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January 3rd, 2015:

Outlook uncertain for Shell’s return to the Chukchi

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By Yereth Rosen: 3 Jan 2015

Six years after dropping more than $2 billion on leases in the remote Chukchi Sea off northwestern Alaska, Shell has yet to drill into any oil in that icy frontier.

Plans for an audacious offshore Arctic exploration program have been stymied by litigation and adverse court rulings and a string of accidents, mishaps, mistakes and some legal violations.

But the company is seeking to make up for lost time in 2015. After scrapping plans to drill in 2014 — a decision made necessary by a federal appeals court ruling in January that found regulators had failed to properly evaluate environmental impacts of the 2008 leasing — Shell has a new and much more aggressive exploration plan it hopes to make a reality this year. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

BP probes traders on rigging of £3 trillion-a-day market

Screen Shot 2014-12-04 at 20.54.03Extracts from an energyvoice.com article dated 31 Dec 2014

News service Bloomberg said it had seen copies of messages sent to the oil giant’s staff from firms whose senior forex traders belonged to a chatroom known as “The Cartel”.

Oil giant BP faces being drawn into the foreign exchange (forex) rigging scandal after it emerged that it has been investigating whether its traders were linked to the manipulation of the £3 trillion-a-day market.

The UK-based group said it had carried out a review of its activities after global regulatory probes which resulted in six banks last month being fined £2.6 billion for rigging the market.

Details emerged after reports that members of a BP trading unit were told of planned currency trades hours before they happened. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Big Oil will get even bigger

Screen Shot 2014-02-18 at 18.34.00FROM AN ARTICLE BY FIONA MAHARG-BRAVO PUBLISHED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES FRIDAY 2 JAN 2015

It’s not clear that Shell, the wallflower in the 1990s, will make a move. Exxon and other majors in the United States might be tempted. Either way, chances are Big Oil will get even bigger… 

There was $383 billion in mergers and acquisitions in the oil and gas sector last year, as of Dec. 11. Yet Europe has largely missed out: About three-quarters of the targets have been in North America, according to Thomson Reuters data. Shale has played a big role. In 2015, oil and gas bankers in Europe will get a bigger slice of the action.

The last big fall in oil prices, at the end of 2008, was too short to push a big merger and acquisition wave.

BP’s former chairman, John Browne, wrote in his memoir that a merger with Shell, pondered while he was at the helm, might have delivered $9 billion in annual synergies. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Oil prices down by almost 50%

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From an article published by Bloomberg News Friday 2 Jan 2015

Oil dropped to the lowest in more than five and a half years amid growing supply from Russia and Iraq and signs of manufacturing weakness in Europe and China.

Oil output in Russia and Iraq surged to the highest levels in decades in December, according to data from both countries’ governments.

Prices slumped 46 percent in New York in 2014, the steepest drop in six years and second-worst since trading began in 1983…

The European oil fell 48 percent last year, the second-biggest annual loss on record behind a 51 percent tumble in the 2008 financial crisis. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Oil and Art Do Not Mix

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On a recent cold night in Trafalgar Square, a group of 30 or so people rehearsed a new piece of musical theater in front of Britain’s National Gallery of Art. But if the venue was highbrow, the production — including sinister characters and lyrics such as “A gallery of art-wash … to benefit the oil boss” — definitely was not.

It was being staged by the environmental group Art Not Oil, and the target of their satire was a Rembrandt exhibition, sponsored by the oil and gas company Shell. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
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