The Irish Times – Wednesday, September 22, 2010

LORNA SIGGINS Western Correspondent

SHELL EP Ireland has resumed investigative work on the proposed new Corrib pipeline route in north Mayo, following suspension of activity when two Shell to Sea campaigners boarded one of the drilling rigs.

The two campaigners from the Rossport Solidarity Camp secured themselves with a hammock under the drilling rig for 12 hours on Monday from shortly after 7am until 7pm. They were wearing dry suits and had food, and left voluntarily when work was due to finish on the drilling rigs under the licensing terms.

Two other protesters were arrested by gardaí during the demonstration, which began when nine kayakers and swimmers approached the two drilling rigs contracted by Shell to drill up to 80 boreholes in Sruwaddaccon estuary, a special area of conservation. The two detained were later released and a file sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions.

One Garda rigid inflatable boat and up to 13 Shell and security inflatables were monitoring the demonstrators throughout the day.

The Bord Pleanála hearing into the new pipeline under the Strategic Infrastructure Act is continuing this week in Belmullet.

SOURCE ARTICLE

The takeover of gas producer Arrow Energy Ltd. by Royal Dutch Shell Plc and PetroChina Co. will generate a A$326 million ($308 million) profit for shareholder New Hope Corp., giving the coal miner more cash for acquisitions.

HOUSTON (Reuters) – BP Plc, which permanently sealed its ruptured Gulf of Mexico well this weekend, said on Monday it is joining the industry’s $1 billion effort to contain future subsea oil spills.

CALGARY – Alberta’s energy watchdog has given Shell Canada some leeway in approving the company’s plans to deal with waste from its Muskeg River oilsands mine.

The United Nations Foundation and Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Shell Foundation plan to help organize an effort to raise as much as $100 million over five years to provide clean-burning cooking stoves to the world’s poor, according to a document outlining the plan.

By BRETT CLANTON
HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Sept. 18, 2010, 8:18PM

In the months since the Deepwater Horizon accident, Eric van Oort has received inquiries from competitors, investigators and even BP about the network of high-tech centers Shell uses to keep watch over its offshore wells from land.

Shell may gather the same real-time well data other oil companies collect today, but its centers have drawn attention because the company staffs them with engineers who monitor the data around the clock for problems.

“A lot of oil companies use their real-time operating centers in a passive mode, collecting data, being able to do post-mortem analysis. We use them to interact with the rig in real time to keep it actively out of trouble,” said van Oort, performance improvement manager for wells at Shell Upstream Americas, during a tour of the company’s real-time operations center in west Houston.

Eric Kayne For the Chronicle: Eric van Oort, performance improvement manager, says Shell uses the centers “to interact with the rig in real time to keep it actively out of trouble.”

Pete Slaiby, head of Shell’s Alaska operations, says his company has budgeted $130 million for its 2010 work in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas program. This, despite the federal hold on offshore drilling. PHOTO/Michael Dinneen/for the Journal

September 17, 2010

By Tim Bradner
Alaska Journal of Commerce

Despite another holdup in Arctic outer continental shelf exploration drilling, Shell has a substantial summer research program under way in waters off the north Alaska coast, company officials in Anchorage said Sept. 14.

“We have a lot of science work under way, with shallow water hazard studies and our ongoing environmental work. It’s quite a robust program,” said Pete Slaiby, head of Shell’s Alaska operations.

About 400 people are employed in the summer offshore programs in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas and the company had budgeted about $130 million for its 2010 summer work, Slaiby said.

In total, Shell has invested more than $3.5 billion so far in the Alaska Arctic OCS without being given final permission to drill, he said. About $2.2 billion of that was in bids for leases in the Chukchi Sea, off the northwest coast.

On the legal front, Slaiby said he is encouraged over a decision earlier this month by the full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals not to reconsider a decision by a three-judge panel of the court in March that Shell’s exploration permits issued by the U.S. Minerals Management Service (now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management) were in compliance with the law.

Environmental groups had challenged the permits.

Slaiby said that in May one of the 9th Circuit judges had asked fellow judges on the court to reconsider the March decision in light of the BP well blowout and spill in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and the federal government’s subsequent decision to delay approvals of drilling permits in deep water and in the Arctic.

The full court’s decision, which came in the first week of September, was to reaffirm the March decision, Slaiby said.

One other new development is that Shell’s shallow hazard survey under way this summer includes work in Harrison Bay, located west of Prudhoe Bay and offshore from the Colville River delta and the producing Alpine oil field.

“On behalf of our partners, Eni and Repsol, we are engaged in shallow water hazard surveys in Harrison Bay,” Slaiby said. Shell is in partnership with the two companies in OCS leases in the area.

Completion of shallow hazard surveys must be done before exploration permits can be filed with the BOEM, Slaiby said.

Shell has put its Beaufort Sea exploration priority on 100 percent Shell leases in the Camden Bay area, east of Prudhoe near the border of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, but this is the first indication that Shell believes the Harrison Bay prospects farther west have potential.

“Our immediate priority is still Camden Bay,” Slaiby said.

Both prospect areas of the Beaufort Sea are in shallow waters about 150 feet deep, as is the case at the Chukchi Sea leases that are also on Shell’s priority list if federal government approvals are given.

Shell’s federal exploration plans and air quality permits are approved but are on hold pending further actions by agencies. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in early September that approvals on drilling permits by the BOEM will not be given until the agency completes its findings on the Deepwater Horizon accident in the Gulf of Mexico, which is expected later this year.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued approvals on air quality permits for drilling in both the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, but then withdrew approval when environmental groups filed challenges with the Environmental Appeals Board, an internal EPA review panel.

A hearing on the appeal is set for Oct. 7, and Slaiby said Shell hopes for a final decision on the air permits by the end of the year. If they are issued, permits will be good for several years of drilling in both the Chukchi and Beaufort exploration areas, he said.

In an Anchorage press conference Sept. 3, Salazar would give no estimate on when Shell’s drilling applications might be approved.

Slaiby said Shell must have a decision from the government by the end of December to allow time for mobilization for a 2011 exploration program.

Meanwhile, the company has moved its drillship Kullik to Unalaska, where it is moored in Dutch Harbor. The vessel, formerly in the Canadian Beaufort Sea, was modified by Shell to support the 2007 drilling program, but would now serve as a backup drill ship in case a relief well is needed for Shell’s Arctic exploration, once it begins.

The company will still rely mainly on the Frontier Discoverer for its Beaufort and Chukchi drilling, if approvals are given for 2011.

Tim Bradner can be reached at

tim.bradner@alaskajournal.com

SOURCE ARTICLE

RELATED ARTICLES:

Murphy’s Law and Shell drilling in the Arctic Ocean

Why We Mustn’t Allow Shell to Go… to America’s Arctic Seas

In a separate opinion in the case, Second Circuit Judge Pierre Leval criticized the majority ruling. “So long as they incorporate,” he wrote, “businesses will now be free to trade in or exploit slaves, employ mercenary armies to do dirty work for despots, perform genocides or operate torture prisons for a despot’s political opponents, or engage in piracy—all without civil liability to victims.”

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By NATHAN KOPPEL SEPT 18, 2010

Plaintiffs will have a harder time suing oil companies and other multinational groups over human-rights abuses overseas following a federal court ruling on Friday.

The Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 federal law that allows suits for violations of ‘the law of nations,’ has been used in recent years to target a number of U.S. companies including Chevron Corp. for alleged crimes committed overseas.

Alien tort suits have particularly targeted companies that partner with foreign governments in oil exploration.

The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday dismissed a suit brought by Nigerian residents, who alleged that three subsidiaries of Royal Dutch Shell PLC were complicit in crimes against humanity in Nigeria.

Alien tort claims, the court ruled, can be brought only against individuals, not corporations.

“No corporation has ever been subject to any form of liability under the customary international law of human rights, and thus the [Alien Tort Statute] . . .does not confer jurisdiction over suits against corporations,” Second Circuit Judge José Cabranes wrote on behalf of the court.

“This opinion threatens to effectively stop Alien Tort Statute litigation in its tracks,” said Donald Childress III, an associate professor at Pepperdine University School of Law who specializes in international law.

Foreign governments are largely immune from suits related to their official actions, he said. So plaintiffs have instead targeted companies that do business with foreign governments. “The companies have the deep pockets,” he said.

Now that it is harder to sue companies, victims will have to pursue chief executives or other high level officials, said Maria LaHood, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, a nonprofit legal organization that has brought many alien tort suits.

Carey D’Avino, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said his clients will ask the Second Circuit to reconsider its ruling. “We do not believe that today’s decision is the last word on the subject,” he said.

Suits that complain of conduct overseas should be filed in foreign courts, said Thomas Niles, the Vice Chairman of the United States Council for International Business. “Plaintiffs come to the United Sates [to file cases,] because if you win a case you hit the lottery,” he said.

In a separate opinion in the case, Second Circuit Judge Pierre Leval criticized the majority ruling.

“So long as they incorporate,” he wrote, “businesses will now be free to trade in or exploit slaves, employ mercenary armies to do dirty work for despots, perform genocides or operate torture prisons for a despot’s political opponents, or engage in piracy—all without civil liability to victims.”

—Ashby Jones contributed to this article.

Write to Nathan Koppel at nathan.koppel@wsj.com

SOURCE WSJ ARTICLE

Shell… arrived in 1952 and for three decades produced chemical pesticides, such as dieldrin, that Shell sold worldwide for agriculture.

After 23 years and $2.1 billion, the Rocky Mountain Arsenal is ready to be removed from the nation’s Superfund list of environmental disasters.

Environmental Protection Agency officials are transferring a final 2,500 acres at the 27-square-mile site to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. This clears the way for the arsenal’s new incarnation as a national wildlife refuge.