Posts on ‘December 15th, 2006’

  GIVE me the man,” ran an old KGB adage, “and I will find you the crime.” A similar rule now seems to apply to energy companies in Russia. For Yukos, once Russia’s top oil firm, the crime was allegedly unpaid taxes; with the giant oil and gas project led by Royal Dutch Shell on [...]

Russia’s habitual abuse of its energy muscle is bad for its citizens, its neighbourhood and the world   FOR over a decade Royal Dutch Shell, along with its Japanese partners, Mitsui and Mitsubishi, has been struggling to coax oil and gas out of the frozen seas off Sakhalin Island, in Russia’s far east. Over the [...]

Royal Dutch Shell’s ordeal might chill the overall investment climate, or foreign investors may conclude that energy alone is the Kremlin’s special concern By Jason Bush Updated: 3:00 a.m. ET Dec. 15, 2006 Should foreign investors in Russia be worried? Certainly it’s a sign of concern that Anglo-Dutch giant Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) is on [...]

Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:27 AM ET (Adds supervisory board clear 2007 budget) By Tom Miles and Douglas Busvine MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) – The heads of Royal Dutch Shell and Gazprom met for the second time in a week on Friday, a signal they could be nearing a deal to allow the Russian gas [...]

By Stephen Voss Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) — Graveney was the site of the last combat on English soil when British forces battled a downed German bomber crew in 1940. Now the village is fighting a new enemy: the world’s biggest wind farm. The local council, acting on behalf of the town’s 473 residents, refused to [...]

Created: 15.12.2006 12:22 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 12:22 MSK Shares in Peter Hambro Mining bounced back by more than 12 percent in late Thursday trading, after Russian government officials indicated that the gold producer’s main mining licenses were not under threat. The stock has fallen sharply over the last two weeks after Oleg Mitvol, deputy [...]

Fri Dec 15, 2006 11:03am ET   MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) – The supervisory board of the Shell-led (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research) Sakhalin-2 venture has approved the project’s 2007 budget of $1.17 billion — the Russian Energy Ministry said in a statement on Friday. The supervisory board, which oversees the production sharing agreement which [...]

12.15.06, 8:14 AM ET   BRUSSELS (AFX) – The EU is worried about the difficulties faced by Royal Dutch Shell PLC over its Sakhalin-2 project in Russia, European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso said following a two-day summit here. Barroso told reporters that Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende raised the issue with him during [...]

Update: 7:14 AM ET Dec 15, 2006 YENAGOA, Nigeria (AP) — Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB) officials said Friday the company has shut down an occupied Nigerian oil facility, a move that will cut production by 12,000 barrels a day. Earlier, armed men took control of the compound, and Shell officials said a nearby flowstation [...]

15:49 | 15/ 12/ 2006 MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti economic commentator Vasily Zubkov) – Easy come, easy go – this is perhaps the best description of what is happening to oil and gas giant Shell on the Russian island of Sakhalin. The Russian environmental authorities are accusing the Anglo-Dutch company of violating their regulations. Foreign observers [...]

Fri Dec 15, 2006 6:40 AM ET (Adds sources on “road map”, outlook for talks) By Tom Miles and Douglas Busvine MOSCOW, Dec 15 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer met Gazprom chief Alexei Miller on Friday in Moscow to discuss admitting the Russian gas monopoly to the Sakhalin-2 project, Gazprom [...]

By: John Helmer Posted: ’15-DEC-06 09:00′ GMT © Mineweb 1997-2006 MOSCOW (Mineweb.com) –There are three opponents of Russia’s strategy to become a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exporter — the Western Gray Whale, the US Government, and Gazprom. Until this week, and for quite different reasons, all three, including the LNG producer itself, Gazprom, — [...]

Last Update: 6:59 AM ET Dec 15, 2006 MOSCOW (MarketWatch) — The chief executives of OAO Gazprom (GSPBEX.RS) and Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB) met Friday in Moscow to discuss the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project on Russia’s Pacific coast, the Russian gas monopoly said in a statement. Gazprom said its CEO Alexei Miller and [...]

By WILLIAM NSOYOH Associated Press Writer © 2006 The Associated Press Dec. 15, 2006, 6:16AM YENAGOA, Nigeria — Armed men who seized control of a Royal Dutch Shell PLC oil complex overnight fled Friday, taking three Nigerian hostages, shooting a man and forcing the oil giant to halt production at the site. The attackers kidnapped [...]

By EDMUND L. ANDREWS Published: December 15, 2006 WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 — The Justice Department has begun two criminal investigations into the Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service, which is already the focus of several inquiries into its collection of royalties for oil and gas produced on federal property. The new investigations are still in the [...]