March 17th, 2007:

Saturday, March 17, 2007
VOLUME 1 ISSUE 288

Shell Investments Limited (“SIL”), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc, announced that as at 8:00 p.m. (Toronto time) on March 16, 2007 (the “Initial Expiry Time”) 96,985,322 common shares in the capital of Shell Canada Limited (“Shell Canada”) were validly deposited to SIL’s offer to acquire, at a price of C$45.00 cash per common share, all of the outstanding common shares of Shell Canada not already owned by SIL or its affiliates (the “Offer”).
 
As the minimum deposit condition under the Offer has been met, SIL has taken up and accepted for payment all of the common shares validly deposited.  The common shares taken up and accepted for payment represent approximately 53.1% of the outstanding common shares of Shell Canada not already owned by SIL or its affiliates.  SIL or its affiliates now own 740,294,180 common shares of Shell Canada or approximately 89.6% of the outstanding common shares of Shell Canada.  Payment will be made on or before Wednesday, March 21, 2007 to Shell Canada shareholders who have validly deposited their common shares under the Offer. read more

Published: Saturday, March 17, 2007 | 5:41 PM ET

CALGARY (CP) – European oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC has acquired another 97 million shares of its Shell Canada Ltd. (TSX:SHC) subsidiary and is on the road to taking its Canadian unit private under an C$8.7 billion bid announced in January.

Royal Dutch, which already holds 78 per cent of Shell Canada, announced early Saturday that just under 97 million shares were tendered to its C$45 a share offer. That amounted to about 53 per cent of Shell Canada’s minority stake, meeting a key condition of the privatization bid. read more

By Catherine Belton in Moscow
Published: March 17 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 17 2007 02:00

Yury Trutnev, Russia’s natural resources minister, yesterday warned that TNK-BP’s licence to develop the Kovykta gas field in eastern Siberia could be withdrawn and auctioned off to a Russian company.

Mr Trutnev said BP’s Russian unit, TNK-BP, would not have time to rectify breaches of its licence to develop the vast gas field in time for a May deadline.

“I don’t think they’ll be able to fix the violations,” he told Russian reporters during a trip to Luanda. “If they haven’t done it in the past several years, how can they do it in two months?” read more

Published: March 17 2007 02:00 | Last updated: March 17 2007 02:00

The international oil companies descended from the mighty “seven sisters” have been losing their grip on the world’s oil supply for years, but it is only as oil prices have settled stubbornly above $50 a barrel that the significance of the change in the industry has become clear.

The “new seven sisters”, from outside the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, now hold the oil, and the whip hand. If the world’s energy demands are to be satisfied, to say nothing of oil producers’ economic interests, interfamilial relations will have to improve. read more

EXTRACT: “Including companies such as BP and Shell is a pragmatic compromise…

By Faith Archer
Last Updated: 12:40am GMT 17/03/2007

Marks & Spencer has launched a new ethical investment fund which has troubled oil giant BP as one of its biggest holdings.

BP has been criticised for safety and pollution failings, including the deaths of 15 workers at its Texas City refinery and oil pipeline spills at its Alaskan unit. Also, US regulators are scrutinising BP’s dominance in the propane gas market after allegations of price-fixing. read more

By Matt Whittaker

McALLEN — Shell Oil Co. wants more natural gas and it’s looking at deep South Texas to get it.

Royal Dutch Shell Group subsidiary Shell Western Exploration & Production Co. expects to drill two or three exploratory wells a year in Hidalgo, Starr, Zapata, Brooks and Duval counties, said Annell R. Bay, vice president of exploration for Shell’s Americas division.

The company is already drilling one of the exploratory wells in Starr County, she said. She did not know how long the drilling would continue. read more

SAN FRANCISCO

•  EPA has been cleaning up Arvin site

•  ‘The process was quite messy, with frequent spills’

The costs of cleaning up a toxic waste site near Arvin the Central Valley should be paid by Shell Oil Co., Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co., and Union Pacific Transportation Co., the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals says in a ruling Friday.

Brown & Bryant Inc., an agricultural chemical company that has since gone out of business, used the polluted land. The two railroad companies owned part of the land on which the chemical operation was located. read more

Shell Oil Products US has launched a yearlong, $35 million integrated marketing campaign to let motorists know that “all gasolines are not the same.”

TV spots, an experiential marketing tour, and in-market activation programs all focus on giving consumers a first-hand look at the gunk that low-quality discount valves and fuel injectors can leave behind on critical engine parts, Shell said.

The new marketing campaign, Shell Passionate Experts, is built around the results from a variety of Shell tests, including one designed to compare two gasoline products in a single engine under identical conditions. read more

Sat Mar 17, 2007 7:06AM GMT
By Jeffrey Jones

Update One

CALGARY, Alberta, March 17 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research) moved a major step toward integrating its Canadian unit’s vast oil sands holdings late on Friday when most Shell Canada Ltd.’s (SHC.TO: Quote, Profile , Research) minority shareholders accepted the oil major’s C$8.7 billion ($7.4 billion) bid to take it private.

Royal Dutch Shell, which launched its offer in October, said 53.1 percent of the minority stockholders tendered their shares before the Friday bid deadline, surpassing a minimum condition of half the stock it did not already own. read more

Advertising feature
March 17, 2007

James Penfold on a partnership that has endured through the years between a car manufacturer and its favourite petrol

The 2007 Formula One season marks the 60th anniversary of the founding of Ferrari and another chapter in the unique and successful technical partnership between Ferrari and Shell – a formal link-up which was originated only three years after Ferrari was established. Since that debut race together in the first-ever round of the Formula One World Championship in 1950, Shell fuels and lubricants and the technical experts who develop them have been an important element in the Scuderia’s success. read more