News and information on Shell Plc
Friday 23 November 2007
Shell reserves fraud litigation before U.S. Courts. Videotaped deposition of REMCO AALBERS, formerly Shell Group Reserves Coordinator
Exhibit 14 (400 pages)
http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex14_341_2.pdf
Exhibit 15 (50 pages)
http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex15_341_3.pdf
Exhibit 16 (50 pages)
http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex16_341_4.pdf
Exhibit 17 (69 pages)
http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/ex17_341_5.pdf
Exhibit 285 (54 pages)
Last Updated: Thursday, 22 November 2007, 15:27 GMT
Royal Dutch Shell may sell stakes in two oil and gas fields in Nigeria, with Chinese oil firm CNOOC a potential buyer, the Wall Street Journal said.
The two 49.8% stakes could sell for as much as $900m (£435.8m, 606.4m euros), the paper reported.
China’s booming economy has sucked in commodities from all over the world and it has invested in a string of ventures in Africa in recent years.
Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, remains wracked by poverty.
Thu Nov 22, 2007 4:18 PM GMT
LONDON, Nov 22 (Reuters) – British oil & gas explorer Regal Petroleum Plc (RPT.L: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Thursday Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research) veteran David Greer would be its new chairman and chief executive, replacing Francesco Scolaro and Neil Ritson respectively.
Regal said on Wednesday it had sold 51 percent of its Ukraine gas fields to oil giant Shell for $50 million.
Greer had been with Shell for 28 years, working most recently as deputy chief executive of the company’s Sakhalin 2 project in Russia. (Reporting By John Bowker; Editing by Quentin Bryar)
22 November 2007
Nathaniel Jonah
Abuja
The new bribery scandal involving some former and still serving top government functionaries has elicited President Yar’Adua’s anti-corruption war. Will this succeed? asks Nathaniel Jonah
Nigeria’s polity has been terse in the last few months with intriguing developments, especially issues that border on corruption and graft practices among the political class.
The melodramatic thearetrics which climaxed into the “drama of the absurd” at the House of Representatives has been described by Nigerians as most unfortunate for a nation struggling with the realities of democratic values after so many years of military interregnum in the body polity.
ROYAL DUTCH/SHELL GROUP OF COMPANIES: Investor Relations Presentation
By Philip Watts, Jeroen van der Veer,Judy Boynton, Walter van de Vijver, Harry Roels and Paul Skinner: Tuesday, December 18, 2001, New York City. (60 pages every paged marked “Confidential”)
http://www.shellnews.net/classactiondocs/436.pdf
EXTRACT FROM PAGE 53:
MR. WATTS: On the Russian side, specifically regarding Sakhalin, I was there in July with the CEOs of Mitsui and Mitsubishi, visualizing what it will be like. We are doing serious work on the engineering. There are two aspects to it. One is the gas market to Japan or Korea; second is the situation in Moscow on the PSAs and how quickly they will come out. I am personally reasonably encouraged with the way things are going. As you know, it is coming into focus on the marketing side. On the Russian scene the issue of the PSA is at the front of the leaders’ minds in Russia. Jeroen and I were in Zapolenoya at the signing in 1997 of the alliance with Gazprom.
The judge overseeing the criminal case involving the BP Texas City refinery explosion stepped down after a lawyer protesting BP’s plea bargain pointed out that the judge’s former law firm had represented the oil giant.
U.S. District Judge Gray Miller noted that he was not required to recuse himself but agreed to do so since others at the firm where he was a partner, Fulbright & Jaworski, handled some civil issues that overlapped with the criminal case.
Corpus Christi lawyer David Perry, who represents 12 victims of the 2005 blast that killed 15 people and injured scores more, had asked Miller to step down.
Cnooc May Consider
Buying Shell Stakes
Offshore Of Nigeria
By BENOÎT FAUCON
November 22, 2007
LONDON — China’s Cnooc Ltd. is considering buying interests in Nigerian blocks held by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, a person familiar with the matter said yesterday — the latest indication of China’s rising assertiveness in Africa’s oil sector.
Shell is considering selling interests in two Nigerian offshore blocks as it restructures its business in the troubled region, people familiar with the matter said Tuesday. A block is a geographic area of territory over which the owner holds exploration and drilling rights.
By Dino Mahtani
Published: November 22 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 22 2007 02:00
Signing deals with an oil company that saw its shares crash when it failed to find commercial quantities of oil from a much-hyped exploration concession could be a risky venture for a partner.
But yesterday’s memorandum of understanding between Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest oil company, of a preliminary agreement to farm into two Ukrainian gas fields owned by Regal Petroleum, the Aim listed oil and gas company, is being promoted as a sound investment.
By Andrew Hill
Published: November 22 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 22 2007 02:00
Royal Dutch Shell’s net capital spending regularly exceeds $20bn a year, so in its very grand scheme of things, $360m (£175m) laid out on the development of gas fields in Ukraine, plus $50m for a majority stake in Regal Petroleum’s Ukrainian subsidiary, is almost pocket-change.
For Regal, however, Shell’s investment would be significant, possibly even crucial. The convoluted legal wrangling that ended with confirmation of Regal’s title to the Ukrainian gas assets took its toll on the group in 2006. Administrative costs linked to finding a partner there exacerbated its losses for the first half of this year. In spite of the celebration of Shell’s interest in the Ukrainian venture, yesterday’s statement also delivered the less welcome news that talks with the first suitor – MND, a private Czech group – had fallen through, and that it could take another eight weeks before the Shell agreement was secured.
By John O’Doherty in London and Roman Olearchyk in Kiev
Published: November 22 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 22 2007 02:00
Royal Dutch Shell has signed a preliminary $410m agreement to take a 51 per cent interest in two Ukrainian gas fields controlled by a subsidiary of Regal Petroleum, the Aim-listed oil and gas group founded by Frank Timis.
Under the terms of a non-binding memorandum of understanding, Shell will pay $50m for a 51 per cent stake in the Mekhediviska-Golotvschinska and Svyrydivske gas fields, Regal’s main assets, and invest an initial $360m to develop the two fields 180km north-east of Kiev.
By Sheila McNulty in Houston
Published: November 22 2007 02:00 | Last updated: November 22 2007 02:00
BP’s hopes of drawing a line under its problems in the US after agreeing a $380m (£184m) settlement with the authorities have been dealt a blow by a legal challenge over the fatal explosion at its Texas City refinery.
Last month BP agreed to pay a $50m criminal fine in respect of the 2005 explosion, as part of a deal to resolve all the cases being pursued by the US government, including actions related to its trading activities and oil spills in Alaska.
Terry Macalister
Thursday November 22 2007
Shell is to become a partner of Regal Petroleum, a company with an unfortunate history of legal wrangles, executive departures and dud wells. The Anglo-Dutch group has signed a deal to buy a 51% stake in Regal’s Ukrainian gas fields for $50m (£25m).
Shell will become operator and invest the first $360m to develop the Mekhediviska-Golotvschinska and Svyrydivske gas fields, whose ownership was recently the subject of a Ukrainian court challenge.
“The memorandum of understanding is another important step in Shell’s development in Ukraine,” said Patrick van Daele, general manager, Shell Ukraine exploration & production, which already controls other operations in the Dnieper-Donetsk basin where the Regal fields are located.
Terry Macalister
Thursday November 22 2007
The safety regime at Britain’s North Sea oil operators was condemned yesterday in a report by the Health and Safety Executive. The industry had lost the trust of the regulator as a result of the failings uncovered by the three-year study, according to its authors.
Inspections revealed that almost 60% of North Sea oil platforms had problems that oil companies should have addressed, according to the HSE’s report.
Judith Hackett, chair of the Health and Safety Commission, which had overall responsibility for the study, warned that individual companies could be “named and shamed” if standards were not improved at a time when oil had reached almost $100 a barrel and operators were enjoying high profits.
By Russell Hotten, Industry Editor
Last Updated: 1:29am GMT 22/11/2007
A three-year investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has condemned the condition of oil and gas platforms in the North Sea and warned energy companies that they are running the risk of a major accident because of years of under-investment.
The HSE, which looked at nearly 100 offshore installations in the British sector of the North Sea, criticised senior managers for not giving sufficient priority to maintenance and put operators on notice that it will “name and shame” companies unless they improve their facilities.
By Ian Austen
Thursday, November 22, 2007
OTTAWA: The Canadian government plans to announce Thursday that it will convert 25.5 million acres of northern woodland into a new national park and wildlife protection areas.
The result will be one of North America’s largest conservation areas, about 11.5 times the size of Yellowstone Park, and ease pressure from the mining and energy industries on an area that is important for wildlife, if sparsely populated by humans.
“This is the largest land withdrawal for protection ever in Canada,” said Monte Hummel, president of the World Wildlife Fund Canada. “This is real conservation history being made.”
Written by Emma Amaize
Thursday, 22 November 2007
TWO militants group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger-Delta (MEND) and the Niger Delta Coastal Forces (NDCF) are now claiming responsibility for the recent bombing of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SDPC) crude oil delivery pipeline to the Forcados Terminal in Delta state, raising doubts as to the intent of the groups. MEND was the first to claim responsibility in an online statement, signed by Jomo Gbomo while the NCDF came up with its own claim on Tuesday in a statement by its Commander Amawei Cubral, adding that the strike was a warning to the President Umar Yar’Adua that his ongoing military partnership with the United States to further destroy the Niger Delta people in the guise of fighting criminality would be resisted.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
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