Posts under ‘Royal Dutch Shell Plc’

I doubt that Mr. Voser will emulate Network Rail bosses in the face of a widespread public backlash against Fat Cat bonuses and waive his Fat Cat bonus, as they have, to improve safety? Fat chance.

By John Donovan

According to a report filed on Monday with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission, Peter Voser, the Swiss Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell Plc received €6.75 million in salary for 2011 plus a bonus of €3.5 million, a combined total of over €10 million.

Voser wants half of his bonus (€1.75 million) paid in shares. The full details of the bonuses at the top of Shell will not be known until publication of the annual report of the company.

Peter Voser was in 2010 the highest paid director of any Dutch listed company.

This is the gentleman who as part of his Vosification plan, asked hundreds of senior Shell managers to reapply for their own jobs.

I doubt that Mr. Voser will emulate Network Rail bosses in the face of a widespread public backlash against Fat Cat bonuses and waive his Fat Cat bonus, as they have, to improve safety? Fat chance.

RELATED ARTICLES

Shell fat cat Peter Voser highest earner in NL: 25 April 2011

Swiss warn UBS bank could collapse – Shell CEO Voser is a UBS director: 1 February 2010

Voserfication at Royal Dutch Shell Plc: 21 June 2009

Leaked email from incoming Shell CEO Peter Voser reveals list of senior appointments: 20 June 2009

Peter Voser’s message to Shell staff presages a gloomy future for all of Shell’s employees and stakeholders

Shell insiders toxic reaction to Vosification job cuts

FEBRUARY 6, 2012

LAGOS (AFP) – Shell raised the alarm on Monday over repeated damage to a key pipeline in southern Nigeria by what it said were thieves seeking to siphon off crude for sale on the lucrative black market.

The Anglo-Dutch oil giant said the Nembe Creek Trunkline had been hit by an increased number of attacks by thieves “barely 16 months after the old line was replaced due to repeated sabotage attacks.”

While highly organised crude theft — locally called “bunkering” — has long been a major problem in Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer, authorities have warned that the practice has been on the rise.

It involves thieves tapping pipelines to siphon off oil either to be sold as crude or to be treated at makeshift refineries. The oil is often directed toward waiting vessels.

“On the 24th of December last year, the line was shut down because of leaks caused by two failed bunkering points, and since repairs were completed, more than 50 theft valves have been discovered,” a Shell statement said.

“In one case, some 17 illegal bunkering points were found within a distance of 3.8 kilometres.”

Mutiu Sunmonu, head of Shell’s Nigerian joint venture SPDC, said in the statement that “the level of crude theft at NCTL can no longer be tolerated.”

“It is difficult to sustain production in the circumstance as we have to shut down when a facility trips and fix the cause before restarting,” he said. “This happened three times just between the 26th and 30th of January.”

Shell resumed production on the line January 23 after repairs due to the December incident, which led it to declare “force majeure,” a legal term indicating it may not meet contractual obligations due to events beyond its control.

The line’s current daily output is 140,000 barrels per day, Shell said.

Shell says the vast majority of oil spills in recent years in the oil-producing Niger Delta region, badly hit by years of pollution, have been caused by sabotage, theft and illegal refining.

However, activists say Shell has not done enough to prevent such spills, and a UN report issued last year took Shell’s Nigerian joint venture to task over oil pollution.

The report said Shell’s procedures for control and maintenance of infrastructure had not been followed and spills had also not been sufficiently cleaned.

SOURCE ARTICLE

By Ladane Nasseri – Feb 6, 2012 4:10 PM GMT

Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi has ordered five European companies, including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, to be put on a blacklist for failing to meet their commitments in the nation’s refinery projects, Mehr reported.

Shell and UOP LLC, a unit of U.S.-based Honeywell International Inc., were among the companies named in the report published today by the state-run news agency.

Qasemi “ordered the National Iranian Oil Products Refining and Distribution Co. to halt foreign purchases of license in the country’s refinery projects at a time of increasing sanctions and lack of commitment of foreign companies,” according to the news agency.

‘These companies will have no role in the future in Iran’s oil and gas industries,” Mehr said, citing the refiner.

Iran is in conflict with western countries over accusations that it is using its nuclear program as a cover for developing weapons, a charge the government denies. European Union foreign ministers agreed on Jan. 23 to ban Iranian crude oil imports starting in July and freeze the assets of the country’s central bank, measures that come in addition to previous United Nations, U.S. and EU sanctions.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Dubai at lnasseri@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net

SOURCE ARTICLE

RELATED ARTICLES

Weaning Royal Dutch Shell off Iranian Oil

Royal Dutch Shell Iranian treachery: 20 November 2010

Royal Dutch Shell trading with the enemy, Iran: 30 October 2010

FEBRUARY 06, 2012

By Isis Almeida

Feb. 6 (Bloomberg) — Raizen, a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Cosan Industria & Comercio SA in Brazil, will process 9 percent more sugar cane in the season starting in April than a year earlier, commercial director Ivan Melo said.

Raizen’s cane processing in the 2012-13 season will be 57.6 million metric tons, with sugar output up about 15 percent to 4.3 million tons and ethanol supply about 10 percent higher at 2.4 billion liters (634 million gallons), Melo said in an interview at the Kingsman conference in Dubai today. Sweetener content will also rise, he said.

“We have an accelerated replanting program and we have two mills, one in Mato Grosso do Sul and one in Goias, where production will be rising this year because they are new units,” he said. It takes five to six years for a new mill to reach capacity, he said. Melo is based in Sao Paulo.

The cane crop in Brazil’s center-south, the main growing region of the world’s biggest producer, will be 536 million tons in the period, Melo said in a speech at the conference yesterday. That compares with an output of 492.7 million tons so far this season, data from Brazilian industry group Unica show. Sugar output in the area will be 33 million to 34.5 million tons, he said.

Sugar cane output in the center-south fell for the first time in a decade in the 2011-12 season after frost, flowering and dry weather damaged the crop, Unica said. Flowering and frost reduced productivity by 4 percent last year, Melo said.

“Everybody is accelerating planting so if we have normal weather conditions, without frost and flowering, it is normal that production will rise,” he said.

Ethanol Switch

Producers in Brazil will direct 47 percent of the cane to sugar production this year, down from 48 percent in the 2011-12 season because of lower prices, he said. Both sugar and ethanol are made from raw material cane in the South American country.

Sugar reached a 30-year high of 36.08 cents a pound in February 2011, and ended the year down 27 percent on speculation supplies will outpace demand. The global surplus will be 6.5 million to 8 million tons in 2011-12, Melo said.

“Lower sugar prices will give an incentive for the Brazilian producer to want to explore the domestic and export ethanol market,” he said. “Below 22 cents a pound the producer will start looking for other alternatives other than sugar.”

Raw sugar for March delivery was up 1.2 percent at 24.22 cents a pound at 10:30 a.m. London time on the ICE Futures U.S. exchange in New York.

Brazilian ports should not experience bottlenecks this year because the sugar market is moving into a so-called contango and therefore there won’t be a rush to obtain the product, he said. A contango structure is when sugar for delivery in later dates becomes more expensive than the sweetener for immediate delivery, signaling ample supplies.

–Editors: Claudia Carpenter, Sharon Lindores

To contact the reporter on this story: Isis Almeida in Dubai at ialmeida3@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Claudia Carpenter at ccarpenter2@bloomberg.net

SOURCE ARTICLE

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Shell, Cosan and Slavery

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The bitter taste of Brazil’s sugarcane

Brazilian Indians demand Shell leave their land

Cosan Jumps After Shifting More Debt to Raizen Venture With Shell

Death threat from Shell supplier on Brazilian tribe’s land

Cosan loses BNDES financing after slave work scandal, Brazil, Oil …

The Hand That Feeds U.S. – Exposing Brazil’s ‘Dirty Little Secret’

Anti-Slavery – 030210 Shell makes deal with Cosan in Brazil …

Extract from “Today’s Top Equity Ratings Changes”

By Andrea Tryphonides

Another week begins and we are here to guide you through the top rating changes in Europe Monday:

• Firstly Credit Suisse has downgraded Royal Dutch Shell to neutral from outperform following the company’s fourth quarter results released on Feb. 2. The brokerage highlights lower 2012-15 free cash flow estimates, cut by 22% due to higher capital expenditure. Also, it sees little potential for Shell to re-rate on multiples given sector-average free cash and dividend growth in the medium term.

COMPLETE SOURCE ARTICLE

Human Rights Watch Bureau Director – Chief Superintendent of Police, Chief Yaesu Neebee.

As part of a broader civil society mechanism to protect and defend every Ogoni person – child, man and woman against doctrines, policies and practices that infringe human rights and fundamental freedoms in Nigeria, MOSOP President/Spokesman, Dr. Goodluck Diigbo today February 3, 2012 inaugurated the Ogoni Human Rights Watch Bureau in Bori, Ogoni.

Headed by a retired Chief Superintendent of the Nigeria Police Force, Chief Yaesu Neebee as Bureau Director, and assisted by a retired Assistant Superintendent of Nigeria Police, ASP Lucky Nuataa, the body collaborating with two law firms in Nigeria, is to independently document human rights situation at the village or city level in a fair, impartial and competent manner.

Already, 17 city representatives have been recruited by MOSOP secretariat to coordinate activities at village level as grassroots monitors, while each village or city has 14 days to set up a grassroots center.

Former Chair Person of the 2010 Ogoni Referendum Committee, Ms. Christiana Nwiko is to serve as secretary of the Human Rights Bureau.

An oversight body – Ogoni Human Rights Board headed by Pastor Nelson Diginee, an experience activist minister is to work with representatives of Council of Ogoni Churches, Federation of Ogoni Women Association, National Youth Council of Ogoni, Council of Ogoni Traditional Rulers Association and the Ogoni Farmers Council as members. Other board members include representatives of the Ogoni Teachers Union and the Ogoni Technical
Association.

A number of Ogoni lawyers with offices in Ogoni and one law firm in Port Harcourt are to jointly provide pro-bono services. The Board is open to cooperation with other human rights institutions and groups in the effort to initiate follow-up measures on actionable reports presented by the Bureau.

The Bureau will cover all human rights issues and cooperate with MOSOP Peace and Security Council to end illegal and random land survey by Nigerian armed security forces.

In his message, Diigbo charged the body to act without fear or favor, and appealed to institutions and organizations, domestic and international that are genuinely interested in supporting human rights work in Ogoni to liaise with the Ogoni Human Rights Watch Bureau since it is a grassroots oriented body.

The Bureau Director, Retired CSP Neebee is a dedicated Community leader, and currently, a member of Gbam Bo-Ue Community Chiefs and Elders Peace Council in the Babbe Kingdom of Ogoni.

While in the Nigeria Police Force, he had served in many capacities, including as a trainer for International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Human Rights in professional Policing Concepts, a lecturer and directing staff at the Police Training School, Nonwa in Rivers State.

He attended train-the-trainer course at the Central Planning and Training Unit Staff College, Jos. He was appointed to serve as the police officer in charge of Human Rights in Eleme Division in Rivers State, where he introduced enforcement of human rights as part of policing duties.

In his new role, CSP Neebee also has responsibility to plan and implement train-the-trainers programme for grassroots human rights assistants and build a respectful relationship between the Ogoni people and the security forces in matters concerning human rights.

The Human Rights Watch Bureau is a significant aspect of continual effort to structure and build institutions for Ogoni Central Indigenous Authority (OCIA).

Hon. Dum Ade John Budam

MOSOP Secretary General

By DAN JOLING
Associated Press

Published: February 5th, 2012 08:59 AM
Last Modified: February 5th, 2012 09:04 AM

By LAURENCE ILIFF

MEXICO CITY—Mexican oil company Petroleos Mexicanos has filed a motion to add ConocoPhillips and subsidiaries of Royal Dutch Shell PLC to a 2010 suit in U.S. federal court that seeks damages against companies that had allegedly purchased natural-gas condensate that Pemex said was stolen from its operations in northern Mexico.

In a proposed amended suit that was attached to the motion, Pemex, as the state-owned company is known, said it doesn’t allege that either company “acted with intent or knowledge or that it was part of any conspiracy,” but it does allege that they are liable for “transactions involving the stolen property of Mexico.”

ConocoPhillips didn’t immediately comment Thursday. Shell said it had been notified about the suit, but declined to comment per company policy. Pemex didn’t immediately issue a statement on its latest filing.

The motion to amend the suit to add the additional companies was filed at the Southern District Court of Texas in Houston last week.

In the proposed amended suit, Pemex alleges ConocoPhillips purchased an estimated $35 million in stolen condensate from two other companies after the fuel had been “laundered” through resales to hide its origin.

The plaintiff in the original suit is the exploration and production division of Pemex, or PEP for its Spanish-language initials, which operates natural-gas operations in northern Mexico. Pemex added additional defendants to the original suit last year, bringing the total at that time to more than a dozen.

Last year’s suit followed a criminal investigation by U.S. authorities into a cross-border smuggling scheme that has resulted in the conviction of at least five people since late 2008.

Pemex said in its original suit it believes organized-crime groups have stolen more than $300 million in condensate since 2006 by robbing storage facilities and hijacking tanker trucks.

Petroleum condensates, like propane and butane, are byproducts of the production of natural gas. Pemex doesn’t typically sell the condensate, but instead uses it in its own oil refineries.

—Angel Gonzalez and Chad Bray contributed to this article.

Write to Laurence Iliff at laurence.iliff@dowjones.com

SOURCE ARTICLE

Comment: this also occurred in the 1980′s at Shell’s Dutch subsidiary, NAM, where large volumes of condensate produced from the Groningen “dry” gas field were sold and used as diesel fuel in road vehicles. It was only after an investigation by the authorities into the use of untaxed road fuel that NAM “discovered” their loss.

Introduction by John Donovan

It seems timely, in view of recent postings on our Shell Blog, to republish an article about Shell CEO Peter Voser authored by retired Royal Dutch Shell Executive, Paddy Briggs (right). It was first published on 27 July 2009. Paddy is currently a Member Nominated Trustee of the Shell Contributory Pension Fund.

On a Swiss roll…

By Paddy Briggs

Here’s the story. You are a Swiss accountant with a proven record of ruthlessness and synthetic business acumen. You are comfortable with numbers – that’s what you do – but you know little about the minutiae of the oil business. How can you be – you are not an “oil man” you are a “dollars man”. By guile, good fortune and the Peter Principle you find yourself at the helm of one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies. You know that you will struggle with the difficult things – like creating an organisation that finds, develops, transports, refines and markets hydrocarbons. You know nothing at all about the oil and gas chain from exploration to consumption. You’ve never really worked in it – other than seeing spreadsheets which show you how much it costs. But you are now in charge. So what you do is retreat to the familiar world of numbers. That world where there is certainty – where something that costs “$100m” is only supportable if an adequate ROACE is assured. And where, even though future earnings are always, by definition, unpredictable you find a way of getting bogus certainty where there is none. By appointing more accountants and listening to them.

And then there is the term over which you plan to steer the business. Everyone knows that the genetics of the oil business are very long term. To find oil (which costs money) and to develop that oil (which costs more) is within the special competences of Shell – always has been. But to harvest the oil and the gas and to generate the income streams you have to be patient. But how can you be patient if you want to show how macho and “profit-focused” you are? Cut, cut, cut. It’s what I do. And immediately the bottom line benefits. Never mind that in five or ten years we won’t have any new discoveries. Never mind that in a decade or so the reserves cupboard will be bare. I’ll be on a seven figure pension by then like Mark and Phil and Jeroen before me. Ha!