November 7th, 2007:

12:53 – 05 November 2007

Interested in a job at Shell? The super-major currently has graduate starting positions in London, Aberdeen, Chester and Manchester, as well as vacancies for 300 graduates across Europe. These roles cover a range of technical and commercial disciplines: a range of engineering opportunities as well as commercial positions in finance, IT, HR and sales and marketing for graduates and early career professionals. Starting salary is £28,500, plus benefits.

12:53 – 05 November 2007

Shell Ep Offshore Ventures and Frontier Drillships have signed a joint venture designed to lead to the construction of a new drillship concept known as the Bully rig. The Bully is said to set a new standard by offering a flexible, smaller but highly capable vessel suited to deepwater and Arctic drilling while reducing the construction and operational costs compared with current new-build drilling rigs of similar capability.

The Shell/Frontier joint venture expects to deliver the first Bully rig to the Gulf of Mexico by early-2010, and it will be operated by Frontier on behalf of the JV under a separate management services contract. read more

12:53 – 05 November 2007

Many of today’s North Sea leaders cut their teeth during the cost-reduction drives of the mid to late-1990s under the CRINE and CRINE Network issues. This was a period where there was ruthless emphasis on slashing capital costs, with scant regard for long-term operational efficiency of installations.

The culture engendered by these initiatives was very alive in 2000 and echoes even today. The industry is paying the price of CRINE, as far as Whewell is concerned. read more

12:53 – 05 November 2007

Shell UK chairman James Smith will be in Aberdeen to deliver a lunchtime lecture at the University of Aberdeen/The Robert Gordon University Chemistry Week 2007 celebration.

Chemistry Week is a national event organised by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Held every two years, the aim is to promote a positive image of chemistry and increase public understanding of the importance of chemical science in our everyday lives.

This year’s theme has been chosen to support the RSC’s energy and transport campaign, Fuelling the Future, with a particular emphasis on how chemistry offers positive solutions to the energy challenges that travel (and transport) are facing today. read more

Aberdeen Press and Journal
12:53 – 05 November 2007

Clearly out to force through changes, Whewell says “I would certainly characterise it (North Sea safety) as not where it should be.”

Equally, he believes he will get the co-operation that is being sought, the industry having acknowledged that it had not lived up to either expectation or past pledges.

“There is growing acceptance by the industry that it took its eye off the ball at the end of the 1990s when oil prices were low.” read more

Aberdeen Press and Journal

12:53 – 05 November 2007

As we mark the 10th anniversary of the launch of the UK oil & gas industry’s Step Change in Safety initiative, I feel it is timely to reflect on the past 10 years and ask ourselves some difficult and searching questions.

What have we actually achieved? What challenges have we overcome, what challenges lie ahead? Are we taking our safety responsibility seriously enough or are we merely hiding behind glib cliches about safety being our number-one priority? read more

Kerri-Ann Hobbs

Thursday 08 November 2007

UP to 300 maintenance jobs at Shell’s Geelong refinery are in doubt after the company last week told staff it was bringing in a single contractor next year.

About 20 Geelong specialist companies contract to the oil refinery but staff are worried many will not be rehired by the yet-to-be-named contractor, sources said.

Yet Shell denied mass lay-offs, saying it expected the new specialist staffing company to rehire those currently working at the refinery. read more

Nov 7 2007 4:13PM

MOSCOW. Nov 7 (Interfax) – Russian technical standards watchdog Rostekhnadzor identified 22 violations during an inspection of the oil pipeline being built as part of the Sakhalin-2 project, the head of the agency’s division for the Far East District Alexander Poleshchuk told journalists.

The violations will require minor changes in the project documentation, Poleshchuk said. Work on the pipeline will not be suspended, he said.

“Yes, we uncovered violations, issued warnings to remedy them, but the violations are not critical,” Poleshchuk said. read more

Shell confidential discovery documents added on 7 November 2007

Confidential Shell EP Presentation to Financial Analysts by Tim Warren in New York and Rijswijk, April 8-9, 1999 (20 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/426.pdf

Angola Block 18 Development Project Shell Management of bp Operations 9-13 October 2000: Every page marked “CONFIDENTIAL” (11 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/426_2.pdf

September 2000 Shell internal email correspondence involving Robert Inglis and G Parry EPC Study to Support Reserves Booking: “The Group has been doing very badly at replacing reserves and everyone needs to pull out all the stops”: Every page marked “CONFIDENTIAL” (6 pages) read more

By Mark Shenk

Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose above $98 a barrel in New York for the first time on speculation U.S. stockpiles fell for a third week and as the dollar fell to a record low.

Crude-oil inventories declined 1.5 million barrels in the week ended Nov. 2, according to a Bloomberg News survey. A falling dollar increases the appeal of commodities as a hedge against inflation. BP Plc and ConocoPhillips plan to curb output in the North Sea starting tonight before storms batter the area. read more

By Greg Walters

Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) — OAO Gazprombank, the banking arm of Russia’s state-owned natural-gas producer OAO Gazprom, bid for as much as 25 percent of Imperial Energy Plc’s shares.

Gazprombank offered to buy new Imperial stock at a discount to the share price on Nov. 1, the London-based oil explorer said today in a statement distributed by the Regulatory News Service. The Russian company, in an e-mailed response to questions, said the investment would be “financial” and it didn’t seek control. read more

Published: November 7 2007 09:26 | Last updated: November 7 2007 11:16

In recent years, Europe’s two biggest oil companies by market capitalisation have embodied different bets on the oil price. With a much smaller refining base than its supermajor peers, and shunning costly, unconventional fuel sources like oil sands, BP has been counting on prices falling. Lord Browne, chief executive until this summer, was banking on $40 a barrel in the medium term, slackening to $25 or $30 further out. Shell, meanwhile, implicitly believes in prices being stronger for longer. Since late 2004 it has gone out on a limb, developing big, long-life upstream projects, complemented by a solid downstream business able to process complex fuels. read more

Nigeria to launch probe into graft claims

By Upstream staff

Nigeria will investigate senior government officials implicated by Jason Steph, a former Wilbros executive who has pleaded guilty to bribery, Justice Minister Michael Aondoakaa said today.

Steph pleaded guilty to paying $6 million in bribes in 2003 to an unnamed senior member of the executive branch of the Nigerian government, the ruling People’s Democratic Party and officials of the state oil company.

Steph also pleaded guilty to paying $1.8 million in bribes to Nigerian government officials in 2005 and agreed to co-operate with the US Justice Department investigation. read more

By Upstream staff

Helicopters are evacuating hundreds of offshore workers from the Ekofisk and Valhall complexes today, ahead of an Arctic storm which is due to hit the region tomorrow.

BP plans to shut its 80,000 barrels per day Valhall oilfield from tomorrow night, while ConocoPhillips said it may be forced to shut down five of 16 oil platforms at the Ekofisk oil and gas field complex, seen producing 236,000 bpd.

The Norwegian shelf’s biggest operator, StatoilHydro, said it has no plans to shut production, and Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) said it did not expect the storm to affect other fields. read more

Wed Nov 7, 2007 8:55 AM GMT

MOSCOW, Nov 7 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research) wants to expand its presence in Russia by entering “a huge-scale long-term liquid gas and oil project” with local companies on the Yamal peninsula, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

“It is not like building a house, it is like building a city. It will take a very long time. And of course we will work with Russian companies,” Jeroen van der Veer told Reuters in Moscow. read more

By  Angela Henshall, Nicholas Heath, David Elliott and Reza Amanat     
Dow Jones Newswires     
Tuesday, November 06, 2007 

LONDON, Nov 6, 2007 (Dow Jones Newswires): Major oil companies operating in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea are bracing themselves for gale force weather in the coming days, with some preparing to evacuate staff.

BP PLC (BP.LN) confirmed it is evacuating 200 staff from the Valhall oil and gas field as a precautionary response to forecasts of severe weather.

“We have started sending people to shore because severe weather is expected Friday morning. It is a precaution to demobilize people on Valhall field,” Olav Fjellsa said.
Production from 80,000 barrels of oil a day Valhall would be shut down until the severe weather has passed, Fjellsa added. read more