News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) — Chevron Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. discovered natural gas deposits in the deep waters of Western Australia, the world’s sixth-biggest liquefied natural gas supplier.
Click to continue reading “Chevron, Shell Discover Gas in Australian Deep Waters”
By Upstream staff
US supermajor Chevron had won the double off Western Australia, making two gas finds in Australia’s Carnarvon basin.
The Clio-2 well, drilled in WA-205-P permit area about 150 kilometres offshore in 990 metres of water, hit 115 metres of net gas pay. The well was drilled to 4405 metres.
Chevron operates the permit with a 66.66% stake, with Shell holding the remaining equity.
Kentish Knock-1, which was drilled in 1200 metres of water to 2500 metres total depth, hit 34 metres of net has pay.
The Kentish Knock prospect lies about 300 kilometres off the Western Australian coast. The prospect is in the WA-365-P permit area in the Exmouth Plateau, the deep-water frontier of the Carnarvon basin.
Chevron also operates Kentiosh Knock with a 50% stake. Shell has the remaining 50%.
Wednesday, 19 August, 2009, 02:09 GMT | last updated: Wednesday, 19 August, 2009, 02:28 GMT
For the fishermen of Erris however, the situation is even more critical as Shell, aided by the Government, appear determined to push through the Corrib Gas project regardless of the grave risk to coastal areas and the people living there.
Click to continue reading “Shell Corrib Gas Project Impact on Erris Fisherman”
Tue. August 18, 2009; Posted: 02:10 AM
NEW DELHI, Aug 18, 2009 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) — US refining major Valero Energy Corporation is leading the race for acquiring the UK’s leading refiner Shell’s Stanlow complex, where India’s Essar Oil (BSE:500134) has also bid.
The US firm is believed to have bid in excess of US$1.2 billion for the refinery while the Mumbai-based Essar may not have bid very aggressively, industry sources said.
A Libyan company may have also put in a bid for buying Shell’s stake in the refinery.
When contacted, an Essar Oil spokesperson declined to comment.
According to reports, Shell’s Stanlow complex produces a sixth of the UK’s petrol and is the oil giant’s only refinery in Britain which is being sold along with two German refineries, at Heide and Harburg.
In July, Shell posted a steep decline in second-quarter profits, primarily hit by falling crude prices.
Shell, Europe’s largest oil producer, said yesterday that several companies expressed interest in buying the refineries. Shell is also looking to sell the Heide and Hamburg refineries in Germany as well as Canada’s Montreal East and New Zealand’s Whangarei plants.
Click to continue reading “Essar Oil Gains After Bidding for Shell Refineries”
By Carola Hoyos in London
Published: August 17 2009 20:29 | Last updated: August 17 2009 20:29
Essar, the Indian conglomerate, has bid for three European Royal Dutch Shell refineries on sale as part of the Anglo-Dutch oil group’s restructuring of its downstream operations.
The disposals by Shell are part of its strategy to rid itself of smaller refineries in favour of investing in large, integrated complexes, such as those in Port Arthur, Texas and Rotterdam. The package is valued at about £1.5bn ($2.4bn).
Refinery sales have been controversial because of the potential of large job losses.
The Times
Carl Mortished, World Business Editor
Essar, the Indian energy, steel and shipping group, has made a bid for Royal Dutch Shell’s Stanlow refinery at Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, part of a £1.2 billion offer for three fuel manufacturing plants. The other two are in Germany, at Heide and Harburg.
Essar’s bid came as the deadline closed yesterday in an auction of the three refineries that is likely to provoke anxiety about employment in the North West of England.
Stanlow is Shell’s last remaining refinery in the UK. The company closed Shell Haven, its Thames Estuary refinery, in 1999 and the site was redeveloped by P&O Ports, later taken over by DP World, the Dubai company.
The Shell auction, run by Lazard, has drawn interest from national oil companies, including Saudi investors and Libya’s National Oil Corporation. The company is believed to be seeking as much as £1.5 billion for the three assets, but oil refining is suffering from a severe squeeze on margins because of weak demand for road fuel in Europe and relatively high crude oil prices.
Shell is shifting its refinery investments to Asia as ambitious Middle Eastern and Asian companies bid for access to European markets. Essar said that it wanted more distribution capacity in Europe.
Essar recently set up a mergers and acquisitions team in London to assess deals and is likely to push its case as an investor that is willing to invest in the assets and is more politically palatable than rivals such as an investor from the Middle East or Libya.
Libya’s investment ambitions have become a sensitive issue over the proposed repatriation of Abdul Baset Ali al-Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie bomber.
David Pirret, executive vice president for Shell Lubricants, said: “Kline’s research shows that we have continued to outperform the global lubricants market and maintained our leadership position in spite of the challenging external environment. To achieve this for the third consecutive year is testament to our consistent strategy, strong brands and technology leadership, focusing on delivering first-class lubricants solutions to customers, wherever they may be.
Click to continue reading “Shell Maintains Position as No. 1 Global Lubricants Supplier”
By John Donovan
On 16 August, the Financial Times published a major article about the growing use of private investigators by corporations intent on digging for information (dirt) on perceived opponents.
German state prosecutors are considering a criminal investigation of Deutsche Bank after the bank targeted Michael Bohndorf, a shareholder and vocal critic. In response, the bank employed private investigators who allegedly set a “honey trap” and engaged in “an operation that could have come from a spy novel“. The bank is also under investigation from financial and data protection watchdogs. Deutsche Bank senior executives claim they were unaware of the admitted “overzealous surveillance“.
Another German corporation, Deutsche Telecom, has admitted using “an independent security company” to monitor contacts between thousands of it employees and suppliers. It’s Chief Executive has resigned over the affair.
The FT article points out that “Germany is not alone in its corporate spying scandals.”
“In the US, Hewlett-Packard used private investigators who obtained the phone records of journalists . Recent UK revelations of methods used by detectives employed by the News of the World, the tabloid newspaper – hacking into voicemail messages – have highlighted ethical lapses in journalism.”
The article poses the question:
Why do companies risk such compromising allegations? An inevitable conclusion is that they believe there is something to be gained or important interests to be protected.
This question could of course be put to Royal Dutch Shell, given it’s continuing infatuation with corporate spying, including current surveillance operations in Ireland against Corrib gas project protesters. Undercover activity is perhaps to be expected bearing in mind that Shell’s head of Global Security, Ian Forbes McCredie OBE, is a former senior officer of the British Secret Service.
What some may found surprising is that Richard Wiseman, the rule-bending Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc also has a track record of responsibility for skulduggery, involving undercover activity against shareholder critics of the company. A perfect choice then for his new role. I have never managed to persuade Mr Wiseman to discuss Shell’s close association with the UK spy firm Hakluyt and its undercover missions for Shell in Europe and elsewhere.
Related FT articles
Aug. 17 (Bloomberg) — Arrow Energy Ltd., Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Australian partner in coal-seam gas production, rose in Sydney after the Sunday Telegraph reported that Shell made a A$3 billion ($2.5 billion) offer for the company.
Click to continue reading “Arrow Energy Shares Rise After Report of Shell Bid”
: It appears that Voser finally got fed up with Mr Overpromise/Underdelivery. Despite all the nice words about him, he is clearly kicked out. Plenty of sycophants around him are now fearing for their jobs and positioning themselves whom to kow-tow now. This bearded fellow wasted his great brain on very small details and he was unable to delegate. I think his only real good project was the SLIM project. This was many moons ago and launched him to the top jobs. And there he failed as frequently and eloquently pointed out on the Donovan site. Big brain, a micromanager on par with the pointy haired boss in Dilbert, a vicious and vindictive attitude to those that were of no use to him or that might talk back. In summary: Good riddance and now the legal system of Scotland can go after him. But I doubt they will.
: What goes around comes around.... The announcement of Brinded has long been anticipated. We now wait for the next much smaller announcement.... Tom Purves to retire..... This will make our day when that moment happens. Shell never deals with the issue of bad leadership until it is too late and the havoc has been wreaked.... However, as we say in the US, Every dog has its day..... and today that was Malcolm.
: So early retirement then after all that ....... REPLY BY JOHN D. You are still playing a point scoring game. You seem to forget that the avoidable deaths of Shell offshore workers on Brent Bravo is at the heart of this matter. The deaths occurred after a safety audit led by Bill Campbell exposed a shambolic, illegal and shameful safety regime on Brent Bravo. They occurred after Shell senior Expro management had promised Bill that Shell would bring an end to the "Touch F*** All" culture and the falsification of safety records. The explosion and record breaking fine provide proof that the promises were not kept. There is NO commercial aspect to this matter as far as Mr Campbell is concerned. He is driven solely by a fear of an even worse event due to the same policy by Shell of putting production and profits before the safety of offshore workers. Please give Bill some credit for his integrity and for his long campaign, which has rightly received cross-party support from many MP's.
: Agent provocateur indeed!! Never been called that before, and I am most certainly not in league with Shell in any way! I again reiterate my point : was Campbell fired or given early retirement from Shell and thereby lies his grudge or did he reach full retirement age in the company? An honest answer might convince many that his continuous aggressiveness against Shell is genuine or just an ongoing grudge. This is not a "slanging match" merely a point of clarification. REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: Mr Campbell has made it clear that he does not wish to get into discussion with someone making insulting comments while hiding behind an alias. With regards to his comment that you may be an agent provocateur, perhaps he gained that impression from checking your history of postings. Just so there is no misunderstanding, we welcome contributors who provide a counter-balance to negative postings about Shell. I have provided some links to further information about the Brent Bravo scandal. Despite all of the promises by Shell senior management about safety, which including appointing a safety Czar, its track record remains atrocious. Years after the Brent Bravo debacle, it was revealed that the lifeboats for a Shell North Sea platform were not seaworthy. You could not make it up. “Lifeboats trouble at Brent field” published on 14 March 2008, UpstreamOnline revealed “SHELL’s safety record on its Brent Bravo platform in the UK Northern North Sea is once again under scrutiny after the discovery of technical problems with two lifeboats on the installation that resulted in both of them being removed from service.” Jake Molloy, general secretary of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee was quoted in the article by Christopher Hopson as claiming “If they had loaded up this particular lifeboat, the chances are it could have been launched into the sea in an uncontrolled fashion which would have caused death or injury as it was held in place by corrosion and not by the designed system”. The article said that problems had been found with a second lifeboat on the Brent Bravo platform. It also reported that a lifeboat had launched itself into the sea from Shell’s Tern platform because the brakes and clutches were “dysfunctional” and had damaged the launch mechanism off the platform. Shell confirmed problems had been discovered with two lifeboats on Brent Bravo during “routine maintenance”. Shell was quoted as stating that it viewed the matter seriously and had “mobilised an investigation team on the platform”. BILL CAMPBELL EMAIL SENT TO MEMBERS OF THE UK HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL SAFETY CONCERNS
: LondonLad: In many cases "Reaching Retirement age" in Shell simply means being unable to find a position outside Shell -nowadays the most competent people generally move on long before reaching retirement age and pursue a second career elsewhere.
: To : an observer of Shell, you state "It is commonly known that a great many employees of Shell Expro are freemasons". Where did you get this "fact" from - smoking whacky backy?? I doubt very much that a great many are indeed freemasons. Even if they are (wich I seriously doubt), so what? Let's face it they are a society that provide one of the largest contributions to charities in the UK. I think you very clearly have an axe to grind against Shell. In that context why does Campbell have such a chip on his shoulder over Shell? Was he sacked for some reason? Did he actually reach his retirement age in Shell? Would be nice to know so that we can believe more that his rants are genuine problems he has with Shell rather than caused by some hidden grudge.
: GTW, I know you are right, TP and others will get their due. What is painful is that those whose lives have been changed and whose spirits have been destroyed because of his actions, will not be compensated. Tom is not the only one taking credit for this new cruel process of forced ranking, by claiming credit for what market demand has meant for profits. There are promotions taking place right now because credit is claimed by those executing Tom's plan for performance 'refirings'. I worked in manufacturing sites where management and performance was a joke, and profits were above forecast. It's always been market demand and the hard work of the folks on the ground that make manufacturing successful, Tom is not a pioneer in taking undue credit for local successes, but he has certainly been the cruelest!
: I have no proof nor will I ever find that proof, but this reprehensible conduct of the legal authorities smells to high heaven of masonic lodges. It is commonly known that a great many employees of Shell Expro are freemasons. The police forces all over the world are well presented in the various lodges. I would not be surprised if Brinded himself is a member. Bill Campbell is a very courageous man taking on these evil forces. We in Shell all knew him to be a completely honest and competent Maintenance manager and HSE auditor. But he loses against all the parasites and sycophants whose sole job is to protect the directors. And then live well on the spoils of their abhorrent activities. Top marks for the Donovans who keep this festering sore in the spotlight. To some it maybe a lot of repeating old stories, but those that want to hide and bury their bad actions know that time is on their side. And Shell has deep pockets and knows how to procrastinate.
: John, there is no issue with my post. This is the same GTW that has been providing updates for some time on the ill fated project CEP and the ill fated Tom Purves, both of which should be going fading into the background this year as old worn out news.
: I retract my previous statement. COMMENT BY JOHN DONOVAN: WE HAVE REASON TO SUSPECT THAT THIS POSTING IS NOT IN FACT FROM THE PARTY WHO USES THE ALIAS "GOLDENTRIANGLE WATCHMAN ON THIS BLOG, BUT IS FROM AN IMPOSTER.
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