Posts from ‘November, 2010’

These companies, including Shell, admitted they “approved of or condoned the payment of bribes on their behalf in Nigeria and falsely recorded the bribe payments made on their behalf as legitimate business expenses in their corporate books, records and accounts”.

Daily Telegraph: Royal Dutch Shell has been ordered to pay $48m (£29.4m) in civil and criminal fines over its contractor’s involvement in bribing Nigerian customs officials.

By Rowena Mason and Richard Blackden
Published: 8:49PM GMT 04 Nov 2010

Shell is expected to pay more than $30 million and agree to a deferred prosecution agreement against a Nigerian subsidiary that allegedly violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act

NOVEMBER 4, 2010, 11:58 A.M. ET

By KARA SCANNELL

WASHINGTON—U.S. authorities are expected to file foreign bribery charges Thursday against Royal Dutch Shell Co. and a Swiss shipping company as part of a settlement deal that will resolve a three-year long investigation that spread to nearly half a dozen other global companies, people familiar with the matter say.

As part of the settlement, Shell is expected to pay more than $30 million and agree to a deferred prosecution agreement against a Nigerian subsidiary that allegedly violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. Panalpina, the Swiss shipping company, will also agree to a deferred prosecution agreement with its U.S. subsidiary and pay close to $85 million. Both companies will also settle SEC civil charges, these people say.

In a deferred prosecution agreement the government files a criminal indictment, but if the company abides by its terms for a set period of time the government agrees to drop the prosecution.

As part of the settlement, the Justice Department and the SEC are expected to charge that Shell and Panalpina Group illegally paid Nigerian officials and others to expedite services, such as clearing drilling and other equipment into the country, people familiar with the matter say.

Spokesmen for the companies and agencies involved in the Panalpina probe previously either declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. investigation has extended to many of Panalpina’s customers, including Shell, and oilfield-services companies Nabors Industries Ltd., Schlumberger Ltd., Transocean Ltd. and Noble Corp., according to securities filings by those companies. Several of those companies also are expected to reach settlements with U.S. authorities in coming weeks, people familiar with the matter say. It’s unclear if authorities will announce deals with those companies today.

The Panalpina probe, which began in 2007, prompted some oil-services companies to examine how their agents move critical equipment around the world, and some found other laws were potentially broken in the process.

An internal investigation by Global Santa Fe Corp., for example, found that it might have violated U.S. sanctions laws after a freight forwarder shipped goods to its rig in Turkmenistan through Iran, according to company filings. The company, which has since merged with Transocean, said in a filing it had reported the possible infraction to the U.S. Treasury Department.

Write to Kara Scannell at kara.scannell@wsj.com

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Irish citizens who are having the Corrib Gas Pipeline imposed on them despite safety concerns should take note of this news report.

Associated Press, 11.04.10, 10:21 AM EDT

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Dutch government has scrapped plans to pump carbon dioxide into depleted gas fields beneath a town of 43,000 people to reduce emissions blamed for global warming.

Economic Affairs Minister Maxime Verhagen said Thursday the plan “is no longer possible in the short term” because it already had been delayed by three years, and had no support from residents.

Homeowners worry housing prices could be hit by fears of CO2 leaks since the storage technology is still experimental. The gas was to be siphoned from a Royal Dutch Shell ( RDSA – news – people ) oil refinery.

The government had planned to inject 10 million metric tons of carbon dioxide starting from 2011 into two depleted gas fields two kilometers (more than a mile) under Barendrecht, a suburb 12 miles (18 kilometers) from Rotterdam.

Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

SOURCE ARTICLE

By Eduard Gismatullin – Nov 3, 2010 8:37 AM GMT+0000

Royal Dutch Shell Plc leads European oil companies in securing “strategic alliances” with state- owned producers in non-OECD nations to secure access to reserves, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analysts said.

Shell, Europe’s largest oil company, has about 1.1 million barrels of oil equivalent of daily production, or more than a third of its output, sourced in eight main ventures with national oil companies outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said Oswald Clint, a Sanford analyst. BP Plc comes next with its TNK-BP joint venture in Russia accounting for about 25 percent of the U.K. company’s fuel volumes, Clint said.

“With 93 percent of proven oil and gas reserves concentrated in non-OECD countries,” the European oil companies “face a challenge in gaining access to resources,” London- based Clint wrote in a report e-mailed today. “Exploration drilling has also been focused in non-OECD countries, with 75 percent of new wells drilled there last year.”

International oil companies have to move to new oil and gas frontiers because older fields in the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico are becoming depleted. Nations such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Venezuela have restricted foreign access to their fields to exercise a greater control of revenue.

Shell is cooperating with OAO Gazprom, Russia’s state-owned natural gas monopoly, and PetroChina Co Ltd. to develop wells in Asia. The Anglo-Dutch company is building its largest fuel production project with Qatar Petroleum, the state-run energy company, in the Middle East.

France’s Total SA has been teaming up with China National Offshore Oil Corp. to expand projects in Africa. Italy’s Eni SpA is working with Angola’s Sonangol SA and Libyan National Oil Corp. to tap fields in the continent.

U.K’s BG Group Plc is one of a few international companies that doesn’t have “problems” finding resources, Chief Executive Officer Frank Chapman said yesterday. The company yesterday increased estimates for oil and gas resources offshore Brazil by 34 percent to 10.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent. It’s working there in partnership with state-owned Petroleo Brasileiro SA.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net

SOURCE ARTICLE

By Alfred Donovan and John Donovan

We have previously revealed how Royal Dutch Shell Group and its founder, Sir Henri Deterding, saved the Nazi Party when it was in danger of financial collapse.

After considerable further research, we are now ready to publish extensive information revealing the variety of ways Shell found to provide huge financial support to the most evil regime in history.

We also provide comprehensive information/evidence of how Royal Dutch Shell (and/or its German subsidiary): -

• was arguably indirectly responsible for over 30 million deaths in World War 2
• sold out its own Jewish employees to the Nazis, some of whom did not survive the war
• instructed its employees in the Netherlands to complete a form giving particulars about their descent, which for some, amounted to a self-declared death warrant
• engaged in anti-Semitic policies against Shell employees
• financed the Nazis
  
• appeased the Nazis
• collaborated with the Nazis
• used slave labor
• conspired directly with Hitler
  
• got into bed with I.G. Farben, the notorious Nazi run chemical giant that supplied the Zyklon-B gas used during the Holocaust to exterminate millions of people, including children
• continued the partnership with the Nazis in the years after the retirement of Sir Henri as the Chief Executive of the Royal Dutch Shell Group and even after his death
  

We also explain why these events still matter, despite the decades that have passed. Royal Dutch Shell was driven by greed then, just as it is today, in continuing to trade with another despotic regime in Iran.

All information is supported by independent verifiable evidence from reputable sources.

We will also publish stunning photographs as further evidence of the Royal Dutch Shell/Nazi association.

Today, we will make the draft article, including associated photographs/graphics, accessible to Royal Dutch Shell Plc in advance of publication, so that the company has the opportunity to correct any inaccurate information and supply any comment to be published alongside the article on an unedited basis.

The article – “Royal Dutch Shell Nazi Secrets” – has been supplied to Shell and we await their response.

SINGAPORE Nov 1 (Reuters) – Strong growth in Asian demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) will be enough to absorb growth in supply, a senior executive at oil major Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday.

“If you look at the potential demand from China and India it’s huge, China could treble LNG demand from 2010 to 2020, and double it again by 2030,” Malcolm Brinded, executive director at Shell Upstream International, said.

He added that LNG is the cheapest way Asian countries that can meet their CO2 targets.

(Reporting by Simon Webb; Editing by Michael Urquhart)

© Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved

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By Ayesha Daya and Anthony DiPaola – Nov 1, 2010 9:02 AM GMT+0000

Abu Dhabi shortlisted Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Occidental Petroleum Corp. as potential partners to develop the $10 billion Shah natural-gas project, two people familiar with the plan said.

Abu Dhabi Gas Development Co., owned by Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., known also as Adnoc, is pressing ahead with Shah after the original foreign partner, ConocoPhillips, withdrew from the project in April. The people declined to be identified by name because the decision hasn’t been publicly announced.

The sheikhdom of Abu Dhabi, holder of most of the oil reserves in the United Arab Emirates, is seeking to develop its reserves of sour, or high-sulfur, gas to meet soaring domestic electricity needs. The U.A.E. imports gas from Qatar and is developing nuclear power to meet local energy demand, which is expected to double by 2020, according to government studies.

“We have shortlisted three companies,” said Mohammed Sahoo, chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd., another Adnoc unit, said in an interview in Abu Dhabi today. “We are going ahead with the project.” He declined to name the companies.

Shell’s Abu Dhabi country chief, John Barry, declined to comment yesterday when asked whether the Anglo-Dutch oil company was on the Shah gas shortlist. Hatem Shaker, an Abu Dhabi-based vice president of public and government affairs for Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil, declined to comment.

An Occidental public relations official in Abu Dhabi declined to comment and spokesman Richard Kline at the company’s Los Angeles headquarters couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ayesha Daya in Abu Dhabi at adaya1@bloomberg.net. Anthony DiPaola in Abu Dhabi at adipaola@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Voss at sev@bloomberg.net

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