April 28th, 2008:

Reuters: Shell Q1 profits beat forecast on record oil

Tue Apr 29, 2008 6:37am BST

LONDON, April 29 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) beat forecasts on Tuesday with a 12 percent rise in its first quarter current cost of supply net income, helped by record oil prices.

Excluding non-operating items, which amounted to a net charge of $77 million, the CCS result, which strips out the impact of changes in the value of fuel inventories, was $7.85 billion.

A Reuters poll of 11 analysts gave an average forecast of $6.84 billion for Shell’s first quarter CCS earnings, excluding non-ops. read more

Reuters: UPDATE 1-Shell, TransCanada to appeal New York LNG decision

Mon Apr 28, 2008 8:43pm BST

(Adds background, comment from Connecticut attorney general)

NEW YORK, April 28 (Reuters) – Energy companies Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and TransCanada (TRP.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) plan to ask the U.S. Commerce department to overturn New York state’s rejection of their plan to build a liquefied natural gas platform in Long Island Sound.

John Hritcko, regional project director for the Broadwater LNG project, has asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to forward the details of the case to the Secretary of Commerce in preparation for an appeal. read more

Reuters: Shell shares fall on Nigerian troubles

Mon Apr 28, 2008 3:47pm BST

Shares in oil major Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) fall after Nigerian rebels say they have shut in 350,000 barrels per day of production and a senior oil official and industry sources tell Reuters that Exxon Mobil (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has shut almost all its Nigerian production.

Shell’s London-listed “A” shares trade down 0.41 percent compared to a 0.75 percent rise in the DJ Stoxx European oil and gas sector index . read more

Bloomberg: Borders & Southern Rises to Record on Speculation of Shell Bid

By Sabine Pirone and Sarah Thompson

April 28 (Bloomberg) — Borders & Southern Petroleum Plc, a U.K.-based company that explores for oil near the Falkland Islands, rose to a record in London trading on speculation Royal Dutch Shell Plc may make a takeover bid.

Borders & Southern advanced as much as 5.75 pence, or 7 percent, to 89 pence and traded at 87 pence at 9:14 a.m. That’s the biggest gain since May 2005 and boosts the London-based company’s market value to 169 million pounds ($334.9 million). read more

deseretnews.com: Choir director praying for lower gas prices

Published: Monday, April 28, 2008 12:52 a.m. MDT

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A choir director who hopes prayer can bring down high gas prices is trying out his approach at some of the costliest pumps in the country.

Rocky Twyman of Washington, D.C., came to San Francisco over the weekend to stage a pray-in at a Chevron station. He is also calling on churchgoers to ask for God’s intervention where he says politicians have failed.

Gas costing $4 a gallon or more has become common around the San Francisco Bay area. read more

Yahoo! News: ExxonMobil says strike cuts output in Nigeria

28 April 2008

LAGOS (AFP) – ExxonMobil’s Nigerian affiliate said Monday that a five day strike by white collar employees had caused output losses.

A spokesman for Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN) said the company was attempting to open talks with the strikers. He would not disclose the volume of the loss. Its production is normally about 780,000 barrels per day.

“There has been some partial shut-in. But we are trying to reopen negotiations with the striking workers in order to resolve the matter,” the company spokesman told AFP. read more

Bloomberg: Oil Rises to Record on U.K. Pipeline Shutdown, Nigeria Attack

By Christian Schmollinger and Gavin Evans

April 28 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil rose to a record, trading near $120 a barrel in New York, after BP Plc shut a North Sea pipeline and gunmen attacked police guarding Nigeria’s largest oil and gas terminal.

BP closed the Forties Pipeline System, carrying 40 percent of the U.K.’s oil production, after a strike at the Grangemouth refinery cut power supplies. Five police were killed in yesterday’s attack in the Niger Delta, where output has dropped by 50 percent since April 25, adding to concern about supplies before the Northern Hemisphere summer driving season. read more

Financial Times: Oil multinationals rebuked for reluctance to tackle corruption

By Michael Peel in London and Hugh Williamson in Berlin
Published: April 28 2008 03:00 | Last updated: April 28 2008 03:00

Most leading oil multinationals fall well short of best practice on revealing financial data and combating corruption, a survey unveiled today by Transparency International, the anti-graft group, claims.

The research says western companies such as ExxonMobil, ChevronTexaco and BP rank as middling or poor performers on voluntarily disclosing information about their operations – alongside China National Offshore Oil Corp, Russia’s Lukoil and Petronas of Malaysia. read more

Financial Times: Virtue’s reward?

By Michael Skapinker
Published: April 28 2008 03:00 | Last updated: April 28 2008 03:00

In Unilever’s London headquarters, Gavin Neath, the consumer goods group’s head of sustainability, takes a plastic contraption out of its cardboard box and places it on a table. It looks like a small and semi-transparent version of the vending machines that dispense drinks to office workers.

The device is called a Pureit – and it is a drinks dispensing machine of sorts. Developed by Hindustan Unilever, the company’s Indian subsidiary, the Pureit provides drinking water from any source, however polluted, purifying it with a series of meshes, parasite and pesticide traps and a germ-killing battery kit, without the need for boiling and without the use of mains electricity. read more

Financial Times: BP seeks to refine its performance

By Ed Crooks
Published: April 28 2008 03:00 | Last updated: April 28 2008 03:00

BP and Royal Dutch Shell , unusually, report first quarter results on the same day on Tuesday, the clash forced by the coincidence of the Dutch holidays of Queen’s Day on April 30 and Ascension day on May 1, writes Ed Crooks . This time round the comparison is likely to flatter BP, which had produced weak results for 2007 – in part because of the problems of its US refineries. read more

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Rise of Nationalism Frays Global Ties

EXTRACT: Growing petro-nationalism has prompted Royal Dutch Shell PLC to change the global scenarios its economists create to help the company plot its next moves. In the 1990s, Shell’s scenarios assumed government power was diminishing. The company invested heavily in Russia’s Sakhalin oil fields, assuming it would see minimal interference. But as the Kremlin tightened its grip on the energy sector, Shell was forced to sell half of its stake in the project to Russia’s state-owned OAO Gazprom. read more