May 28th, 2007:

The Foreign Office today revised its travel advice for Nigeria. We are now advising against all travel to the Niger Delta due to the high risk of kidnapping, armed robbery and other armed attacks in the area.

The relevant summary points now read:

* We advise against all travel to the Niger Delta (Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers States, including Port Harcourt). This is because of the very high risk of kidnapping, armed robbery and other armed attacks in these areas. In fourteen separate incidents since January 2006, 30 British nationals and over 180 foreign nationals have been kidnapped in the Niger Delta area and one Briton has been killed. See the Terrorism/Security section of this travel advice for more details. read more

By Neil Buckley
Published: May 29 2007 03:00 | Last updated: May 29 2007 03:00

Russian regulators are set to discuss as early as Friday the withdrawal of the licence held by BP’s Russian venture to exploit the massive Kovykta natural gas field.

The long struggle over Kovykta appeared to be entering its final phase yesterday after a Siberian court said it did not have jurisdiction to hear asuit from TNK-BP challenging regulators’ claims it was notproducing enough gas from the field.

Russia’s natural resources ministry said it was “very likely” the licensing agency would discuss on June 1 whether to revoke the licence on the grounds that TNK-BP was not fulfilling its terms. read more

By Roland Gribben
Last Updated: 1:02am BST 29/05/2007

BP and its Russian partners could be stripped of the licence to operate the huge Kovykta gasfield in Siberia this week, according to Russian officials.

Rosnedra, Russia’s licence regulator, meets on Friday and a spokesman said that discussion of the ”early withdrawal” of the licence will be on the agenda.

The ”crunch” meeting folows another setback for the TNK-BP partnership. An arbitration court in Irkutsk yessterday threw out a suit brought by the partners to halt attempts by Russian government agencies to take away its operating licence. read more

(Vitaly Vasiliev believes Britain has too many stereotypes about Russia and Gazprom)

Last Updated: 1:02am BST 29/05/2007
 
Russia’s gas giant may co-build power stations in this country, its UK chief told Russell Hotten. But British firms should not be suspicious of its intentions

Gazprom, Russia’s gas monopoly, has drawn up ambitious plans to seize control of 10pc of the UK gas market by 2010.

As part of the plan Gazprom is considering building power stations in the UK in partnership with other energy firms, Vitaly Vasiliev, chief executive of Gazprom Marketing and Trading (GMT) told The Daily Telegraph. read more

May 29, 2007
Dominic Walsh

BP’s attempts to save its joint venture to exploit Russia’s giant Kovytka gasfield suffered a fresh blow yesterday when a court in Siberia threw out a legal challenge that might have preserved its licence.

The decision against its TNK-BP venture paves the way for regulators to revoke its licence on Friday and analysts believe that it will be forced to hand a majority stake in the project to Gazprom, the state-owned gas group.

A spokesman for Rosnedra, the licence regulator, said: “Rosnedra will discuss the early withdrawal of the Kovytka licence at its meeting on Friday.” The decision is being seen as part of a wider move by Russia to expand its influence in the oil and gas industry and experts believe that, once Gazprom has secured control of Kovytka, the threat to the licence will dissipate. read more

By Joe Carroll

May 29 (Bloomberg) — Colorado and Utah have as much oil as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Nigeria, Kuwait, Libya, Angola, Algeria, Indonesia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates combined.

That’s not science fiction. Trapped in limestone up to 200 feet (61 meters) thick in the two Rocky Mountain states is enough so-called shale oil to rival OPEC and supply the U.S. for a century.

Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp., the two biggest U.S. energy companies, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc are spending $100 million a year testing new methods to separate the oil from the stone for as little as $30 a barrel. A growing number of industry executives and analysts say new technology and persistently high prices make the idea feasible. read more

Tuesday, May 29, 2007. Issue 3666. Page 8.

President Vladimir Putin’s regular calls for “dictatorship of the law” when he took office seven years ago have faded into memory. What we have today is something very different.

An example of how things have changed emerged Monday when an Irkutsk court threw out a lawsuit by TNK-BP to stop regulatory authorities from taking away its license for the Kovykta gas field. At issue is whether TNK-BP has met the terms of its production contract. The court said the lawsuit was out of its jurisdiction. read more

By Torrey Clark

May 28 (Bloomberg) — BP Plc’s Russian venture lost a court case over its license to the giant Kovykta gas deposit, allowing the government as early as this week to regain control of a field with enough fuel to supply Asia for five years.

A court in Irkutsk, Siberia lifted an order forbidding the federal government from revoking the license held by TNK-BP’s OAO Rusia Petroleum unit, after dismissing the unit’s demands to clarify how much gas it had to provide to the region. read more

By Glen Carey

May 28 (Bloomberg) — Petroleum Development Oman, a state- owned company in which Royal Dutch Shell Plc is the largest foreign investor, signed two agreements to increase output from the aging Qarn Alam oil and gas field through steam injection.

Dodsal Group, an Indian construction company based in the United Arab Emirates, will drill 150 wells and build a water treatment plant at Qarn Alam, Petroleum Development Oman said in a statement late yesterday.

Galfar Engineering & Contracting Ltd., a closely held oil and gas services company in Oman, won a contract to install water flow lines. About 220 kilometers (136 miles) of new pipelines will be laid to handle increased production from the field. read more

By Angela Macdonald-Smith

May 28 (Bloomberg) — Global carbon trading is needed to set a price on carbon and allow for investments in new energy-supply projects while reducing emissions, said Russell Caplan, chairman of Royal Dutch Shell Plc in Australia.

While the European Union’s carbon trading system is “a good start,” a worldwide plan is required, Caplan said today at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation energy business forum in Darwin, part of a meeting of energy ministers from the 21-nation group. read more

It’s a high-stakes gamble, where even a tiny pinhole in a pipeline can cost billions and drive up the cost of filling your gas tank.
 
By David Greising
Tribune chief business correspondent

May 27, 2007

DEADHORSE, Alaska — Painful reminders of the fallout from the cheap-oil era of a decade ago are never far from Robert Malone, the top North American executive of oil giant BP.

In March, he traveled 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle to look in on BP’s efforts to rebuild the pipeline system that leaked 200,000 gallons of oil last spring onto Alaska’s North Slope. But before donning an arctic parka to head into the 52-degrees-below-zero wind chill, Malone had to interrupt a meeting with workers to mark a solemn occasion: the moment, precisely two years earlier, when an explosion at the oil giant’s Texas City refinery killed 15 people. read more

Dubai: 28 May 207

Iran’s oilfields need at least $100 billion worth of foreign investment over the next decade to boost output by 1 million barrels per day (bpd) to 5 million bpd, a senior Iranian oil official said.

Extensive exploration, further development of Iran’s oilfields and increasing recovery rates via advanced technology are a must if the country is to hit its capacity target, said Abdollmohammad Delparish, planning manager at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC).

“For this goal we need partnership with foreign companies — and the $100 billion is a very conservative estimate,” he said. “Internal investment will only cover a quarter of our financial needs.” read more

Monday, May 28, 2007

TOM BERGIN

LONDON – International oil firms have been scrambling for Africa in recent years, but in their hunger for reserves they may be taking greater risks than they realise, raising the prospect of a rush for the door in the future.

A record 106 oil and gas exploration licences were awarded in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2006, and the figure could be surpassed in 2007, international energy consultants Wood Mackenzie said in an annual review of the African oil industry.

The tens of billions of dollars flowing into the continent’s oil industry partly reflects a global surge in exploration prompted by high oil prices. read more

Oil firm BP has moved a step closer to losing its share of a licence for the Kovykta gas field in East Siberia.

An arbitration court judge in Irkutsk has thrown out attempts by TNK-BP to stop authorities seizing the licence.

The judge, Valery Titov, said that the case was outside the court’s jurisdiction. TNK-BP may now appeal against the ruling.

Analysts say the licence dispute is the latest attempt by the Kremlin to gain control of Russia’s energy supplies.

Last year Gazprom secured a majority stake in a similarly large Russian oil and gas field formerly led by Royal Dutch Shell. read more

2007-05-28

As talks resume between Shell and the Nigerian government planning for oil production in Ogoniland, the Ogoni remain excluded from negotiations and frustrated in their calls for compensation.

Below are extracts from an article written by Nico Colombrant and published by Voice Of America News:

In Nigeria’s oil-rich Niger Delta, one area, Ogoniland in Rivers State, resists oil production. Residents there say oil companies refuse to meet their demands to redistribute wealth and protect the environment. Voice Of America’s (VOA) Nico Colombant reports. read more

Reuters
Monday, May 28, 2007

MOSCOW: Russia moved closer to stripping oil major TNK-BP, half owned by BP Plc, of its licence for the giant Kovykta gas field after authorities won a court case against the firm on Monday.

A judge in an arbitration court in Irkutsk, the region in East Siberia where the field is located, said he had ruled to throw out a suit by TNK-BP , which was seeking to stop the authorities from taking away the licence. “This dispute could not be reviewed by our arbitration court. It is out of our jurisdiction to review the submitted documents,” judge Valery Titov, who presided over the hearing, told Reuters. read more