August 15th, 2007:

Wed Aug 15, 2007 6:36PM EDT

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A U.S. federal appeals court in San Francisco on Wednesday upheld an order blocking Royal Dutch Shell Plc from exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s north coast.

“We are disappointed,” said Shell in a press statement that added that no drilling will mean the loss of “hundreds of permanent jobs that would be created if Shell is successful in Alaska.”

The ruling essentially says that a handful of environmental groups, Alaska Native groups and the North Slope Burough have merit in their arguments that the drilling could harm the environment. This sets up proceedings for the same Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to look into the matter more fully. read more

By WESLEY LOY
[email protected]

Published: August 15, 2007
Last Modified: August 15, 2007 at 12:44 PM

A federal appeals court today extended its order blocking Dutch oil giant Shell’s planned exploratory drilling campaign in the Beaufort Sea.

The order is a victory for environmental groups and North Slope residents who argued noisy oil industry activity could drive bowhead whales out of reach of subsistence hunters and who accused federal regulators of performing shoddy environmental studies of the potential effects of drilling. read more

By John Donovan

Reply to the Live Chat poster on 15 August who has used various User designations.

His main thrust (assuming it is a he) is that by making a claim that our website has cost Shell $50 billion, we have lost all credibility.

The problem for the individual making the assertion is that we have never made any such claim. It is not a misrepresentation or a distortion, but an outright untruth.

We invite anyone to point out where we have made such a claim.

Perhaps he got mixed up with the bribe offered to Oleg Mitvol? That involved a “fifty”. read more

The Anglo-Dutch group withdraws staff from one of its Gulf of Mexico rigs as hurricane forecasts send the price of oil higher

August 15, 2007
Steve Hawkes

Shell has become the first oil and gas major to close down part of its operations in the Gulf of Mexico amid escalating fears that the first hurricane of the season could tear through the region at the end of the week.

World oil prices rose again today, with US crude 36 cents higher at $72.74, as Tropical Storm Dean approached the Caribbean.

Experts believe that it could develop into a hurricane within three days. read more

By Alex Morales and Christian Schmollinger

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) — A depression in the Gulf of Mexico was forecast to intensify into a tropical storm before hitting the oil and gas region of coastal Texas early tomorrow.

A further threat to U.S. oil and gas production may come from Tropical Storm Dean, a system predicted to intensify into the Atlantic season’s first hurricane before sweeping over the Caribbean’s Lesser Antilles late on Aug. 17. In the Pacific, Hawaii escaped the worst winds of Tropical Storm Flossie as it weakened from hurricane strength and passed south of the islands. read more

VANCOUVER (Thomson Financial) – Sonic Technology Solutions Inc said it has agreed a deal with Shell Canada Energy, part of Royal Dutch Shell, to jointly develop oil sand extraction technology.

Sonic said the aim of this partnership, which builds on previous work the two have done together, is to make oil sand extraction more cost effective.

Sonic said its investment in the venture will depend on the outcome of each phase.

The project and any intellectual property will be jointly owned, Sonic said. read more

(Lee Celano for The New York Times: Oystermen like John Tesvich share offshore Louisiana with energy interests. At right, gas tanks.)

Oystermen often collect lucrative payments in damages from oil companies, a study says, even when their acreage has no oysters to damage.
 
By ADAM NOSSITER
Published: August 15, 2007

HOPEDALE, La. — The brave little oyster boats chug out daily from the dock here, but their richest harvest may actually be sitting in the office towers of downtown New Orleans, 60 miles west of this remote spot where marsh, sky and water converge. read more

BAGHDAD, Aug. 14 International oil firms are taking steps to ready for bids on Iraq’s vast oil reserves, hopes pinned on Iraq’s Parliament approving a law governing the oil.

Last week Chevron and Total agreed to cooperate on Iraq bids, hoping to get a piece of a large pot of crude. Iraq has 115 billion barrels of proven reserves, most of which are not being pumped now. The country is underexplored and experts say modern exploration could prove reserves are double current counts.

Lukoil, the major Russian firm, is trying to win back a contract signed and then dissolved during Saddam Hussein’s regime, teaming up with Russian state-owned firms and asking the government to help its case. read more

Extract from a new book, ‘The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America’ (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press), authored by UC Berkeley professor emeritus Peter Dale Scott. 

Oil and Cheney’s Energy Task Force

There is the same impression of preparation for 9/11 and its consequent war from Cheney’s other task force, the Energy Task Force. By May 2001 it had already set out, urgently and in some detail, plans for taking control over Iraqi oil. As many observers have pointed out, the second Bush administration was the first in which the vice president and his own national security staff wielded powers comparable to, perhaps even surpassing, those of the president. Some have gone even a step further, as journalist Steve Perry wrote in 2005: “Cheney’s office is the Pandora’s Box of the Bush administration campaign to invade Iraq. Most of the planning as to both the waging and selling of the war occurred under his direction, along with that of Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon. It was Cheney who played the point in beating up CIA for its unhelpful analysis of the non-threat posed by Saddam, and Cheney along with his Defense Department pals who effectively circumvented CIA by setting up the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon to funnel the administration the kind of intelligence it wanted, largely courtesy of their longtime double-dealing stooge, Ahmed Chalabi.” read more

Published: Aug 15, 2007

What’s the fuss?

THE surge in demand for energy, coupled with high oil prices, has led to a boom in exploration and production. Offshore activity is expected to represent 43% of oil production and 83% of gas production by the end of 2008, so there is a high level of interest in the market. In addition, as oil and gas prices rise, the exploration and production of previously ignored marginal fields is becoming economically viable, meaning drillships, production vessels and supply ships are in demand. While profits to be gained from traditional ship financing have levelled out, the offshore sector remains buoyant and is seen as a potential growth area, with many ship finance banks moving into the market. read more

Martyn Wingrove, Lloyds List
Published: Aug 15, 2007

GAZPROM’s push into the Sakhalin Energy Investment consortium has forced the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development to pull its funding for the Sakhalin II oil and liquefied natural gas project off eastern Russia.

Since January, EBRD and the Sakhalin Energy shareholders Gazprom, Royal Dutch Shell, Mitui and Mitsubishi have been in discussions over project finance.

EBRD has cut off these discussions in favour of financing other projects, such as those that promote sustainable energy, the bank said. read more

Published: Aug 15, 2007

KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 15 Asia Pulse – Shell Refining Company (Federation of Malaya) Berhad (KLSE:4324) has posted first half pre-tax profit of RM422.490 million (US$121.6 million), up 58.2 per cent from RM266.978 million a year earlier as its refining margins widened in the second quarter.

However, revenue for the six months ended 30 June 2007 fell to RM5,075.767 million from RM5,381.067 million a year earlier, it said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia on May 13.

Shell Refining’s earnings per share rose to 101.92 sen from 63.88 sen previously. read more

Published: Aug 15, 2007

WORKERS were flown off a rig in the North Sea last night after fire broke out in the engine room.

It happened on the semisubmersible oil rig Ocean Guardian, which was drilling for Shell 120 miles north-east of Aberdeen.

A group of 32 non-essential workers were taken off in two helicopters to other nearby rigs soon after the alarm was raised at 6.20pm.

A further 55 staff stayed on board to tackle the fire.

No one was injured in the blaze and Diamond Offshore – the US firm who own the Ocean Guardian – were assessing the damage. read more

By Yee To Wong
Published: August 15 2007 03:00 | Last updated: August 15 2007 03:00

Regal Petroleum closed higher yesterday on talk that Royal Dutch/Shell was looking to buy the exploration group’s assets in Ukraine.

Earlier this year, Regal appointed Tristone Capital to explore a divestment of its Mekhediviska-Golotvschinska and Svyrydivske gas and condensate fields in the eastern European country.

The company reported a full-year loss of $109.2m (£54.5m) due to legal charges for securing its Ukrainian licences. Regal Petroleum rose 4.6 per cent to 192¼p . read more

A Molikpaq offshore oil platform the off Sakhalin island, Far Eastern Russia, 27 April 2003. (Ursula Hyzy / AFP / Getty)

Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2007 By BRYAN WALSH

Anton Chekhov once visited Sakhalin Island to report on the condition of its prisoners and left a tagline unlikely to be adopted by the tourist bureau — if there were one: “Now I have seen Sakhalin, which is hell.” And this from an author famous for understatement.

Exiled at the far eastern end of the Russian Federation, just north of Japan, Sakhalin Island was where imperial Russia once sent some of its most unfortunate convicts, on a journey that was usually one-way. In Soviet times it became a closed military base; site of the notorious shooting down of Korean Air Lines flight 007 after it strayed over Sakhalin in 1983. read more

By Ricky Lynn Bowen
published August 14, 2007 1:45 pm

I read today where OPEC has declared there is no shortage of crude oil on the market, hence they see no need to increase production. I also read where the refineries in the United States are operating at 93 percent capacity. In light of these statements, I wonder why oil is hovering near $80 a barrel?

Maybe it is so companies like Shell can continue to make $3 million dollars every minute as recently reported in the news. Maybe it is so the stockholders continue to make vast amounts of money. Maybe it is because big oil CEOs can collect $400 million retirement packages. When Exxon-Mobil CEO Lee Raymond retired at the end of 2005, he was awarded one of the most lucrative retirement packages in corporate history, totaling almost $400 million, including stock options, pension, use of a corporate jet and even $210,800 in country-club fees and other perks. This includes the $69 million in cash and stock options he made that year. read more