March 15th, 2007:

Mar 15th 2007 | LAGOS

Elections could further destabilise the violent, oil-rich Delta region

THE seedy drinking-holes frequented by burly foreign oilmen in Nigeria’s main oil city of Port Harcourt are pretty empty these days. Kidnappings and killings of expatriate workers, car-bombs and violent robberies have persuaded many to stay behind the high walls and barbed wire of their own homes, as armed groups wreak havoc ahead of national elections next month.

In the past year, attacks on oil facilities have forced Nigeria to shut down a fifth of its production; over 100 foreign workers have been kidnapped in the oil-producing Niger Delta region. Higher security costs and a shrinking number of expatriates willing to take the risks of working there have sharply slowed new investment. The Nigerian government has lost billions of dollars in oil revenues. read more

SHAWN MCCARTHY

Mergers and acquisitions by global oil and gas producers slumped in the second half of last year after a torrid pace in the first half, setting the stage for a “frustrating” 2007, a report from two industry research firms said Thursday.

Fuelled by record cash flow and earnings, global oil companies concluded roughly 280 major upstream transactions, worth $166-billion (U.S.) in 2006, said the report from Houston-based John S. Herold and London-based Harrison Lovegrove & Co. Ltd. That’s the highest transaction value since the mega-merger year of 1998, although the number of deals fell from 302 in 2005. read more

Posted on March 15, 2007 06:07 PM under: World News & Politics

Qatar Airways plans to become the first airline in the world to fuel its aircraft with natural gas, the company’s chief executive said in an interview.

Akbar al-Baker said the airline was talking to oil giant Royal Dutch Shell and engine manufacturers about using a form of diesel made from natural gas, known as GTL, or Gas-to-Liquids fuel, in its planes; and as soon as the engine manufacturers certify their engines to be used with GTL, Qatar Airways will be the first airline to fuel its airplanes with GTL. read more

MEMPHIS, Tenn., March 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — International Paper (NYSE: IP) today announced the election of Lynn Laverty Elsenhans to its board of directors, effective March 15.

“Lynn brings global business and manufacturing expertise to our board,” said John Faraci, International Paper’s chairman and chief executive officer. “A senior executive at Shell, Lynn is highly regarded within industry. Her accomplishments and experience around the world in a capital-intensive industry like ours will add significant benefit to International Paper.” read more

Published: Thursday, March 15, 2007 8:38 AM CDT
 
BATON ROUGE (AP) – Shell Chemical Co. has settled six years of violations with a $6.5 million agreement, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality said Wednesday.

The settlement covers 21 violations between 1999 and 2004 at four sites in St. Charles Parish and one in Ascension Parish, according to DEQ.

It includes a $1 million fine and $5.5 million in donations and improvements to its flare reduction systems at the sites, DEQ spokesman Rodney Mallett said in a news release.
 
The donations include money for the DEQ hurricane-storm cleanup and recovery fund, an air-quality study, emergency response improvements in the St. Charles Parish School system, and for equipment at the St. Charles Emergency Operation Center, Mallett said. read more

By : Richard Orange
14/03/2007

ROYAL Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil company is angling for a role in developing the $40bn (£20.7bn, E30.3bn) Shtokman field in the Russian Barents Sea, one of the world’s largest energy projects.

The Business understands that Shell made contact with Gazprom earlier this year when it became clear the Russian giant was once again seeking an international partner to help develop the field.

In September 2005, the Russian giant produced a shortlist of five Western oil and gas companies to help it to develop Shtokman, thought to contain 113 trillion cubic feet of gas, the third largest reserve in the world. This comprised US oil groups ConocoPhillips and Chevron, France’s Total and Norway’s Statoil and Norsk Hydro. But not Shell. read more

March 15, 2007, 5:56 pm

Posted by WSJ.com Staff

BP has been criticized for its safety standards since the deadly Texas City refinery explosion in 2005. But Royal Dutch Shell was a far more dangerous company to work for in the past two years.

Thirty-seven Shell employees and contractors died last year, the company reported in its annual filing with the SEC yesterday, compared with just seven BP employees. In 2005, 36 Shell employees died, compared with 27 BP employees. BP had about 97,000 employees at the end of 2006, compared with 108,000 for Shell. read more

By Dan Lonkevich

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company, won’t raise its C$45 ($38.25) a share offer for the stock it doesn’t already own in Shell Canada Ltd., Chief Financial Officer Peter Voser said today in an interview.

“We think it’s a full and fair offer, and the only offer to shareholders,” Voser said from Shell’s offices in New York. The offer is 37 percent higher than the price of shares of Shell Canada the day before the offer was made, he said. read more

Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
Published: Mar 15, 2007

A number of former Greenpeace activists have taken part in a training exercise in support of Mayo fishermen’s objections to the Corrib gas project.

Up to 20 members of environmental group International Sea Solidarity (ISS) participated in the exercise in Belmullet harbour with members of the Erris Inshore Fishermen’s Association. The association withdrew from discussions with Shell E&P Ireland in January, after failure to reach agreement in relation to its concerns about the project. read more

By Ed Crooks, Energy Editor
Published: March 15 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 15 2007 02:00

Royal Dutch Shell has created a new global health and safety function and launched a safety programme after 37 employees and contractors were killed in accidents and other incidents last year.

This was one more than in 2005 and a much higher number than that of BP, which has been strongly criticised for its safety performance following the deaths of 15 people in an explosion in its Texas City refinery in 2005. read more

By Carola Hoyos in Vienna
Published: March 15 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 15 2007 02:00

State-owned oil and natural gas companies last year went on a $57bn shopping spree, accounting for a third of the value of all transactions in oil and gas exploration and production worldwide, according to an industry report out next week.

Statoil’s $32bn merger with fellow Norwegian Norsk Hydro in December accounted for more than half the value of all the deals.

But it was China’s and India’s drive to secure oil and gas resources for their fast-expanding economies and the increasing trend of resource nationalisation, that fuelled the rest of the buying spree. read more

By Chris Tighe
Published: March 15 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 15 2007 02:00

One of the world’s largest bioethanol plants is to be built in Teesside by a new company established by British business heavyweights with backing from two global private equity firms.

Ensus will today announce it has secured an investment approaching £250m for the “green fuels” facility, which will have an annual production capacity of 400m litres at the Wilton International site, near Middlesbrough. Even before the plant has been built, the company has secured a contract to sell all bioethanol output to Shell for 10 years. read more

By Richard Waters in San Francisco
Published: March 14 2007 22:03 | Last updated: March 14 2007 22:03

Internet censorship is spreading rapidly, being practised by about two dozen countries and applied to a far wider range of online information and applications, according to research by a transatlantic group of academics.

The warning comes a week after a Turkish court ordered the blocking of YouTube to silence offensive comments about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, marking the most visible attack yet on a website that has been widely adopted around the world. read more

Posted by WSJ.com Staff

Unlike his peer, BP CEO John Browne, Royal Dutch Shell chief Jeroen van der Veer got a raise last year.

Van der Veer was paid 3.69 million euros (about $4.9 million) last year, up from 3.48 million euros in 2005,according to Shell’s annual  report, filed yesterday. His pay was close to that of Lord Browne — but that CEO has taken pay cuts two years running, as his company deals with safety issues and a host of other problems.

Van der Veer, in contrast, oversaw a record annual profit in 2006 and a fourth-quarter gain of oil and gas production, long a sore spot for Shell. His 2006 compensation included a 2-million-euro bonus, a car allowance and transportation between his home and office. One assumes said car and transportation run on gasoline. read more

VIENNA, Austria (AP) — OPEC ministers on Wednesday spoke out against pumping more crude into world markets, suggesting they favored present levels — and prices — despite jittery stock markets and concerns about the health of the global economy.

Ahead of Thursday’s meeting by the 12 OPEC oil ministers, comments by the ministers of Nigeria and Kuwait reflected satisfaction on the part of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries with present prices. While well off the record highs of over $78 last summer, a barrel of oil still costs around 40 percent more than in 2004. read more

March 15, 2007

— How bad are things at Shell these days? At Shell Centre, the head office at London’s Waterloo, the sign above the door is missing the initial “S”.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/columnists/article1517019.ece