News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
LONDON (Dow Jones)–The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate downgraded total reserves at Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s (RDSA) Ormen Lange gas field by around a quarter Wednesday.
Click to continue reading “Norway Downgrades Reserves At Shell Ormen Lange Gas Field 25%”
February 24, 2010
A view of the London Eye, located along the Thames River at County Hall, is seen across from the Shell Oil Centre building.
Carl Mortished, World Business Editor
Staff at Royal Dutch Shell will be moved next year from the Shell Centre at Waterloo to Canary Wharf as part of a huge redevelopment of the oil company’s historic London headquarters.
The company has agreed terms for a ten-year lease with Canary Wharf on 200,000 sq ft of Docklands offices at 40 Bank Street, a building close to the tower at One Canada Square.
About 2,000 employees are expected to make the move eastwards as Shell embarks on a huge property investment in Central London with the construction of new office buildings, a project that is expected to last a decade.
The search for alternative accommodation, conducted in secrecy by CB Richard Ellis, was given the code-name Project Thunderbird.
The decision to decant staff to Docklands marks the end of almost ten years of deliberation, false starts and setbacks by Shell as it tried to get a grip on its 50-year endowment of almost seven acres of valuable London real estate, including a 24-storey office tower on the Thames opposite the Palace of Westminster.
A spokeswoman for Shell confirmed yesterday that it was negotiating a deal on 200,000 sq ft at Bank Street. She said that the decade-long move by staff to Canary Wharf was “temporary” while the company redeveloped the low-rise buildings adjacent to the tower.
“Shell has no permanent plans to leave the tower building on the South Bank and will remain a major employer in the area with established connections to the local community,” the spokeswoman said.
Shell’s move to Docklands coincides with another round of cost-cutting by Peter Voser, the new chief executive. He has made his mark as a relentless pruner and trimmer of overheads since taking over from Jeroen van der Veer last year.
The recession took its toll on Shell’s profits in the fourth quarter of 2009 and Mr Voser’s response was to announce a drive for a further $1 billion (£650 million) in savings.
Periodic bouts of internal costcutting and the removal of layers of imperial bureaucracy led to the gradual attrition of Shell’s head office staff during the 1990s.
Shell Centre, next to the then neglected South Bank arts complex, became a windswept wasteland, the public spaces populated by skateboarders and the homeless. The staff bloodletting opened up opportunities for the company to exploit its huge land bank in the centre of London.
It first sold off the White House, one of the downstream low-rise buildings, to residential property developers. Then it drew up plans to convert the ground floor and subterranean levels of the Shell Centre Tower into a leisure and retail complex. The oil company joined forces with Lend Lease, the Australian developer, to bring the project, a 600,000 sq ft design by Arup, to fruition.
However, Shell’s real estate dreams fell foul of local politics in a London borough that had earned a reputation as a property developer’s graveyard.
Lambeth Council scuppered the project, complaining that it was too big and that Shell’s vast retail ambitions would have a negative effect on Lower Marsh Street, a small shopping alley behind Waterloo station.
Shell has yet to choose a new partner for its revived real estate dream and some in the property industry speculate that it might be tempted to sell the site if values recover strongly during the decade-long hiatus of development.
Shell Centre opened in 1963 after six years of construction and contained all the accoutrements of a more paternalistic era.
To accommodate the needs of 5,000 staff, the floors beneath the tower contained a travel agency, a bank, a hairdresser, restaurants and bars, a giant sports hall and gymnasium, a cinema and a near-Olympic size swimming pool.
DENVER (AP) — Shell Oil Co. said Tuesday it is abandoning its quest for water rights from a northwest Colorado river to develop oil shale production, citing delays in the project due to the global economic downturn.
As a result of Shell’s actions, Colorado residents can breathe a little easier and the Yampa River lives to flow another year. ”
ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s acting president on Monday called for the passage of a bill that analysts say would sharply reduce the profits of foreign oil companies.Acting President Goodluck Jonathan said the Petroleum Industry Bill before lawmakers would allow more oil money to return to Nigeria’s people. The bill would also require the government-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., to seek profits like a private business and not rely on government subsidies.
Click to continue reading “Nigeria: Acting president promises oil overhaul”
ABUJA, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s proposed oil industry reforms could drive away $50 billion in investment if passed in their current form and make a bad situation for the sector even worse, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) said on Tuesday.
Click to continue reading “Nigeria oil reform would worsen bad situation -Shell”
By Tom Burgis in Abuja
Published: February 23 2010 12:52
Royal Dutch Shell’s outgoing Africa chief on Tuesday delivered a blistering attack on Nigeria’s management of its vast oil and gas reserves but scotched rumours that the Anglo-Dutch group was looking to leave the country.
Echoing industry claims that planned legislation could deal a killer blow to investment in the fast-expanding deepwater sector, Ann Pickard, whose four-and-a-half-year tenure as Shell’s Africa boss ends in March, warned the continent’s biggest energy producer that it risked being eclipsed by its sub-Saharan African rivals.
Ms Pickard rebuffed recent speculation that Shell intended to terminate its 50-year relationship with Nigeria. “Take it from me, Shell has no plans to pull out of Nigeria,” she said.
FULL FT ARTICLE (SUBSCRIPTION)
By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany and Fred Pals
Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which is seeking to focus on exploration and production, may sell its liquefied petroleum gas distribution unit, four people with knowledge of the plan said.
Shell hired Credit Suisse Group AG to manage a sale of the division, which is valued at more than 800 million euros ($1.1 billion), said three of the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. The company sent information last week to potential bidders including private equity firms, they said. Rainer Winzenried, a spokesman for The Hague-based Shell, declined to comment.
Shell aims to save $1 billion this year and will cut 1,000 more jobs in an effort to weather the economic slowdown, which has led to high inventories of fuels like gasoline and diesel in the U.S. and Europe. Shell processed 9 percent less crude in 2009 and is in talks to sell its U.K. Stanlow refinery and two German plants to India’s Essar Oil Ltd.
Shell in 2004 offered its LPG distribution and marketing business up for sale and sold some LPG units, including those in Portugal, Brazil, Paraguay, Italy and parts of the Caribbean for around $350 million. Repsol YPF SA of Spain bought Shell’s Portuguese business in December 2004 and said it bid for the whole LPG unit. Shell in 2006 said it would keep parts of its LPG business that weren’t already been sold because it wasn’t offered enough for them.
–Editors: Stephen Cunningham, Will Kennedy.
To contact the reporters on this story: Anne-Sylvaine Chassany in Paris at +33-1-5365-5078 or achassany@bloomberg.net Fred Pals in Amsterdam at 31-20-589-8563 or fpals@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at +44-20-7073-3190 or eevans3@bloomberg.net
Tue Feb 23, 2010 9:55am GMT
ABUJA, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Angola’s offshore oil production is likely to be double that of Nigeria by 2020, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) said on Tuesday.
The two countries rival each other as Africa’s biggest oil producer, but oil majors say Nigeria risks losing out if changes to its terms make it less profitable to develop deep water reserves.
“By 2020, Angola’s offshore production is likely to be double that of Nigeria,” Shell’s Executive Vice President for sub-Saharan Africa, Ann Pickard, told an industry conference in Abuja.
(For more Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: af.reuters.com/ )
(Reporting by Joe Brock and Nick Tattersall)
February 22, 2010 7:56pm
by Ed Crooks
: With all of this money spent on the CEP expansion, it has been built on an old electrical infrastructure. I guess no one is counting how many times you read about a "short" electrical outage at the plant. Tom Purves and the Motiva leadership know exactly why this is happening and how to fix it. They don't want to pay for it. They have been given the project and have turned it down at least twice. Meanwhile, we just keep having outages. Going ot be interesting when both refineries come down in the future.
: LondonLad: the lack of stories concerning Shell should be welcomed, if it implies that Shell are cleaning up their act, perhaps due in part to the efforts of the Donovans.
: US Observer, surely almost all (NOT all)contributors to this website have an axe to grind against Shell, particularly those who have a perception that they have been screwed by Shell in times gone by. As for Itchy Woman, she clearly has a femanistic / burn-the-bra approach to work in Shell. AND I would like to add that once again an old old article (from someone who has an axe to grind against Shell) has to be republished due to lack of news against Shell (I refer to Briggs 2009 article). COMMENT BY JOHN D. Would it not be fairer to say that everyone posting on this blog, including you, has an axe to grind. It is easy enough to look back over your contributions and reach a conclusion.
: It is easy to figure out who Witchy Woman is (LC). She has an "ax to grind" and is using this forum
: @uscitizen Voser is a competent and amicable chap. You claim Shell has delivered on its deliverables. Let me tell you everyone delivers on their deliverable.... But joking apart, look at the promises over the years and how well Shell has delivered on these promises. Their trackrecord is not very good over the last 15 years or so. They are a good money making machine. And sofar they have delivered on their constant or increasing dividend payments. Sometimes by increasing their debt but they have done it. A nice high oilprice has helped, don't you agree?? So my only observation was that his 'promise' to extend North Sea fields is quite opposite their activities in this area. And they have promised this before and done the opposite. It was a nice promise to build a new and expensive office in Aberdeen, more jobs for the UK and more activity and extending of production. Just check back what they have done. And predicting future productionlevels by Shell in general and Brinded in particular is nothing but a sick joke.
: To - an observer of Shell Shell has been delivering on its deliverables - why would you paint Voser as some one who is not??
: This was not a personal attack now was it Witchy one?? #133 Witchy woman on May 8th, 2011 at 1:42 pm Marvin Odum who probably has the worst safety record in Shell goes for a diversity vote and someone who has no safety experience to replace the VP of safety he just fired. Clear message where his priorities lie.
: Witchy Woman - you blase me for personal attacks???? That is so rich! I am defending people that are attacked if you had not noticed - and yes I do slam the folks who are throwing garbage out! Live with it!! Enjoy your retirement! Shell has a good retirement package in the US dont they??
: I feel the value of your posts is also minimal, just a complainer. PS - here is where you bash Denise - remember - or do we need to question your integrity the way folks question Shell leaders?? Witchy woman on Dec 7th, 2011 at 12:35 pm In GOM we thought that hurricane season was done. Why is Hurricane Denise causing so much damage then? Like all Hurricanes though they move on the professionals are left to pick up the pieces.
: According to the Independent article posted today the boss of Shell is telling us all not to get too emotional about fracking. Has he not seen the confirmation that fracking causes earthquakes? You have cited the Reuters article. There are others including coverage of a fracking earthquake in Blackpool England. I have to conclude that Voser is a fracking idiot.
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