February 4th, 2008:

February 4, 2008:

It’s more common to hear gunfire in the Niger Delta, especially near oil production installations. The gangs are bolder and better armed, and are increasingly taking on the troops and security guards protecting the oil facilities. Shell Oil, the company that has run the production and shipment of oil in the delta for half a century, is pessimistic about restoring half a million barrels in lost production. Shell is running out of ideas. They tried using the stick (more security), then they tried using the carrot (hiring the gangs to guard facilities and do some maintenance work). But there are too many criminal gangs to pay off. Moreover, gang rivalries often result in continued attacks even if one gang is given a security contract. The theft of oil (by just tapping into pipelines) is too big a business, especially with the sharp rise in the price of oil in the last five years. The gangs get more for their stolen oil (which is smuggled to neighboring countries and sold to oil brokers who get the stuff into the global market). That enables the gangs to buy more guns, speedboats and barges (to haul oil) and hire more unemployed guys who are eager to steal more oil. The army and navy are barely holding their own in trying to protect oil facilities in the delta. On top of all this, some of the gangs have a political agenda as well, and want political power, so they can steal oil money with a wire transfer, rather than by punching holes in pipelines. Government attempts to negotiate with the gangs are hampered by the fact that no one gangs speaks for all of them, and the main goal of the gangs is making money, not politics.   read more

 04 Feb 2008 15:54:41 GMT

Source: Reuters

LAGOS, Feb 4 (Reuters) – A prominent Nigerian militant group said on Monday it carried out an armed raid on a navy outpost protecting an oil pipeline hub which killed three soldiers on Saturday.

The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) denied a statement by the navy that eight rebels were also killed in the gun battle at the Tora pipeline manifold, saying they suffered no casualties.

“MEND carried out the attack. We did not suffer any casualties. That was not the original intended target, but we had to make do,” a spokesman for the group said in an e-mail to Reuters. He did not say what the original target was. read more

By MarketWatch
Last update: 8:34 a.m. EST Feb. 4, 2008

BANGKOK (MarketWatch) — The Thai unit of Royal Dutch Shell PCL said Monday it has agreed to sell its “Autoserv” car maintenance chain in Thailand and Malaysia to units of Bridgestone Corp. (5108.TO).

The agreement covers 64 outlets in Thailand and eight outlets in Malaysia, The Shell Co. of Thailand Ltd. said in a statement.

Financial terms of the deal weren’t disclosed. The Autoserv business provides car maintenance services including tire and lubricant sales. read more

Mon Feb 4, 2008 10:35am EST

BRUSSELS, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Privately held Basell [BASL.UL] won permission from the European Commission on Monday to buy the Berre-l’Etang refinery in France from Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) for $700 million.

Basell is a large, European plastics maker and provider of proprietary petrochemical process technologies. Berre-l’Etang, in southern France, is relatively small with a capacity of 80,000 barrels per day.

“Given the parties’ limited position on all the upstream and downstream markets, the Commission concluded that the transaction would not strengthen either the parties’ incentive or their ability to close off the market to competitors,” the European Union’s top competition regulator said in a statement. read more

02.04.08, 10:46 AM ET

LONDON (Thomson Financial) – Royal Dutch Shell PLC said it found oil at the offshore Vicksburg prospect in the eastern part of the Gulf of Mexico.

The well was drilled to a depth of around 25,400 feet and encountered a ‘hydrocarbon column of approximately 300 feet,’ said Shell, the operator of the field with a 57.5 pct stake.

‘The results from Vicksburg are encouraging,’ said Annell Bay, vice president of exploration for Shell in the Americas.

Nexen holds a 25 pct stake in the project, while Plains Exploration & Production Co owns 17.5 pct. read more

Monday 04 February 2008

The former chairman of oil giant Shell said he believes the EU should ban the sale of new cars that do under 35 miles to the gallon.

Sir Mark Moody-Stuart said car manufacturers would adapt to cope with stricter rules.

“When we introduced catalytic converters the car-makers said it would put the price of cars through the roof – but it didn’t. Now we all have to have catalytic converters – that’s only right,” Sir Mark told BBC News.

“We need very tough regulation saying that you can’t drive or build something less than a certain standard. You would be allowed to drive an Aston Martin – but only if it did 50-60mpg.” read more

Monday, 4 February 2008, 01:31 GMT 

If the world is to end the threat from climate change, we need to produce more with less energy, says Mark Moody Stuart. In this week’s Green Room, he outlines his vision that will help society fulfil this goal.

To address the climate challenge we need to reduce the carbon content of our energy by at least half.

But at the same time we must learn to generate a unit of GDP for about half the energy which we use at present.

Energy efficiency and carbon content of energy are equally important, but they require different approaches to achieve them. read more

Results already show hydrocarbons generated in ocean floor

Posted: February 4, 2008
1:00 a.m. Eastern
By Jerome R. Corsi
© 2008 WorldNetDaily.com 

Scientists who have confirmed that abiotic hydrocarbons are being released from the Lost City hydrothermal field in the Mid-Atlantic range at the bottom of the ocean say they are returning to that location this summer to try to confirm the presence of more complex hydrocarbon chains, a result that would further undermine the assumption that oils are the result of decomposed and compressed organisms. read more

By STEPHEN POWER
February 4, 2008; Page A4

WASHINGTON — A federal plan to expand oil-and-gas drilling in Alaska presents the Bush administration with an awkward choice between oil and polar bears.

Some congressional Democrats and environmental groups are trying to delay Wednesday’s planned auction of oil-and-gas leases in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast, an area conservationists say is habitat for as much as one-tenth of the global polar-bear population.

Opponents of the sale want the Minerals Management Service — a unit of the U.S. Interior Department that manages the nation’s natural-gas and oil resources on the outer continental shelf — to wait until another Interior branch, the Fish and Wildlife Service, decides whether to designate the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. read more

By Fiona Harvey, Environment Correspondent, Financial Times
Published: Feb 04, 2008

Green is good, but is good green? There is a large and growing number of “green” funds in the market, some of which are also marketed as ethical investment funds, and some not. But many investors are unaware of the stark differences that sometimes exist between funds that are ethically managed – good – and funds that seek to capitalise on the business opportunities of climate change – green. read more

· Local authority pension funds want pay shakeup
· Rewards given for profits just 1% above inflation

Jill Treanor The Guardian, Monday February 4 2008

Britain’s biggest companies are being urged to radically alter the way they pay their directors by linking their bonuses to non-financial measures such as environmental protection and the safety of employees.

The Local Authority Pension Fund Forum, which represents public sector pension funds with £85bn of assets, has already urged its members to oppose pay policies at oil companies BP and Shell because they do not include any references to the safety of employees. read more

Tony Hayward is viewed as ‘an operator’, a characteristic likely to endear him to the workers in BP’s front line

Last Updated: 1:18am GMT 04/02/2008

Tony Hayward has been busy in his first year running BP, but the City has yet to be convinced, writes Russell Hotten

When Tony Hayward was appointed chief executive of BP, one of his first decisions was to remove paintings of flowers and landscapes from the walls and replace them with pictures of workers and oil rigs. Real men, doing real jobs.
 
It wasn’t the only changes to the furniture at BP. An office suite designed by Viscount Linley was turned into a functional meeting room. Chairman Peter Sutherland moved his office down one floor, to be opposite Hayward. A physical separation that was emblematic of poor relations between Sutherland and Lord Browne of Madingley, Hayward’s predecessor. read more

By Trisha Huang

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, said its planned restart of gasoline-making units at its Deer Park, Texas refinery will cause flaring of gases including carbon monoxide.

The refiner plans to restart a catalytic cracking unit, a gasoline hydrotreater, an alkylation unit, three sulfur recovery units and a girbotol unit, it said in a filing to the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission.

The restart, to take place between Feb. 3 and March 1, will result in estimated emission of about 52,000 pounds of carbon monoxide and 1,700 pounds of sulfur dioxide, Shell said. read more

By Torrey Clark

Feb. 3 (Bloomberg) — Pirates captured a tugboat off the coast of Somalia as it sailed from St. Petersburg to Russia’s Sakhalin Island, the U.K. Foreign & Commonwealth Office said.

The captain of the Svitzer Korsakov is a British citizen and the crew mostly Russian nationals, the Foreign Office spokesman, who declined to be identified in accordance with government policy, said in a telephone interview today.

“We are monitoring the situation and liaising with the Russian authorities,” he said. The boat was seized Feb. 1, the Foreign Office spokesman said. read more

February 4, 2008
Robin Pagnamenta

The share of the world’s oil reserves controlled by the big Western oil companies, such as BP, Shell and ExxonMobil, has fallen to less than 10 per cent, compared with 70 per cent in 1978.

The world’s reserves are dominated increasingly by government-controlled national oil companies in big producer countries such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran and Venezuela. These groups control about 90 per cent, according to a book due to be published this year. The figures in the book point to the diminishing power of international oil companies by comparing the reserves held by what were in 1978 the eight largest global oil companies — Exxon, Shell, BP, Gulf, Texaco, Mobil, Socal (Chevron) and the Compagnie Françaises Des Petroles (CFP-Total) — with those of the five companies they have merged into today. read more

The dispute over safety is unlikely to help Shell
find a buyer for the North Sea assets

By Russell Hotten
Last Updated: 1:19am GMT 04/02/2008

Safety conditions on Shell’s five oil platforms in the North Sea have been called into question amid a row over alleged “industrial gangsterism” and claims that a manager in charge of the rigs believes the backlog of maintenance has reached “appalling levels”.

In an e-mail leaked to oil industry unions, it is alleged the manager warns that the Health & Safety Executive could close the operations unless standards improve and that disciplinary action will be taken against workers who refuse “reasonable requests” to do overtime. read more