November 24th, 2007:

Saturday, November 24, 2007  10:47 IST    
 
NEW DELHI: Petroleum and Natural Gas minister Murli Deora leaves for Russia Saturday with a long shopping list, whose top item is a share in the new Sakhalin projects that will be opened for bidding soon.

Deora is being accompanied by chiefs of Indian Oil Corporation, Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) and ONGC Videsh limited (OVL).

India has a 20 percent stake in the Sakhalin-I field, which is operated by a consortium led by Exxon Mobil. The Indian share is 2.4 million tonnes of crude per year. read more

Saturday, November 24, 2007
by Robert Amsterdam  

There’s a new test for Russia’s famous axiom, “What Gazprom wants, Gazprom gets.” The answer from the embattled LSE-listed oil company Imperial Energy: not so fast.

On Friday the company rejected a bid from Gazprombank to acquire a 25% stake, which caused their stock price to dip slighting in trading. Earlier this month it was revealed that this banking arm of the Russian government was behind this “mystery bid” for the company, which was generally seen as the Kremlin’s peace offering to make all those pesky regulatory troubles go away (this energy firm is only just the latest of many private companies to come under the wrath of Rosprirodnazor’s Oleg Mitvol over its reserves numbers). read more

By Dino Mahtani
Published: November 24 2007 03:49 | Last updated: November 24 2007 03:49

Royal Dutch Shell has called off a $410m (£199m) deal to farm into Ukrainian gas fields held by Regal Petroleum just one day after the controversial Aim-listed oil company announced a sudden change in management.

Europe’s biggest oil company this week agreed a memorandum of understanding with Regal for a 51 percent stake in the two fields. Analysts said the proposition was a good deal for Regal because Shell would have carried all the capital investment costs to develop the assets read more

Marianne Barriaux
Saturday November 24 2007

Shell has pulled out of a £200m deal to buy into Ukrainian gas fields only two days after it was signed after a boardroom row at its controversial would-be partner, Regal Petroleum.

The Anglo-Dutch company agreed on Wednesday to buy a 51% stake in Regal’s Ukrainian gas fields for $50m (£24m), saying it would invest the first $360m of development costs. But on Thursday Regal abruptly announced that its chief executive, Neil Ritson, and chairman, Francesco Scolaro, had been replaced by David Greer, a former Shell executive. read more