April 22nd, 2007:

Terry Macalister
Monday April 23, 2007

A worsening of relations between Britain and Russia has unnerved the UK business community and led to a partial boycott of an important bilateral conference on economic affairs scheduled to start in London today attended by the trade and industry secretary, Alistair Darling.

One third of UK business leaders said the rapport between Britain and Russia was either “difficult and getting worse” or “strained and unfriendly” while nearly half consider further Russian investment in Britain as a “bad thing”, according to a YouGov poll. read more

Gabriel Rozenberg: April 23, 2007
BANKING AND FINANCE

British companies have come top of a European league table of wealth creation and are more profitable than their rivals in France and Germany, according to a government study. The Department of Trade and Industry’s annual Value Added scoreboard shows that British firms generated £441 billion of value added, or profits before wage costs.

The German and French companies in the list both generated around £323 billion of “extra” wealth. Top of the list was Royal Dutch Shell, which the report classified as a British company despite its headquarters in the Netherlands, and BP. Other high-scoring firms included HSBC, GlaxoSmithKline and Royal Bank of Scotland. read more

By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
Reuters
Sunday, April 22, 2007; 12:45 PM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. efforts to force Iran to change its behavior have expanded beyond the White House to Main Street and threaten the broadest financial disinvestment campaign since South African apartheid ended.

Momentum is growing for a movement that encourages Americans to withdraw investments in companies doing business with the Islamic republic, as well as other states perceived by Washington as security problems — Sudan, North Korea and Syria.
 
In the 1980s, an international disinvestment campaign helped undermine racial apartheid in South Africa and open the way for black-majority governance after decades of white-minority rule. read more

by Lucie Godeau

A boycott by top Moscow officials cast a cloud over the opening Sunday of a showcase event for Russian businesses.

The blow fell after a Russian press report suggested that the Kremlin ordered the no-show because of increasing strains between Moscow and London.

Missing from the 10th annual Russian Economic Forum will be Alexander Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s energy giant Gazprom and the president of the country’s oil company Rosneft, Sergei Bogdanchikov.

“There won’t be any high officials this year at the forum,” said Jonti Small, spokesman for event organisers Eventica, on Friday. read more

EXTRACT: Sir Mark Moody-Stuart… The 66-year-old Antiguan-born corporate veteran won his spurs by rehabilitating Shell’s battered reputation while he was chairman in the 1990s. Moody-Stuart steadied the oil giant after it was fiercely criticised for its part in the execution of Nigerian Ken Saro Wiwa and eight other activists after they protested against the poisoning of the Niger Delta oil lands.

THE ARTICLE 

Sunday April 22, 2007

It may have made $9bn profit, but the metals mining group stands accused of some base practices, reports Nick Mathiason read more

EXTRACT: Total, the French oil group, and Occidental Petroleum of the US also submitted bids, but analysts said Shell was widely tipped as the frontrunner. The Anglo-Dutch oil company has been active in the UAE for several decades. The UAE holds the world’s fifth largest gas reserves and wants to develop them to meet soaring demand.

THE ARTICLE

By Sylvia Pfeifer
Last Updated: 12:58am BST 22/04/2007
 
A Swiss-based company with assets in West Africa and Iraq is poised to become the largest independent oil and gas company on the London market. read more

By Sylvia Pfeifer,
Last Updated: 12:58am BST 22/04/2007

Boeing’s green sky thinking

Boeing, the US aerospace giant best known for making the 747 jumbo jet, is working on plans to develop a “biofuel blend” derived from plants or algae that could power conventional jets. Executives at the company said a hybrid fuel could be available within five years, using the same engines that currently propel aircraft.

Bill Glover, the managing director of environmental strategy at Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said: “We could see something within five years.” He stressed that any fuel would still be a blend, with between 20 per cent and 40 per cent derived from a plant source. read more

(John Antonelli / Goldman Environmental Prize 
Willie Corduff at his Rossport farm)

By JIM CARLTON
April 22, 2007 12:02 a.m.

SAN FRANCISCO — Activists who helped block industrial development on four continents are among this year’s recipients of the Goldman Environmental Prize, the environmental world’s highest honor.

This year’s honorees include an Irish farmer who helped stop a consortium headed by Royal Dutch Shell PLC from running a gas pipeline through his property, a Canadian tribal leader who helped get her government to seal off forests from logging and other activities, and a nomadic Mongolian herdsman who mobilized his countrymen to curtail gold mining that was depleting a major river in the arid nation. read more

April 22, 2007
The Insight team

BRITISH companies are handing over millions of pounds to an Indian chemical plant so that western firms can continue to pump out thousands of tons of greenhouse gases.

In a deal that has angered environmentalists, the Indian company SRF, which produces refrigeration gases at a sprawling chemical plant in Rajasthan, stands to make a profit of more than £300m from the bizarre arrangement that is supposed to combat climate change.

The deal is part of the new so-called carbon market where companies in developed countries pay those in developing nations to reduce their production of greenhouse gases. By doing so, western companies can increase their own output of carbon dioxide in a trade-off. read more

April 22, 2007

Scientists are working on plans for an environmentally friendly jet fuel to clean up the image of aviation and head off government threats to curb air travel, writes Dominic O’Connell.

Engineers at Boeing, the American plane maker, say biofuels made from crops or algae may help fuel planes within five years, far sooner than anticipated.

Boeing is coordinating research and development in a consortium whose members include BP, Shell and Chevron as well as the US air force, Nasa and aircraft engine companies. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Fuels, which has invested in biofuel production in California, is also a member. read more

Felicia Loo and Jonathan Leff
SINGAPORE
22-Apr-07

OIL major Royal Dutch Shell is working hard to gain a foothold in China’s refining sector after hopes for taking a share in a new CNOOC refinery was dashed, a top company executive said last Friday.

But its eagerness to own a share of capacity in the world’s second-largest oil consumer is not matched in India, where a huge wave of new refining capacity should provide more than enough fuel to supply its plans to expand into the retail sector. read more