News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Qatar also signed an initial agreement with local Chinese authorities, the Chinese state-run oil company C.N.P.C. and Royal Dutch Shell to be part of a petrochemical and refining complex in China, the world’s second-biggest oil consuming nation.
Click to continue reading “Qatar Has World in Its Sights for Power Projects”
By Eduard Gismatullin – Dec 7, 2011 12:01 AM GMT
Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europe’s largest energy producer, is weighing options for rising North American natural-gas output including exports and making liquid fuels, Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser said.
Shell will double North American gas production in the next three years to the equivalent of 400,000 barrels of oil a day as output from shale deposits rises, Voser said in an interview. Shell may channel gas into chemical production, an export project in Canada, and a program to use the fuel to power trucks, he said.
“We are getting now into production phase in a big way,” Voser said at the World Petroleum Congress in Doha, Qatar. “It’s about the right time to look for further options. We are really looking at the usage of gas in a much wider way in North America.”
Pumping gas trapped in shale rocks has transformed the U.S. into the world’s largest gas producer, cut prices about 75 percent from their 2008 peak and made exports to higher priced markets in Asia and Europe a viable option. The fuel will overtake crude oil to account for more than 50 percent of Shell’s global production next year, driven in part by the development of shale gas fields in Texas and Pennsylvania.
“This percentage goes up over the next years to come as most of our projects are actually gas projects,” Voser said. “Given our huge gas reserves in the U.S. we are looking at a possibility to actually build a gas-to-liquids plant.”
Shell has invested about $19 billion in its Pearl gas-to- liquids plant in Qatar to make transportation fuel. It’s the company’s largest project to date and it plans to build another “large scale” unit, Andy Brown, Shell’s chief in Qatar, said earlier this week.
The company has gas reserves in North America of 40 trillion cubic feet, about 12 percent of the continent’s total at end of 2010, based on data from BP Plc’s Statistical Review of World Energy. The company spent $4.7 billion last year to buy most of East Resources Inc., a shale producer with fields in Texas’s Eagle Ford area and Marcellus in Pennsylvania.
The Hague-based producer is working on the Green Corridor project in Canada to convert gas into 300,000 tons of liquefied natural gas a year to fuel long-haul trucks from next year. The fuel will be offered to operators along western Canada’s busiest truck route from Calgary to Edmonton, said Malcolm Brinded, executive director for exploration and production.
Shell is looking at using the LNG-to-transport technology in China and Europe, Voser said. It will be a smaller market than using gas to fire power plants, “but it’s a good usage of the gas,” he said.
“There is a great appetite for this type of solution,” he said. This market “will be growing. You can think of more, you can use it in the shipping industry.”
The gap between natural gas and crude oil prices in North America is opening up the prospect of LNG exports to Asia and making chemical projects commercially viable. Today’s gas price is equivalent to about $27 a barrel of crude, while oil is trading at about $100 a barrel in New York.
Shell, together with PetroChina Co. and Japanese and South Korean partners, plans to develop an export facility in British Columbia in Canada to supply LNG to Asia.
In June, Shell announced plans to build an ethylene plant in Appalachia, the first so-called cracker built in the region in half a century, to tap low-cost natural gas for making plastics. The cracker would process gas from the Marcellus shale. The ethylene probably will be converted to polyethylene plastic at a second factory to be built at the site, Shell said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net;
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net;
Wednesday 7/12/2011 December
Royal Dutch Shell has spent $20bn in Qatar in the last five years, which is a real reflection of the country’s business climate, said executive officer Peter Voser.
“We feel confident to make such large commitments here in Qatar because of this nation’s business climate,” he said in his remarks at a session at the 20th World Petroleum Congress here yesterday.
Qatar, he said, achieved “several milestones” in the energy industry in a “record time”. “Just last year, Qatar celebrated 77mn tonnes LNG (liquefied natural gas) production capacity and fulfilled its vision of becoming the LNG gas capital of the world.
“Qatar’s milestones include the world’s largest liquefied natural gas trains and tankers. We played a role in these achievements as a shareholder in Qatargas 4 and also as provider of operations and maintenance services to the Nakilat LNG fleet.”
“Thus we got engaged in bringing technology and knowledge into the country,” Voser said.
Recently, Qatar embraced its vision to be the world’s leader in gas-to-liquids technology by inaugurating the world’s largest Pearl GTL project in Ras Laffan, a Qatar-Shell joint venture.
“Pearl GTL provides new ways to Qatar to derive higher values from its abundant gas resources through high quality fuels and related products,” Voser said.
Shell has also signed a heads of agreement with Qatar Petroleum to develop a petrochemical complex in Qatar Petroleum.
The $6.4bn plant, which will have a capacity of 1.5mn tonnes a year of mono-ethylene glycol and 300 tonnes of linear alpha olefins, would primarily market the products into fast-growing Asian markets.
“This agreement consolidates strong partnership with QP across the full value chain of hydrocarbon development. Besides supplying the world with the much needed products and creating jobs, it will also diversify Qatar’s industrial base in line with Qatar National Vision 2030,” Voser said.
“All these achievements have become possible here in Qatar because of HH the Emir’s visionary leadership,” Voser said. – Pratap John
Oil industry executives appearing Tuesday at the World Petroleum Congress in Doha, Qatar.
DOHA, Qatar (CNNMoney) — Just three years after fears of an energy supply shortage, executives of the world’s leading oil companies now foresee a bonanza of oil and natural gas on the horizon.
In 2008, concern that a rapidly developing world was eating through all its energy supplies helped push prices to record levels, with oil hitting $147 a barrel and natural gas topping $15 per million cubic feet.
Now, those concerns have abated, reflected in $100 oil and $3-$4 natural gas. That’s partly due to the global recession, but largely thanks to new technology that’s unlocked vast new supplies of oil and, especially, natural gas. (Read: Gasoline: The new big U.S. export.)
“The world holds centuries of natural gas supply, enough for generations,” said James Mulva, chief executive of ConocoPhillips (COP, Fortune 500), at the World Petroleum Congress on Tuesday. “We don’t need any new miracles, the miracles have already occurred.”
Those “miracles” include the relatively new ability to liquefy natural gas so it can be sent around the world on massive ships. Previously, natural gas had to be transported by pipeline, which made it hard to get it from places where it’s abundant, such as here in Qatar, to consuming markets in Asia and elsewhere.
The miracles also include the ability to tap oil and natural gas from shale rock, which is done using a combination of new horizontal drilling technology and a process called hydraulic fracturing. Known as fracking for short, it involves injecting vast amounts of water, sand and some chemicals deep into the earth to crack the shale rock and allow the gas or oil to flow out.
10 most fuel efficient cars since 1984
The technology has indeed freed huge amounts of gas — which is why natural gas prices in the United States, where the process was pioneered and is now fairly widespread, are about a fifth of what they were in 2008.
But fracking has also raised concerns about ground water contamination and earthquakes, and has been banned in several spots around the world.
Little mention was made of the fracking controversy at this oil conference. But Royal Dutch Shell (RDSA) Chief Executive Peter Voser said it’s better that the big companies have gotten in on the shale gas boom — suggesting they have the money and technical ability to make sure it is done right.
“Companies like Shell and Exxon coming into shale gas operations in a big way will drive the standards higher,” said Voser, who also said that Shell has recently begun tapping shale gas in China. “This is where the bigger players can drive the sustainability of these reserves.”
The bonanza doesn’t come cheap. While natural gas prices have moved considerably lower and oil prices are down by about a quarter since the heady days of 2008, it’s unclear how they will react when the global economy picks up.
As Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500) Chief Executive Rex Tillerson noted, demand for energy is expected to jump some 30% over the next two decades as the global economy doubles in size. Most of that energy will continue to come from fossil fuels, forecasting agencies predict, and they expect tighter supplies and higher prices.
These new energy sources are more expensive than traditional wells, whether it’s tapping shale rock, liquefying natural gas or exploring for oil in ultra deep water. And it will require a massive investment to bring this new energy to market.
Tillerson said his company spends $34 billion a year investing in new energy projects. Worldwide, he said the industry spends $1.5 trillion per year on new infrastructure. That’s nearly half the spending of the entire U.S. government in 2011.
Tillerson said the spending is worth it and that rising energy demand, especially in the developing world, is not a bad thing. Energy allows water to be purified, farms to be fertilized, and hospitals and schools to operate.
“There is a moral imperative behind humanity’s need for energy,” he said. “The delivery of energy will provide a bridge to a better future.”
Few would disagree — although many are hoping that energy will come someday in a cleaner form than fossil fuel.
First Published: December 6, 2011: 11:32 AM ET
By Tom Bergin
DOHA | Tue Dec 6, 2011 4:29am EST
(Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc has found shale gas in China, a development that could cap imports in a market natural gas producers are hoping will drive demand.
An official with Shell’s partner, PetroChina (601857.SS), a unit of the country’s top energy group, state-owned CNPC, said drilling results from two wells Shell drilled had been positive.
“Shell has two vertical wells and they got very good primary production,” Professor Yuzhang Liu, Vice president of Petrochina’s Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development (RIPED), said in an interview at the sidelines of the World Petroleum Congress (WPC) in Doha.
“It’s good news for shale gas,” Liu, who regularly represents PetroChina at industry events around the world, told Reuters late on Monday.
China currently has no commercial shale gas production.
Some industry executives doubt the explosion of shale gas in the U.S. that has revolutionized the market there could be replicated elsewhere due to difficult geology, the lack of water availability or land access issues.
Liu accepted the rock formations in China were “different” from those in the United States but denied this meant they were more challenging or less bountiful.
In less than decade, shale gas has transformed the United States from gas shortage to a point where companies are planning to export liquefied natural gas (LNG), fundamentally altering the dynamics of the international gas market.
LNG projects freeze and squeeze natural gas into liquid for export in tankers. Many producers who were targeting the United States were forced to rethink their plans, and China, with its booming energy demand, was seen as the answer to their need for a market.
A Chinese ‘shale gale’ as the revolution was termed in America, could jeopardize that market too.
Shell declined to confirm the find but said in a statement;
“Shell will complete drilling activities by the year end… as planned.”
Chief Executive Peter Voser has previously said he has “great expectations” for Chinese shale but was cautious in his comments to the WPC on Tuesday.
“We are going through the exploration phase there and are exactly now analyzing what potential is available now in China,” he told a news conference.
In November 2009, PetroChina and Royal Dutch Shell agreed to jointly evaluate shale gas reserves of the Fushun-Yongchuan block in Sichuan basin.
Earlier this year, industry sources said Shell had started drilling two shale gas exploration wells in Fushun.
A U.S. Energy Information Administration report in April said China had 1,275 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas resources — by far the largest in the world, followed by the United States with 862 trillion cubic feet and Argentina with 774.
(Reporting by Tom Bergin; Editing by Andrew Callus)
By John Donovan
In 1904, the scallop shell or pecten replaced Shell Transport’s first marketing logo. In various forms it has remained in use ever since, becoming one of the best known corporate symbols in the world.
The above information is taken from the: “The beginnings“, which forms part of a shell.com online feature – “Our history” – covering Shell from its inception to the new millennium. A whole page is devoted to “The History of the Shell logo“ and there is more information on a downloadable document: “The History behind the Shell emblem,” in which this slogan appears:
The authors of this judiciously selected online history have unsurprisingly neglected to mention the Nazi association with the pecten.
It was used by the German subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, Rhenania-Ossage, in the years before and during World War 2, when the company was in partnership with the notorious IG Farben, the German chemical company which produced synthetic gasoline by hydrogenation. IG Farben had championed the hydrogenation process since the 1920′s.
By 1939, synthetic gasoline covered nearly a third of oil consumption in Germany. Shell had a one-third stake in the Politz hydrogenation works.
Hermann Goering, a close friend of the Nazi leader of Royal Dutch Shell, Sir Henri Deterding, was commander of the German air force and in charge of the four-year plan to raise synthetic gasoline output to fuel Nazi military ambitions.
Following Hitler’s annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, Shell Group managing directors sanctioned Rhenania-Ossag taking over the Shell companies in those countries.
The Nazis continued to use the Shell pecten logo in Germany after the appointment of a Verwalter (administrator) for Rhenania-Ossag in January 1940. The Verwalter appointed a Shell Dutch Nazi general manager, J. H. W. Rost van Tonningen to a new pro-German board. He had previously held the post of Shell Group technical inspector visiting installations in Italy, Austria, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Rost had developed a keen interest in fascism, joining the Dutch Nazi party. He was on one occasion suspended from work because of his political allegiance, before being reinstated, probably due to the influence of his brother, a prominent leader of the Dutch Nazi movement. Many employees of Royal Dutch Shell in Germany and the Netherlands were Nazis.
Hauptmann Eichardt von Klass, the former research director of Rhenania-Ossag, was appointed in January 1940 as Verwalter to manage Royal Dutch and had full powers to act on behalf of the concern in occupied Europe.
After the end of World War 2, Royal Dutch Shell regained control of Rhenania-Ossag and retained some of the same management who had helped to fuel the Nazi war machine.
Shell rehired former Shell employees who had been involved as Nazi party members in forced labor programs. Robert Finn, a senior employee of Rhenania-Ossag involved in the forced labor programme as a member of the Nazi party, became a director of a Shell Chemical company in Germany after the war.
Directors of IG Farben, which had used slave labor and supplied Zyklon-B gas to the Nazi death camps, were found guilty of war crimes.
The Shell pecten was used by the German Shell operating company Rhenania-Ossag, before, during, and after World War 2. No other global brand logo is as closely associated with the Nazis.
For more information see:
I.G. Farben, Royal Dutch Shell and Nazi slave labor
A History of Royal Dutch Shell Volume 2 (29 pages). From which some of the above information is taken.
By: The Canadian Press 12/5/2011 12:41 PM
A haul truck carryong a full load drives away from a mining shovel at the Shell Albian Sands oilsands mine near Fort McMurray, Alta., Wednesday, July 9, 2008. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh
EDMONTON – Newly filed documents say Shell Canada’s environmental study of its proposed oilsands expansion should be rejected because it is woefully out of date and lowballs probable industrial development by a factor of 12.
A report to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency by the Oilsands Environmental Coalition points out that Shell’s (NYSE:RDS) look at the cumulative effects of development in the region doesn’t include anything proposed since 2007.
Since then, says the report, there have been 11 new projects proposed within the study area and more than a billion dollars has been spent acquiring oilsands leases.
“It strains credulity that more than $1 billion in lease sales … will result in no reasonably foreseeable development of any kind,” says the document.
The report, derived from industry and government figures, also accuses Shell of ignoring the extent of forestry as well as recent forest fires that have swept through the region.
While Shell maintains that only five per cent of the area around the Jackpine expansion is likely to be affected by development, the coalition maintains the real figure will be closer to 60 per cent.
The discrepancy between overall industry plans and what individual companies list in regulatory filings threatens the ability of the public to make good decisions about the oilsands at a time when they are under increased scrutiny around the globe, Simon Dyer of the environmental think-tank Pembina Institute said Monday.
“It’s pretty black and white that this is not a credible assessment,” said Dyer, whose group is part of the coalition that wrote the report.
Shell’s manager of regulatory approvals said the company will review the coalition’s document.
“The regulatory review process for this project has taken four years and in this intervening period oilsands development has continued to grow,” Donald Crowe said in an email.
“This assessment included all planned developments as defined by Alberta Environment at the time of filing and included the effects of forest harvest and fires.”
Crowe said Alberta Environment determined the assessment to be complete in 2010.
Companies are required to look at how much development is “reasonably foreseeable” in a region where they want to work and how their proposal would add to the overall load on the environment.
That study goes to a federal-provincial review panel, which uses it to help decide if a project should go ahead. The panel for Shell’s Jackpine project is expected to announce hearing dates early in the new year.
Shell filed its cumulative environmental effects assessment for the expansion, which would produce 100,000 barrels a day, in 2007. An assessment of socio-economic effects was updated the following year but environmental impact was not.
The coalition used government documents and public announcements to pinpoint seven projects that have begun the regulatory process since 2007 and another four that have been publicly announced. As well, regulatory papers show that 3,137 exploration wells have been drilled in the region in the last four years, none of which is considered in Shell’s assessment.
Dyer said that while governments trumpet the continuing growth in oilsands production, regulators aren’t considering the cumulative impact.
“There’s a really big disconnect within governments between those departments responsible for economic development and those required for environmental protection,” he said. “It only makes sense that the economic projections should be the same as the environmental projections to make intelligent decisions.”
Richard Dixon, director of the University of Alberta’s Centre for Applied Business Research in Energy and the Environment, said French energy giant Total was caught with a similar gap during hearings for its Joslyn project. That panel required Total to file extensive additional information on cumulative impacts.
The panel at Shell’s hearing may well do something similar, he suggested.
“They’re not going to shovel that under the carpet. If Shell has missed (something) and Pembina caught it, good for Pembina.”
Dixon said credible cumulative impact studies are closely linked to oilsands environmental monitoring Alberta is developing with the federal government. Both are needed to make good decisions, he said.
“You compare (cumulative effects) with what you’ve got for good monitoring and say, ‘OK, here’s where the threshold is and here’s where this is bumping up and…now we have to rethink this.’
“And those days are coming.”
Graphic from the Guardian article Unloveable Shell, the Goddess of Oil
December 5, 2011, 2011
Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GCFR)
President and Commander-In-Chief,
Armed Forces of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Aso Rock, Abuja.
His Excellency,
We the Ogoni students in diaspora, whose parents, siblings, friends and homeland are seriously threatened from human and cooperate environmental policies to extinction by Shell for over five decades in Ogoniland, are greatly honored to write you and the people of Nigeria on the need to urgently address the environmental pollution and concerns of the Ogoni people. We still repose our confidence in you, especially in solving the monumental environmental tragedy that the people of Ogoni, Niger Delta and this great nation are faced with. We urge you therefore to use your leadership in providing credible plan that will ultimately address the environmental cleaning, along with adequate compensation to the Ogoni people for social, health and economic damages.
Few months ago, the people of Ogoni, the people of Nigeria, and the world had a preview of Ogoni environmental nightmare as the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) presented its fourteen months impact assessment study on Oil and gas pollution in Ogoniland. The gravity of the report remains that oil pollution has permeated the length and breadth of Ogoniland beyond human imagination. It is a fate uncalled for and it has exacerbated further the environmental traumatization of the Ogoni people. Therefore, the report has made it clear that there is no cultural, social, economic, moral and legal justification to delay the implementation of the recommendations.
While the UNEP report has validated the Ogoni environmental degradation as a serious ecological war Shell perpetrates daily in Ogoniland, our fears for delaying implementation of the professional-brilliant job of the UNEP is profound and heightened by your duplicated committees and non actions on the report. As a people whose livelihood, history, wealth, and environment have been tied to long chain of discrimination and persecution demonstrated in endless imbalance of socio- political and economic policies towards Ogoni people, we still have hope in you and cannot believe that your caliber of person is employing delay, or other subtle means to deny our people justice even with this credible UNEP report as it has been the manner of most of your predecessors.
We believe your plans in addressing the Ogoni environmental problems should include the use of the UNEP as the On-Scene Remediation Authority in the remediation phase of Ogoniland, and a provision of Comprehensive Environmental Corrective Action Plans that will pre-inform the Ogonis, Nigerians and the world responsible parties, and actions to be taken. We consider that the integration of these two plans, among others, will inject confidence into the entire process, and detect immediately any act of sabotage during the Ogoniland Remediation Project. Our suggestion is based on the fact that the Ogoni pollution has attracted international attention; particularly with the newly validated report by the UNEP, and any approach or plan that is not transparent enough will call to question the intention of the Federal Government of Nigeria under your leadership.
Sir, as a fellow Niger Deltan, we would like to avoid delay in the implementation or any future insinuation that point to failure of the UNEP report/recommendations. Our prayer is that God forbid any Ogonland remediation/bioremediation failure.
We also want to add that in one of your recent trips abroad the issue of state creation gave you a tremendous challenge as your remark was mostly driven by great sense of indifference and politic rather than the honest way to address the growing frustration of unequal equation of social justice in our great nation. We implore you to reconsider your decision and limit your cultural distance on issues of common interest by submitting a bill to the National Assembly for state creation, particularly Bori State. State creation is a common and possible way of solving our political and economic problems of perpetual political marginalization by the government while improving quality of life for its inhabitants.
Mr. President, as you read this letter, we hope that it will touch and remind you of the sacrifice Ogoni people have invested in the campaign for restoring their environment to pristine or near pristine condition. Our efforts have equally sensitized the entire Niger Delta of the danger of oil and gas pollution, yet Ogoni has nothing to show for it while other parts are benefiting. The abandonment of Ogoni and the non-integration of Ogoni in any government meaningful development has made us to hold tenaciously unto the fundamental fact that our wealth are stolen, and we as Ogoni people are made to struggle with poverty, misery, death and pollution. How can something that is so wrong and an injustice to humanity be right because it affects Ogoniland? It is our fervent hope that as you read this letter, it will prompt initiation of action oriented policies towards properly addressing Ogoni cause.
Thank you.
On behalf of the National Union of Ogoni students (NUOS INTL) USA, we are:
Pius Barikpoa Nwinee
President
Sampson Npimnee
Secretary
Baridaakara Sunday
Public Relations Officer.
–
…………………………………………………………….
“We are going to demand our RIGHTS – Peacefully, Non-Violently, and we shall WIN” – Ken Saro-Wiwa (1941-1995)
…………………………………………………………….
NUOS Intl – Seeking solutions to the plight of indigenous students around the world.
(www.nuos-ogoni.org ~nuos.intl@gmail.com ~ friends@nuos-ogoni.org ~ phone/msg – 773.250.7004)
Cameron Best | December 6th, 2011
SHELL Australia has again failed to guarantee the future of its refinery operations in Geelong, as the company looks to scale back in the face of increased Asian competition and reduced margins.
While the company issued its standard “we never speculate on speculation” line, it admitted the Geelong refinery faced challenging times in a highly competitive environment.
“While the company does not speculate on the future of any of its assets, it is worth noting significant investment decisions made by Shell in the last 12 months,” Shell Australia spokesman Paul Zennaro said.
Over the past year, Shell has invested $47.5 million in Barwon Water’s Northern Water Plant and $20 million in new bitumen facilities at the Geelong refinery.
The company also has an ongoing maintenance program at the refinery, despite the decision to axe 22 maintenance jobs at the refinery in October.
At the time, refinery general manager Mark Schubert said it was a difficult, but necessary, decision aimed at improving the refinery’s sustainability.
Shell made the decision to close its smaller Clyde refinery in Sydney earlier this year, converting it and the company’s Gore Bay Terminal into a fuel import terminal.
The company blamed the rise of “mega-refineries” in the Asian region, which depressed industry margins for refined products.
Both relatively small in world terms, the ageing refineries at Geelong and Clyde process nearly 200,000 barrels a day, or about 25 per cent of Australia’s petrol needs.
Shell Australia vice-president of Australia downstream Andrew Smith told The Australian Financial Review there was no commitment on expanding Geelong in the wake of Clyde’s closure.
Mr Smith said the 120,000 barrel-a-day Geelong refinery was a better economic proposition than Clyde but there were a “cupboard full of options” for Geelong.
Scheduled to be completed next year, Shell’s bitumen manufacturing plant in Geelong will produce about 160,000 tonnes of bitumen per year in three key grades.
The company supplies more than one-third of all bitumen used for private and government roads.
cameron.best@geelongadvertiser.com.au
By Rania El Gamal
BASRA, Iraq | Mon Dec 5, 2011 7:43am EST
Dec 5 (Reuters) – Officials in Iraq’s southern oil hub Basra are trying to cancel a $17 billion Shell gas deal because they want a bigger say, highlighting the pressure on central government to ease its control over the provinces.
Basra, where dozens of international oil companies signed up to develop some of Iraq’s largest oilfields, is increasingly restless with the slow pace of development in the province and wants more control over its natural resources and revenues.
Demands for more provincial power have simmered for years in Iraq, split by ethnic, sectarian and tribal tensions. But the Basra push and an autonomy drive from Salahuddin province threaten to stir tensions as the last U.S. troops withdraw.
The final contract with Royal Dutch Shell and Mitsubishi to capture flared gas in three southern Iraqi oilfields was signed on Nov. 24 despite objections from the Basra local council that it was not included in talks or the deal’s signing.
Officials from the Basra Provincial Council filed a lawsuit against the Iraqi Oil Ministry on Nov. 25 demanding the cancellation of the gas agreement.
“In principle, we don’t have any problem with developing the gas but when the contract is signed, there has to be an article that shows the provincial council has agreed … Unfortunately, we did not know anything about this contract,” said Sabah al-Bazouni, head of the Basra Provincial Council.
“Basra is the most suitable province to become an autonomous region.”
Regional autonomy would give the province more power over finances, administration and laws, and an upper hand in supervising public property, which could loosen Baghdad’s grip on the oil and gas sector.
The legal case is unlikely to deter Shell and delay the project, but it raises concerns about future disputes over oil and gas rights in Iraq, which is struggling to rebuild after years of violence just as Washington prepares for a full troop withdrawal by the end of December.
“Just as the constitution gave rights to the region, it also gave similar rights to the producing provinces … Today, the Kurdish region signs a deal with ExxonMobil and the central government objects, it is double standards,” said Bazouni.
Minority Kurds in the north of Iraq have enjoyed semi-autonomy for years since Western powers imposed a no-fly zone after the 1991 Gulf War. The Kurdish north is now seen as a model for other regions seeking more autonomy.
Iraqi Kurdistan was able to attract foreign investment and provide its residents with better security and living standards than in the rest of Iraq, where bombings and power cuts are a part of citizens’ everyday lives.
But the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and Baghdad are locked in a row over land and oil. The central government has objected to a recent deal between the KRG and U.S. oil giant ExxonMobil to explore for oil in the northern region.
Despite that, officials in Basra look to the KRG’s experience and blame the lack of progress on political wrangling in Baghdad and rivalry among the Shi’ite Muslim, Sunni Muslim and Kurdish parties, each jostling for more power.
“Part of what drove us to demand regional autonomy is that political problems are usual in Baghdad not in Basra, where the governing parties are a known quantity,” said Ghanem Abdul-Amir al-Maliki, a member of Basra Provincial Council.
“It is clear that the Kurdistan region is stable to a large degree because the governing parties there are a known factor … In Baghdad, everyone is trying to please his own party on the account of others. We want to get rid of the political infighting in Baghdad by setting up a region.”
SHARE OF OIL WEALTH
Provinces need a public referendum and parliamentary approval to attain regional autonomy. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, who took part in writing the constitution in 2005, supports powerful central government.
His government has tried to quieten the autonomy movement, partly out of concern that it could lead to instability as the U.S. troop withdrawal picks up pace. The remaining 10,000 troops are scheduled to leave before Dec. 31.
In October, the mainly Sunni Salahuddin province symbolically decided to declare the area autonomous. The move was criticised by Maliki.
In the mainly Shi’ite oil hub of Basra, autonomy talk has bubbled for years. Basra sent a formal request for autonomy more than a year ago, but has had no response from Baghdad.
The southern city used to be called “The Venice of the Middle East”, but now, Basra’s crisscrossed canals are filthy pools of stagnant water filled with heaps of rubbish.
Roads are damaged and only a few hours of electricity are provided every day.
Most of Iraq’s oil exports come from the fields around Basra, but residents are fed up with shortages of power, water, jobs and housing. They complain they have seen little benefit from the oil wealth.
“Federalism is the solution. It has been eight years and Basra is still the same. The central government was not able to solve the problem of the electricity, water and other services in Basra,” said Raied Khoudair, 34, a government employee.
“Until when Basra will remain the cow that Iraq milks for everything, and gets nothing from Iraq? We see the development in the Kurdistan region and the prosperity they live in, we are no less than them.” (Additional reporting by Aref Mohammed; writing by Rania El Gamal; editing by Elizabeth Piper)
: John Great stuff to re-post some historical events in Shell. It shows that your network has mostly been spot-on predicting what was wrong and what would happen. It also shows how long a big company can continue on a substandard level and still do reasonably well. Could it be that a high oilprice has helped a bit? I remember that evil Watts still very well. He has gone completely silent the last few years, exactly what can be expected of a small minded man. Presumably he is working his Japanese garden and repenting in his home church, trying to buy absolution and still hoping not to go to hell but instead a very long time in the purgatory.... I fear in vain! It would be also be nice if you could dig out some old records in which the man with the facial hair (aka Mr TFA) has been promising increasing production levels and if I am not mistaken, he even projected more than 6 million bopd to be reached about now. But he never delivered and still is on seat!! He has been at it for some 15 yrs or more by now. In the past we learned faster in Shell but then there was less fear and more decent people at the top. Keep the good work up!
: SHELL EXPECT US: REPLY TO WILLIAM TELL BY JOHN DONOVAN. We have exchanged email correspondence with you. As I believe I have pointed out to you previously, if you supply any Shell internal emails, we would insist on giving Shell sight of the emails before publication of the emails or any related information. It is our normal practice to give Shell the opportunity to comment on authenticity unless the information comes from a trusted source.
: Well, well - if anyone wishes to get a flavour of what is possible in the wild west of Ireland I suggest you watch the wonderful John Michael 2011 film "The Guard" starring Brendan Gleeson. Anything & everything is possible out there.
: Are we to understand that the violent conduct we witnessed on Irish newsreel shots from Corrib in Mayo were fueled by Shell supplied alcohol to Irish policemen ...tell me no ...innocent decent people protecting their homes
: John saw your reply it all happend ok problem is the Hague is now in charge of the situation all Irish corrib staff have been silenced four people have been let go over their part any one who speaks or produces evidence will suffer big time the cops who got the booze are watching from the sideline also in silence hoping for a clean outcome . If it was all exposed the project be stopped that came from the horses mouth Shell .
: I am ashamed by the conduct of Shell HR in the Anti Discrimination case. As a company we should honour these issues. The mentioned HR rep (Van Barlingen) in the article did much more damage to Shell's reputation by her cold reply and non-action. I truly hope that senior HR management will overrule this decision and decide in favour of Mr Gatti.
: Mr Donovan are you aware that a one thousand euro reward is on offer in Mayo for the name of the supplier of large amounts of alcohol to local Garda on behalf of Roadbridge Shell. REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: I have seen the various allegations and comments posted here, but no evidence. If anyone has any evidence to support these allegations, please sent it to me: john@shellnews.net
: Still criminal offence to bribe Gardai Rb who supplied it? next you will say you didn't pay for home improvements or will you ?
: Roadbridge supplied no booze to Garda on Corrib others supplied it Roadbridge were told to pay for it get your facts right jp
: Corrib Project comments from G Hamilton not correct Roadbridge Shell main contractor supplied large amounts of booze to police protecting the project now the press have a hold of the story and panic has set in....oh what a tangled web we weave when first ...etc ect
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