October 15th, 2006:

Monday, October 16, 2006. Issue 3519. Page 5.

By Dmitry Zhdannikov
Reuters

MAKAROV, Sakhalin — Royal Dutch Shell said it had taken less than one month to sort out most of the environmental violations identified at its Sakhalin oil and gas project, but a federal investigation continues.

“We have addressed the violations very quickly, but we had to divert resources from pipeline construction,” Wayne Harris, Shell’s health and risk assurance manager at the pipeline, told reporters last week visiting a 30-kilometer section 220 kilometers north of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, the region’s capital. read more

EXTRACT: The EU has many issues to raise, including the recent clash between Moscow and Royal Dutch Shell over the oil company’s alleged environmental breaches in the Sakhalin field and the decision of Gazprom, Russia’s gas monopoly, to reject foreign partners in the Shtokman project.

THE ARTICLE

By George Parker in Brussels: Published: October 15 2006 17:47 | Last updated: October 15 2006 17:47

Inviting Vladimir Putin to a European Union summit this week was a diplomatic blunder that could hand the Russian president a high-profile stage on which to exploit EU divisions, diplomats in Brussels are warning. read more

Forget corruption. In Putin’s Russia, the nexus of payoffs and patronage is almost medieval, touching every aspect of life.

By Owen Matthews and Anna Nemsova
Newsweek International

Oct. 23, 2006 issue – When armed police showed up last Wednesday night at Zurab Dzhaparidze’s Moscow apartment, he knew immediately why they’d come. Dzhaparidze’s crime, the policemen claimed, was that his apartment’s purchase documents hadn’t been completed properly—they’d come to kick him out. But the 34-year-old film-festival organizer knew better. His real sin was to be Georgian. Ever since the Kremlin declared its disapproval of Tbilisi after an espionage row last month, Russia’s police and bureaucrats have declared open season on Georgians, their businesses and their property. read more

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia is not considering freezing the giant Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project, a key official said, easing fears that the world’s largest privately funded energy project could be closed down for environmental violations.

“The question of freezing the project is not being posed at the moment. Russia will respect and fulfil its international obligations, in particular with respect to foreign companies,” said Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of Russia’s ecological monitoring agency. read more

15/10/2006 09:49 AM
Reuters

Royal Dutch Shell says it has taken less than a month to sort out most of the ecological violations Russian authorities have identified at its Sakhalin oil and gas project, but official probes continue.

Russia’s ecological agency RosPrirodNadzor (RPN) has threatened to withdraw permits from the US$20 billion project on the Pacific island of Sakhalin and force it to re-route pipelines, which Shell has said may further delay the scheme.

RPN has yet to give Shell’s operations a clean bill of health and its investigations will continue for several weeks. read more

October 15, 2006

The fallout is only just beginning over the Competition Authority’s oil industry blunder, writes Ciaran Hancock  
 
AS A keen fan of American “cajun”barbecues, Bill Prasifka is used to taking the heat. Last week, however, the American competition lawyer and chairman of the Competition Authority found himself on a spit being roasted for the authority’s failure to act in time on the proposed merger of Statoil and Shell, two of the biggest petrol retailers in the state.

News of the incredible gaffe emerged on Tuesday, when the authority put a statement on its website admitting that it had missed by one day the deadline to make a determination on Topaz’s €285m takeover of Statoil’s wholesale and retail oil operations here. As a result, the deal was free to proceed.
 
Topaz already owned Shell’s network of service stations and the combined entity now has between 30% and 35% of the Irish petrol retailing market as well as a strong position in wholesale terminal facilities and the distribution of heating oil. read more

14 October 2006 6:00 pm  
     
MUMBAI: BBC World has announced that World Challenge – a global competition seeking to highlight and reward examples of community enterprise and innovation – has reached its final stage, with the launch of six programmes featuring the 12 finalists, and an international appeal for votes to choose the winning project.

Each programme featuring two finalists is being broadcast to BBC World’s weekly global audience of 65 million viewers. The channel’s viewers are invited to vote online for the most commendable and inspirational project, which will also be featured in Newsweek and online at www.theworldchallenge.co.uk, where summaries and edited versions of the programmes are available. read more

By Raymond J. Learsy

In their efforts this week to cut production quota’s by a million barrels a day with prices hovering at $60 a barrel the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries has destroyed the little credibility it still had as a reliable and trustworthy supplier of oil to world markets. OPEC’s billions extorted from the world economy has helped destabilize the world’s political landscape from Venezuela’s posturing, to Saudi Whahabbi venom, to Iranian nuclear roulette, to Nigerian murderous civil unrest, and on. For world stability it is becoming imperative that alternatives to fossil fuels are developed post haste and substitutes found for OPEC supplied oil. read more

Sunday 15-Oct-06

ROYAL Dutch Shell says it has taken less than a month to sort out most of the ecological violations Russian authorities have identified at its Sakhalin oil and gas project, but official probes continue.

Russia’s ecological agency RosPrirodNadzor (RPN) has threatened to withdraw permits from the US$20-billion project on the Pacific island of Sakhalin and force it to re-route pipelines, which Shell has said may further delay the scheme.

RPN has yet to give Shell’s operations a clean bill of health and its investigations will continue for several weeks. read more

EXTRACT: The bigger the empire, the more things can go wrong: BP has been dogged by safety issues in Alaska, trading problems in Texas and hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico; Vodafone has faced write-offs against its British 3G licences and its German Mannesman acquisition, and has had to sell its Japanese business; Shell is still recovering from the debacle of the overstatement of its reserves.

THE ARTICLE

Heather Connon
Sunday October 15, 2006

Robert Parkes, UK equity strategist at HSBC, calls them the superheavyweights and it is an apt term for the 10 or so giants that dominate the FTSE 100 index. Each of them weighs in at least £30bn and the largest is worth more than £115bn; combined, the 10 – BP, Royal Dutch Shell, HSBC, GlaxoSmithKline, Vodafone, Royal Bank of Scotland, AstraZeneca, Barclays, HBOS and Anglo American – are worth more than £700bn, or more than 40 per cent of the total stock market. read more

In recent weeks, hardliners in the Kremlin have cancelled or renegotiated deals with Western firms in order to pursue Russia’s national interests – but their plans may backfire

Oliver Morgan
Sunday October 15, 2006

If there were any doubt about the ruthlessness with which Russia is executing its new nationalist energy policy, it was smashed last week. In an almost cursory announcement, Alexey Miller, chairman of the management committee of the massive Russian energy group Gazprom, told TV channel Russia Today that the state-controlled company would develop the ‘supergiant’ Shtokman gas field in the Arctic by itself and would not be inviting Western companies to join in. read more