* IEA sees continued gap between OPEC output and demand for OPEC oil

* Maintains that strategic petroleum reserves release is working

* No decision yet on further stocks releases

By Alex Lawler and Barbara Lewis

LONDON, July 13 (Reuters) – World oil demand growth will accelerate next year, adding to the pressure on available supplies, the International Energy Agency said on Wednesday, contradicting a more conservative outlook from producer group OPEC.

In its first 2012 forecast in a monthly report, the IEA said oil use would grow by 1.47 million barrels per day (bpd) to 91 million bpd. The agency also trimmed its estimate of demand growth this year to 1.20 million bpd.

The IEA’s 2012 prediction was more than the 1.32 million bpd expected by OPEC and lower than a forecast from the United States’ Energy Information Administration. It expects all of the growth next year to come from emerging economies.

“Aside from economic growth, downside pressures from higher-than-expected oil prices also represent a risk to the forecast,” said the Paris-based IEA, which advises 28 industrialised countries.

Differences between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and consumer nations widened after the 12-member OPEC in June failed to reach a deal on a Saudi-led proposal to increase output.

In response, the IEA decided to release oil from emergency stocks for only the third time since it was founded in 1974 to fill the gap in supplies left by the disruption to Libya’s output.

The IEA on Wednesday maintained the stocks move had added supply of high-quality crude to a tight market and the agency took “a resolutely positive view” of the strategy so far.

“The point of the stock release was to add some liquidity and flexibility into the market. I think we’ve done that,” David Fyfe, head of the IEA’s oil industry and markets division, told Reuters Insider.

Oil LCOc1, trading at $117 a barrel on Wednesday, is higher than it was before the release. OPEC said the use of stocks had had no impact, while investor Jim Rogers on Wednesday called it “meaningless” to the market.

Fyfe said the IEA had yet to decide whether it would release more supplies and reiterated it would make a decision 30 days after the initial announcement on June 23.

2011 DEMAND GROWTH TRIMMED

Next year’s demand expansion follows on from lowered expectations for this year.

In the report, the IEA trimmed its 2011 global demand growth estimate by 70,000 bpd, citing the impact of high prices and a weaker economic outlook for developed economies.

While OPEC did not formally agree to boost its supplies at last month’s meeting, the IEA report added to evidence that core members are pumping more crude.

The IEA said OPEC output rose significantly in June following a unilateral supply increase from the group’s leading exporter, Saudi Arabia.

According to the IEA, Saudi Arabia pumped 9.7 million bpd in June, just shy of the 9.8 million bpd cited by a senior Gulf OPEC delegate on Tuesday.

Overall, OPEC production in June increased by nearly 850,000 bpd compared with May, the IEA said, but it still took the view that OPEC oil output would remain well short of expected demand.

It said demand for OPEC crude would average almost 31 million bpd in the second half of this year, around 1 million bpd more than OPEC produced in June.

The IEA also said Saudi Arabia’s crude exports could be eroded by a growing domestic need for oil for power generation, and OPEC’s oil production capacity would struggle until Libyan output began to recover.

It did not expect a Libyan recovery to happen until the end of 2012 and said OPEC capacity would fall to a low point of around 33.8 million bpd in the first quarter of next year. (Additional reporting by Simon Falush; Editing by William Hardy)

© Thomson Reuters 2011 All rights reserved

SOURCE ARTICLE

By John Donovan

On 28 April 1945, Lieutenant-Colonel Werner Baumbach (right), “General of the Bombers” – the top post in German bomber command, arrived at a country house located at Krakow, near Güstrow in Mecklenburg, for a meeting with Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer of the SS.

As overseer of the concentration camps and extermination camps, Himmler coordinated the murder of around 10 million people. (See Wikipedia).

It soon became apparent to Baumbach, after two portraits in silver frames were drawn to his attention, that the country house in which the SS was located, was formally the home of the oil baron, Sir Henri Deterding, the world renowned director of Royal Dutch Shell. Sir Henri, the man most responsible for the growth of Shell into a global oil giant, was an ardent Nazi and friend and financial supporter of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party .

The first portrait, signed by Hitler, contained the following inscription:

Sir Henry Deterding – in the name of the German people, for your noble donation of a million reichs-marks.

Adolf Hitler

The second photograph was of Reichsmarschall Herman Göring, Commander in Chief of the Luftwaffe.

The inscription said:

To my dear Deterding, in gratitude for your noble gift of Rominten Hunting Lodge.

Your Hermann Göring

The above information comes from pages 235 and 236 of a book by Werner Baumbach entitled: “The Life and Death of the Luftwaffe”, first published in 1949 and translated into English in 1960. Although just a passing reference consisting of a few paragraphs from a book devoted to telling “the story of an officer who served his country with distinction and risked reprisals to speak his mind“, it provides historically important evidence confirming Deterding’s financial support for the Nazis.

Göring’s hunting lodge at Rominten in East Prussia was known as “The Reichsjägerhof.”

Baumbach “spent nearly six months in an English interrogation camp. He was told that he would be charged as a war criminal on the ground that he had fired on shipwrecked people. After unending cross-examination and investigation Baumbach was able to prove conclusively that throughout the war neither he nor any unit under his command had committed any violations of the Hague Convention.” (Source of this extract)

In 1939,  Göring sent a wreath to the Nazi funeral of Sir Henri.

It contained the personal message:

‘In the name and on the instructions of the Fuhrer, I greet thee, Heinrich Deterding, the great friend of the Germans.‘

Royal Dutch Shell continued its financial relationship with the Nazis after the resignation of Sir Henri as Director General of the company and even after his subsequent death.

Restrictions put on development are not enough, delegates urged

12 July 2011

Oil and gas exploration in the Russian Far East continues to threaten whales, delegates at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) meeting have warned.

The critically endangered western population of gray whales spends its summer feeding around Sakhalin island.

Companies using seismic guns to find oil and gas in the area do take steps to reduce the impact; but scientists with the IWC say they need to do more.

Surprising new evidence has also emerged on the whales’ migration.

The western population of gray (or grey) whales is one of the most threatened group of cetaceans on the planet, with only about 130 remaining, including an estimated 26 breeding females.

A small area on the Sakhalin coast is their only known feeding ground.

The IWC’s scientific committee recommended that “appropriate monitoring and mitigation plans” should be implemented for oil and gas exploration in the area.

It also urged companies to work with independent scientists to “co-ordinate seismic surveys and other noise producing activities”.

Making a noise

Seismic surveys entail the use of underwater sound at intensities that can force whales out of the area nearby, and may damage their hearing.

Following last year’s IWC meeting, a group of 12 countries sent a letter to the Russian Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment urging the postponement of a major survey for at least a year.

However, the survey, for a local branch of the giant Rosneft corporation, went ahead.

Observers from non-governmental organisations report that surveying did not always stick within rules designed to minimise impacts on whales – for example, by detonating the seismic guns at night, when ships could not tell whether any whales were close by.

They also reported seeing fewer whales in the feeding area in days immediately following the surveys.

At this year’s IWC meeting, the US and UK were among governments expressing concern about the situation and asking Russia to take tougher action.

And Belgium’s delegate Alexandre de Lichtervelde said plans for expanding infrastructure at the site were premature.

“We are concerned that one of the companies (Sakhalin Energy) has announced a plan for a new oil and gas platform offshore,” he told the meeting.

“That is happening while the full impact of events in 2010 have not been fully assessed.”

Valentin Ilyashenko, leader of the Russian delegation here, said all oil and gas projects had to go through an impact assessment; but some effect on the whales could not be avoided.

“Human activities do influence the western gray whale; our task is to minimise the impact from human activities,” he told BBC News.

“But we can’t stop [human] progress, and we can’t stop using oil.”

Whale of a surprise

Last year, scientists attempted to put tags on 12 western gray whales in order to track their route to their breeding grounds, believed to be further south.

It was thought that if their migration route could be mapped, other conservation measures could be put in place, such as keeping them out of fishing gear.

In the end, only one tag was placed before time ran out – on a male that scientists dubbed “Flex”.

Some weeks later, to the researchers’ complete surprise, Flex started heading not south but north and east, ending up on the other side of the Pacific on the US west coast.

This is the area occupied by the separate – and much bigger – eastern gray whale population. Genetic studies show that the two populations do not generally interbreed.

“It was completely the opposite of what any of us had suspected,” said Greg Donovan, the IWC’s head of science.

“So then we started to look at photos from the catalogue of our animals off Sakhalin island, and compare with those taken down the Pacific coast of the US and further south.

“And we’ve now ended up with 10 animals that have been seen on both sides.”

What that means for our understanding of the western gray whales, or for their conservation, is as yet unclear. Other tagging studies are planned this year that might provide more information.

The gray whale that found its way into the Mediterranean Sea last year, however, probably sheds no light on the issue, said Mr Donovan – it probably just got lost.

Guide to the Great Whales

SOURCE BBC NEWS ARTICLE

* Talks had been stalled since 2008 over legal issues

* Gas needed to help with Iraq’s chronic power shortage

By Rania El Gamal

BAGHDAD, July 12 (Reuters) – Iraq initialled a final contract on Tuesday with Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) and Mitsubishi for a $12 billion deal to capture flared gas at southern oilfields, two sources close to the deal said.

The long-awaited deal still needs the approval of Iraq’s cabinet.

The signing took place in a closed meeting without media despite last-minute confusion over whether it was going to happen. Two sources told Reuters on Sunday the oil ministry had scheduled the signing for Tuesday, but then on Monday the ministry announced it would be delayed without giving a reason.

But an Iraqi oil source and another source close to the deal told Reuters the contract had been initialled on Tuesday morning.

The joint venture, named Basra Gas Co, would be at the forefront of Iraq’s plans to modernise its energy facilities and boost oil exports that hover around levels seen before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. The Iraqi government will hold 51 percent of the venture.

Iraq has struggled for years with power blackouts and risks years of electricity shortages until associated gas from vast oilfields in the south is captured and fed to new power plants.

Iraq is losing 1 billion cubic feet per day of gas through flaring, mostly from the south. It would use the gas produced under the agreement with Shell in the domestic market to help meet rapidly rising demand for electricity and could export the surplus.

The 25-year development deal would help Iraq capture more than 700 million cubic feet per day of gas currently being burnt off at three southern oilfields — Rumaila, Zubair and West Qurna Phase One, auctioned in the first bidding round in 2009.

(Writing by Jim Loney; editing by James Jukwey)

REUTERS ARTICLE

Will SCOTUS review Alien Tort Statute after D.C. Circuit ruling?

7/11/2011

Friday’s 151-page ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, reviving an Alien Tort Statute case accusing Exxon of abetting murder and torture in Indonesia, stands in direct contrast to a ruling last September by the Second Circuit, which determined that corporations cannot be held liable under the Alien Tort law. The issue of corporate liability under the ATS is now squarely before the U.S. Supreme Court, since the Nigerian plaintiffs in the Second Circuit case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, filed a June 13 certiorari petition asking for review of the appellate court’s holding. So with a clear split in the circuit courts, it’s a sure bet that the Supreme Court will take the case when the justices return from their summer break, right?

Not necessarily. The issue of whether corporations-as opposed to individual corporate employees-are liable in U.S. federal courts for atrocities committed against foreign nationals has been hotly debated since the Supreme Court’s 2004 ruling in Sosa v. Alvarez-Machian raised the question in a footnote. The D.C. and Second Circuits aren’t the only appellate courts considering the questions. Lawyers for the Kiobel plaintiffs noted in their cert petition that the Eleventh Circuit has permitted ATS claims to proceed against corporations in three cases. The Seventh Circuit has already heard oral arguments testing Firestone’s liability for alleged child labor law violations in Liberia, after the case was dismissed on Kiobel grounds. And last September the Ninth Circuit heard its second en banc appeal of a case involving allegations that the mining company Rio Tinto was engaged in atrocities in Papua New Guinea.

The Kiobel lawyers, led by Paul Hoffman of Schonbrun DeSimone Seplow Harris Hoffman & Harrison, argue that the Second Circuit’s outlier ruling in their case, coupled with the urgency of the issue of corporate ATS liability as demonstrated by the number of courts grappling with it, demands Supreme Court action. “Today corporations may be sued under the ATS for their complicity in egregious human rights violations in Miami or Atlanta, but not in New York or Hartford,” they wrote in the cert petition. “Review by this Court is necessary to eliminate the uncertainty created by this conflict for both corporations and victims of human rights violations.”

That seems like compelling logic, particularly because the Kiobel plaintiffs say the Second Circuit’s reasoning transforms “virtually every major ATS issue into a matter of subject matter jurisdiction,” representing a “radical overhaul” of precedent. But with so many other cases addressing corporate ATS liability already briefed and argued before appellate courts, the Supreme Court could just as well decide to wait and see how other circuit courts analyze the issue. It may turn out that the justices think the Exxon case or the Firestone case, for instance, is a better vehicle to review the question. (The Rio Tinto case has progressed the farthest, but because it involves a foreign corporation as well as foreign plaintiffs, it poses some additional complications.)

Consensus on corporate ATS liability has been as rare as aNational League win in the All-Star game. The D.C. Circuit panel’s Exxon ruling was 2-to-1. The Second Circuit split down the middle, 5-to-5, when it voted on whether to rehear Kiobel en banc. (Because there was a tie, rehearing was denied.) Eloquent opinions have been written on all sides of the issue, with courts finding yet more nuances in the one-sentence 1799 law and its subsequent interpretations. Royal Dutch Shell may argue that the Supreme Court should wait for the judicial reasoning to crystallize before taking on the issue.

Royal Dutch Shell, which is represented by Rowan Wilson of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, has until August 13 to submit its opposition to the plaintiffs’ cert petition.

(Reporting by Alison Frankel)

SOURCE ARTICLE

PETALING JAYA, Malaysia – This decade would be another defining moment for the global energy sector as warning of probable supply shortage had been raised – a scenario which may drive prices to extreme volatilities for the next round.

In a roundtable briefing with selected Asian journalists here, Royal Dutch Shell plc Chief Executive Peter Voser indicated high likelihood of shortages in energy supply in the next 5 to 7 years saying, “demand will outpace available supply in the years to come.”

Voser added that “a major contributor to this surging energy demand will come from the quest for mobility among Asia’s growing middle class,” indicating further that the volume of vehicle additions will mostly be in Asia’s roads.

SOURCE ARTICLE

By London Bureau Published July 08, 2011 Dow Jones Newswires

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC will take lessons it learned from past negative experiences in Russia to aid it in future, Chief Executive Peter Voser said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft to be published Saturday.

When Shell was asked about its negative experiences in Russia, Voser said, “You learn from the past and do it differently in the future.”

Copyright © 2011 Dow Jones Newswires

SOURCE

Gulf Coast governors defend Shell drilling plan

MELINDA DESLATTE, Associated Press

Updated 05:00 p.m., Friday, July 8, 2011

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — The governors of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama are asking a federal appeals court to uphold the Obama administration’s approval for a Shell deepwater drilling plan in the Gulf of Mexico.

Environmental groups have asked the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Atlanta to throw out the exploration plan. The three Gulf Coast states are seeking to intervene in the case, saying deepwater oil and gas exploration is vital to the states’ economies and to the fossil-fuel dependent nation.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal‘s office released the court filings Friday.

“While these lawsuits attack Shell’s exploration plan, they could impact exploration and drilling activities in the entire Gulf of Mexico — completely halting the approval of future permits, or action to be taken on permits that have already received approval,” Jindal said in a statement.

The exploration plan — approved in May by the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement — involves Shell Gulf of Mexico Inc. drilling 10 wells off the coast of Alabama. Shell’s plan, according to the court filings, would use Louisiana seaports and airports as staging areas for much of the drilling work.

Approval of an exploration plan is not an approval to drill. A separate drilling permit must be issued.

Defenders of Wildlife, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council claim that the drilling would violate new regulations imposed in August 2010, a few months after the Deepwater Horizon explosion and Gulf oil spill, and that the exploration could harm the environment.

The Obama administration imposed a moratorium on deepwater drilling in the Gulf after the BP oil spill. Though it was lifted in October, permits have been slow to flow again. The industry and many Gulf Coast elected officials have prodded the government to move faster, while environmental groups have pushed the government to slow down.

“We cannot let the wrongful conduct of a few companies prevent the safe development and production of oil wells which are so vital to the economy of our state,” Alabama Governor Robert Bentley said in a statement. “Offshore drilling is important to the viability of the state, Gulf Coast region and nation, both economically with the jobs they produce and to ease our dependence on foreign sources of energy.”

Filed Thursday, the request by Jindal, Bentley and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour asks to allow their states to weigh in on the appeals court proceedings because of their economic interest in the outcome of the case.

SOURCE

July 8, 2011, 2:45 p.m. EDT

By London Bureau

LONDON (MarketWatch) — Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA.LN, RDSB.LN, RDSA, RDSB) plans to invest $30 billion in Australia over the next five years, Chief Executive Peter Voser said in an interview with Swiss newspaper Finanz und Wirtschaft to be published Saturday.

The country is a key part of Shell’s liquefied natural gas, or LNG, strategy. Shell aims to produce significantly higher volumes of LNG in coming years, including from the A$43 billion Gorgon project offshore Western Australia state, in which it has a 25% interest.

The company also wants to build the Gladstone LNG project, converting onshore coal seam gas to LNG in Australia’s Queensland state, and has approved construction of the world’s first floating LNG production vessel off the northwest Australian coast.

SOURCE ARTICLE