November 9th, 2007:

November 10, 2007

Several hundred police overpowered about 300 protesters who tried to block construction of a natural-gas processing plant in western Ireland. Three protesters were arrested and another was taken to hospital as officers cleared a sit-down protest at the gates of Royal Dutch Shell’s planned refinery in the unpopulated bogland of Bellanaboy, Co Mayo, police said.

Shell to Sea, a group that has mounted several similar protests since construction of the Bellanaboy facility began 13 months ago, said that a lorry carrying Shell workers ran over a protester’s foot. The protest was timed to coincide with the 12th anniversary of the execution in Nigeria of nine antiShell campaigners, including Ken Saro-Wiwa, the writer. read more

Nov. 9, 2007, 12:23PM
© 2007 The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Five Royal Dutch Shell PLC energy traders will pay a $1 million total penalty to settle civil charges that they tried to manipulate natural-gas prices in 2001 and 2002.

The federal Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Friday that the current and former traders at Shell’s Coral Energy subsidiary would pay the fine.

Coral’s name was changed in September to Shell Energy North America.

The traders, Denette Johnson, Courtney Cubbison Moore and Robert Harp of Texas and John Tracy and Kelly Dyer of California, agreed to pay the fine without admitting or denying the allegations. read more

Shell confidential discovery documents added on 9 November 2007

Exhibit 112: December 2000 Shell SIEP Development Angola: Note for information: Block 18 Reserves SDAN: From Grigore Simon and Robert Inglis update to Gordan Parry and Peter Osborne: Every page marked “CONFIDENTIAL” (4 pages)

http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/427_6_Exhibit_112_OCR.pdf

Exhibit 113: October 2000 Shell SIEP internal email involving Grigore Simon, Robert Inglis, Susan Lovelock, Heinz Rothermund and others: “Bichsel under pressure”: Every page marked “CONFIDENTIAL” : (3 pages) read more

By Alexander Kwiatkowski

Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) — Exports of Brent crude, the North Sea’s benchmark grade, may decline 17 percent next year, cutting U.K. petroleum revenue as exploration companies turn to more promising regions to boost oil supply.

Brent shipments from the Sullom Voe terminal in Scotland will fall to 108 cargoes of 600,000 barrels next year from 130 in 2007, according to a report prepared for a meeting of the Shetland Islands Council yesterday. Brent’s decline is an indicator of U.K. oil output, which has dropped 44 percent since its 1999 peak. read more

Bush officials originally said oil money could help pay for reconstruction. But with production lagging, these funds barely cover the cost of running the government.

By Steve Hargreaves, CNNMoney.com staff writer
November 9 2007: 12:40 PM EST
 
Iraq’s oil money was supposed to help rebuild the country, but war, squabbling and uncertainty leaves production lagging.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — With the war in Iraq now estimated to cost the United States nearly $2 trillion over the next ten years, many taxpayers are probably wondering what happened to all that oil money that was supposed to help pay for the war. read more

The Associated Press
Published: November 9, 2007

DUBLIN, Ireland: Several hundred police overpowered about 300 protesters Friday as they tried to block construction of a natural-gas processing plant in remote western Ireland.

Three protesters were arrested and another was hospitalized as officers cleared away a sit-down protest at the gates of Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s planned refinery in the unpopulated bogland of Bellanaboy in County Mayo, police said.

Shell to Sea, a protest group that has mounted several similar protests since construction of the Bellanaboy facility began 13 months ago, said a truck carrying Shell workers ran over a protester’s foot. read more

Friday, November 09, 2007

Gardai say three people have been arrested during a demonstration this morning at the site of the controversial Shell refinery being built in Co Mayo.

Several hundred demonstrators are understood to have attended the blockade arranged by the Shell to Sea campaign group.

Several hundred Gardai are also at the site.

The organisation says there were some minor confrontations and scuffles, but the overall demonstration is “pretty peaceful”.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/ireland/article3143697.ece read more

By Ed Crooks
Published: November 9 2007 04:36 | Last updated: November 9 2007 04:36

Abdallah Jum’ah
President and chief executive officer, Saudi Aramco
If there is one man on whom the future of global prosperity rests, it is Abdallah Jum’ah. As chief executive of Saudi Arabia’s national oil company, he is responsible for delivering the planned increase in the country’s oil production that consuming countries hope will make the most important contribution to meeting their growing needs. Saudi Aramco has embarked on the biggest capital investment programme in its history, and is working on projects that are supposed to add an extra 3m barrels a day of potential output, taking its total capacity to 12m b/d. If it fails, the world is likely to run short of oil. Born in 1941, Mr Jum’ah has spent his entire career at Saudi Aramco since graduating from the American University in Beirut in 1968. He took over from Ali Naimi, who was made minister of petroleum and mineral resources in 1995, having been the head of Aramco’s international operations. As chief executive, he is credited with having led the company’s successful expansion into refining, and the rapid growth of its gas business. read more

By Ed Crooks
Published: November 9 2007 04:36 | Last updated: November 9 2007 04:36

November 5, 2007 deserves to go down in history as a momentous day in the the world’s energy industries: it was when ExxonMobil was displaced as the world’s biggest quoted company by market capitalisation by PetroChina. The thin float and volatility of PetroChina’s shares arguably render the standard calculation of its market value misleading. But the symbolism of the moment still stands: the most admired of all western oil companies is no longer king of the hill. read more

By Dino Mahtani
Published: November 9 2007 04:36 | Last updated: November 9 2007 04:36

With the steep rise in oil prices over the past four years, a new group of companies has risen to the fore. National companies, from Saudi Aramco, to Russia’s Gazprom and Venezuela’s PdVSA control about 80 per cent of the world’s oil reserves and 50 per cent of gas reserves, and have become increasingly important as resource nationalism has resurfaced as a global phenomenon.

The multinationals that have traditionally dominated oil and gas operations are shut out of some of the world’s most prolific hydrocarbons basins, notably in Saudi Arabia, which expects to entrench its position as the global swing producer of oil by expanding output over the next years. International oil companies everywhere are struggling to pump more from maturing fields elsewhere and are increasingly under pressure from governments, such as Venezuela and Russia, to accept harsher economic terms. read more

By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent
Published: November 9 2007 04:36 | Last updated: November 9 2007 04:36

The US Congress recently began to consider proposals to impose a carbon cap on businesses, at a federal level. There is no guarantee that such proposals will succeed, though there is strong support for them within the Democratic party and some members of the Republican party. They could be mired in the legislative process for months or years.

But the mere fact that a greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system has a serious chance of being adopted denotes a big change in the US attitude towards climate change, and the actions that will be needed to bring down carbon emissions. read more

By John Reed
Published: November 9 2007 04:36 | Last updated: November 9 2007 04:36

If money talks, then a terse deal announcement by Daimler and Volkswagen in October spoke eloquently about the car industry’s growing interest in biofuels. Europe’s two largest automakers said they would take a minority stake in Choren Industries, a German biofuel company building a biomass-to-liquids plant in partnership with Shell.

Carmakers, under pressure from regulators on both sides of the Atlantic and in Asia to improve their vehicles’ fuel economy and cut carbon emissions, are investing heavily in cars that run on alternative fuels or electric power. read more

By Rebecca Bream, Utilities Correspondent, Financial Times
Published: Nov 09, 2007

While debates about whether to build nuclear reactors rage on and the developed world frets about its reliance on imported gas, the issue of coal is often overlooked. But a growing number of energy industry figures believe that coal, and technology that reduces its impact on the environment, will be one of the fastest-growing parts of the energy market in the coming decades.

Coal is abundant and relatively cheap. China and India have huge coal reserves and are using it to fuel their rapid economic development. But coal is a dirty fuel, and burning it in power stations produces significantly more carbon dioxide than burning gas. If the burning of coal goes unchecked, the affect on the global climate and sea levels is likely to be catastrophic. read more

By Dino Mahtani
Published: November 9 2007 04:36 | Last updated: November 9 2007 04:36

The past decade has seen the beginnings of the creation of a global gas market with the emergence of liquefied natural gas as a fully flexible option of delivering gas supply.

Strong demand for gas-fired power stations in industrial nations coupled with high energy prices have provided the economic conditions for investment in the expensive process of cooling gas to minus 160°C and shipping it anywhere in the world in large tankers. read more

By Sheila McNulty in Fort McMurray
Published: November 9 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 9 2007 02:00

In the past few years, as countries such as Venezuela and Russia have made it increasingly difficult and expensive for international oil companies to explore for, and produce, oil, the ExxonMobils and Royal Dutch Shells of the world have sought refuge in the politically stable oil sands of Canada.

Here there are vast pools of oil trapped deep in sand, from which it is expensive and time-consuming to extract. But there is so much of it. The tar sands represent the world’s biggest proven reserve outside Saudi Arabia. read more

As Crude Prices Rise,
Contracts Give Nations
More of the Output Pie
By GUY CHAZAN
November 9, 2007; Page A12

LONDON — Oil at $100 a barrel is a bane for fuel consumers. But it isn’t entirely a boon for major oil companies, either.

The rub: The economics of the production deals governing some of the world’s biggest oil fields stipulate that the higher the oil price, the less production and reserves oil companies get. Host countries such as Nigeria, Angola and Azerbaijan gain a bigger share. read more