were aimed at Motiva Enterprises, a joint venture between Shell and Saudi Refining, and Equilon Enterprises, a Shell subsidiary based in Houston. read more

MOSCOW, Oct 5 (Reuters) – The Netherlands will welcome the expansion of Russian energy firms in the country despite the problems Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) has encountered in Russia, the Dutch Economy Minister said on Thursday.

“It is true that on the investment climate you always look from a reciprocal point of view,” Joop Wijn told a news conference in Moscow.

But he added: “If Russia wants to sell gas to Great Britain and they want to transport gas to the Netherlands, we welcome this strategy.” read more

(Joseph Sywenkyj for The New York Times
Ships at Korsakov, a port at the southern tip of Sakhalin Island in Russia.)

October 6, 2006
By ANDREW E. KRAMER

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK, Russia — For more than a decade, Dmitri V. Lisitsyn waged a lonely, losing battle to protect the local salmon and gray whales from the world’s large oil companies, which are turning bucolic Sakhalin Island into an industrial hub for energy in Asia.

Now, Mr. Lisitsyn suddenly has the full support of an unlikely environmental champion: the Russian government. read more

(People fill their cars with fuel at a Shell garage in Glasgow, February 3, 2005. Units of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. and BP Plc. will pay a combined $1.5 million (800,000 pounds) to settle charges that they violated U.S. gasoline standards, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday. REUTERS/Jeff J Mitchell)

THE ARTICLE

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Units of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. and BP Plc. will pay a combined $1.5 million (800,000 pounds) to settle charges that they violated U.S. gasoline standards, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said on Thursday. read more

Last Update: 6:40 PM ET Oct 5, 2006

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has reached settlements with units of BP PLC (BP) and Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) to address allegations that the oil firms produced gasoline that failed to meet regulatory clean-air requirements, the agency said Thursday.

BP agreed to pay a civil penalty of $900,000 and Shell agreed to pay a civil penalty of $600,000.

The settlements resolve alleged violations of various fuel standards that occurred from 1999 through 2004 at retail outlets, terminals and refineries located throughout the U.S., the EPA said. The agency said a number of violations involve the summertime gasoline standards intended to reduce smog-causing hydrocarbon emissions. Some violations were self-reported by the companies while others were discovered through the EPA’s inspection program. read more

RBC, 05.10.2006, Moscow 19:07:39.Oleg Mitvol, the deputy chief of the Russian environmental watchdog Rosprirodnadzor has submitted to the General Prosecutor’s Office documents from a number of Sakhalin forestries that reveal violations committed by the Sakhalin-2 subcontractor, the press service of the Russian Natural Resources Ministry reports. The documents testify to large-scale illegal forest cutting and destruction of the fertile soil layer during construction of coastal pipelines by Starstroy, one of the project’s contractors. read more

Issue #1210(76), Friday, October 6, 2006
By Miriam Elder
Staff Writer
 
MOSCOW —A top Kremlin economic adviser on Wednesday said Shell had broken its agreement with the government to develop Sakhalin-2 when it doubled the cost estimate for the project to $20 billion, and warned that the government would never accept the increase.”You know which side changed the conditions of development” when it asked to double the project’s costs, Arkady Dvorkovich, head of the Presidential Experts’ Council, told an investment conference. read more

By Joe Carroll

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) — Exxon Mobil Corp. Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson criticized BP Plc for delays starting their jointly owned $1 billion Thunder Horse oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico.

Thunder Horse, a 50,000-ton floating production facility, nearly sank after Hurricane Dennis in July 2005, a storm that did little damage to other offshore platforms and rigs. BP, operator and 75 percent owner, last month said Thunder Horse won’t begin pumping oil until 2008. The original start date was in 2005. read more

By Tina Seeley

Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) — BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc agreed to pay a combined $1.5 million to settle accusations that the companies produced and distributed gasoline that didn’t meet federal clean-air standards, the U.S. government said.

Under the agreements, BP will pay a civil penalty of $900,000 and Shell will pay $600,000, the Environmental Protection Agency said in a statement today.

The agreements settle charges that the companies’ gasoline didn’t meet federal standards aimed at reducing air pollutants such as smog and carbon monoxide from cars. The fuel was sold between 1999 and 2004 to filling stations in several states including Illinois, New York and Missouri, the agency said. read more