Posts under ‘United States’

The court was used once before in a similar case launched in 2007 against Royal Dutch Shell, when investors resolved their claims for €316 million with the oil giant.

(January 25, 2012)  –  The first class action lawsuit settlement to be approved for shareholders based outside the United States, since the Supreme Court tightened rules about international investors seeking redress through its legal system in 2010, has thrown a lifeline to asset owners suspicious of corporate fraud.

A case brought by international pension schemes, endowments and other large investors against Swiss reinsurer Converium Holding (now Scor Holding (Switzerland)), was settled out of court with damages of over $58 million being approved for distribution by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal last week.

The court was used once before in a similar case launched in 2007 against Royal Dutch Shell, when investors resolved their claims for €316 million with the oil giant.

FULL ARTICLE

A Shell Oil Co. refinery dumped wastewater into the bayou for more than 60 years, lacing the mucky bottom with toxic chemicals and heavy metals.

DEQ says Bayou Trepagnier, one of state’s most polluted waterways, has been cleaned up

NORCO, La. — The state Department of Environmental Quality says one of Louisiana‘s most polluted waterways has been cleaned up. It’s Bayou Trepagnier (trep-AN’-yay) in Norco.

A Shell Oil Co. refinery dumped wastewater into the bayou for more than 60 years, lacing the mucky bottom with toxic chemicals and heavy metals.

The current owner, Motiva Enterprises LLC, agreed in 2008 to a $10 million cleanup plan.

DEQ says contaminated soil at the end nearest the refinery was removed as an 800-foot-wide “clean zone.”

It says that for another 6,000 feet of the bayou, sediments were solidified and stabilized, then capped with heavy clay. DEQ says about 43,000 yards of clay were used for that and to build access roads.

The bayou is a state scenic waterway.

SOURCE ARTICLE

RELATED ARTICLES

DEQ: cleanup completed at Bayou Trepagnier 21 Jan 2012 09:24 GMT Daily Comet Online

Cleanup of Bayou Trepagnier in Norco is complete, DEQ says 21 Jan 2012 02:33 GMT NOLA.com

WASHINGTON, Jan 17, 2012 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell has paid $25 million to the U.S. government to resolve claims that the company underpaid royalties on federal offshore oil and gas leases, the U.S. Interior Department said on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON, Jan 17, 2012 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell has paid $25 million to the U.S. government to resolve claims that the company underpaid royalties on federal offshore oil and gas leases, the U.S. Interior Department said on Tuesday.

The settlement applies to royalty-in-value and royalty-in-kind production from Shell deepwater leases in the Gulf of Mexico between 2000 and 2008.

Interior’s Office of Natural Resources Revenue said audits of Shell’s leases had uncovered “various valuation issues”.

“This settlement further demonstrates that ONRR’s audit program is working diligently to collect every dollar due from energy companies operating on federal leases,” said Greg Gould, acting deputy assistant secretary for natural resources revenue.

(Reporting By Ayesha Rascoe)

Follow us on Twitter: @ReutersLegal

SOURCE ARTICLE

RELATED ARTICLES

From our archives: Viewpoint: Sex, drugs and natural gas royalties: 27 September 2011

From our archives: $2.2 million Shell settlement for knowingly underpaying royalties: 27 September 2011

From our archives: Plaintiffs win $66 million from Shell Oil: 26 September 2011

From our archives: SHELL SETTLES ROYALTIES CASE FOR $33.5 MILLION: 26 September 2011

Hundreds of scientists to be relocated as oil multinational aims to shift most research and development work to Germany by 2014…

Shell staff told the Guardian privately that they were “seething”…

Terry Macalister: guardian.co.uk, Sunday 15 January 2012 15.12 GMT

Shell, led by Peter Voser, is to close its technology centre in Thornton, Cheshire. Photograph: Guido Benschop/AFP/Getty Images

By Barbara Powell – Jan 13, 2012 1:22 PM GMT

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and leaders of the union representing workers at 69 U.S. oil refineries will begin negotiating a new three-year labor contract Jan. 17 to avoid a work stoppage that could disrupt plant operations.

The current contract between oil refiners and 30,000 members of the United Steel Workers expires Jan. 31. The last contract negotiations in January 2009 were settled after 12 days of talks that stalled as the union tried and failed to win safety improvements.

The union will make a similar demand at next week’s talks, according to Gary Beevers, a USW vice president and the union’s lead negotiator. The union hasn’t struck since 1980, when a work stoppage lasted three months. A strike would affect almost two- thirds of U.S. refining capacity, according to the USW.

“The most important objective is to get enforceable health and safety language into the contract,” Lynne Baker, a spokeswoman for the union in Nashville, Tennessee, said yesterday in an interview. “Our proposal will help the industry do a better job.”

Shell, negotiating on behalf of the companies, and union leaders, including Beevers, will meet in Austin, Texas, to hammer out terms. Any deal is subject to approval by refiners and pipeline operators before becoming the national pattern they use in negotiating local union contracts.

“Shell is optimistic that a mutually satisfactory agreement can be negotiated with the USW,” Kayla Macke, a spokeswoman for Shell, said yesterday in an e-mail.

Previous Agreement

In 2009, the union accepted higher wages while relenting on new safety provisions. The three-year labor agreement included 3 percent annual raises and a $2,500 bonus for workers.

“I think the union will be able to achieve some increase in wages because the oil companies have been making money although they will make the argument that many of the refineries have been losing money,” said Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates LLC in Houston.

Contracts between the companies, including Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), ConocoPhillips (COP) and Valero Energy Corp. (VLO), and the local USW members must incorporate the terms of the national agreement, Baker said.

The majority of local contracts expire Jan. 31 and most of the rest later in the winter and spring.

Valero Energy Corp. has 13 U.S. refineries, of which five have union representation, Bill Day, a spokesman in San Antonio, said. Four of those five have contracts that expire between the end of January and April 23, he said. He declined to comment on negotiations, saying Valero had a “gentlemen’s agreement” with the union to not comment publicly on the talks.

To contact the reporter on this story: Barbara J. Powell in Dallas at bpowell4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dan Stets at dstets@bloomberg.net

SOURCE ARTICLE

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS: January 13, 2012

A Royal Dutch Shell vessel surveying for oil reserves in the Arctic in preparation for drilling. Photo: Shell Oil

Royal Dutch Shell has been on a six-year crusade to drill in Arctic waters off Alaska’s coast, and has spent about $4 billion on the effort so far without drilling a single well.

But the company took one more bureaucratic baby step forward this week toward drilling in the Chukchi Sea later this year. An appeals board of the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday rejected four challenges brought by Alaska Native entities and environmental groups like Earthjustice to block Clean Air Act permits covering airborne emissions from industrial operations.

Opponents argued that nitrogen dioxide emissions from drilling would pollute the air of Native communities, but the appeals board concluded that the evidence presented was not robust enough to support the claim.

Nonetheless, Shell faces more hurdles, including a possible appeal of the decision to the federal courts.

But since delays in the air-permitting process was a principal reason Shell did not drill last year, Shell executives have expressed cautious satisfaction with the new ruling..

Four weeks ago the company received conditional federal approval to drill six exploratory wells in Arctic waters, but environmentalists say they will press on with their appeals. They argue a spill in freezing waters would be a disaster for endangered wildlife and challenging to clean up because of the region’s harsh climate, ice cover on the water, strong winds and long seasonal darkness.

“We look forward to continued progress on the permitting front and remain committed to working with regulators and stakeholders to achieve all of the permits necessary to drill in 2012,” Shell said in an optimistic statement late Thursday.

Eric Jorgensen, an Earthjustice lawyer, said: “We’re disappointed. The E.P.A. cut corners in issuing the permit and we don’t believe it complies with the Clean Air Act.”

As for an appeal, he said, “We’re looking at all options.”

SOURCE ARTICLE

By Emily Pickrell, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Published Thursday, January 12, 2012

Shell Oil Co. expects to clear remaining regulatory hurdles and begin drilling later this year in the Chukchi Sea near Alaska, company President Marvin Odum said at a scientific conference on Thursday.

Shell received conditional federal approval last month to drill six exploratory wells in the Arctic offshore region but still must secure permits for individual wells.

Among the requirements for Shell to obtain those permits will be selling regulators on its plan for responding to spills or other accidents at the sites.

Odum said Shell is mindful of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and the wide criticism BP and others involved received for the conditions leading to the accident and their response.

“We will have every piece of response in Alaska available on a one-hour notice,” Odum said in a keynote address at the ninth conference of the Academy of Medicine, Engineering and Science of Texas.

“The access to the equipment will provide for a much different response than what the world watched in the Gulf of Mexico.”

Environmentalists who oppose the drilling contend that no proven technology exists for cleaning up a spill in the slushy Arctic environment.

The area about 70 miles off the Alaska coast is more remote than the Gulf, and winter ice causes additional challenges.

Odum noted, however, that the drilling will be in about 150 feet of water – far shallower than the well under a mile of water that blew out in the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

He said that Shell is also working with Norwegian experts on how best to clean up any potential spills in colder climates.

On another subject, Odum predicted that Shell will soon get into the gas-to-liquids business in the U.S., with plants similar to its $20 billion Pearl plant in Qatar, which converts natural gas to liquid transportation fuel.

“With very low natural gas prices, we have a market that still has to import much of its liquid fuels,” Odum said. “It is high time to do something like that in the U.S.”

A view of the wind

In another panel Thursday, Shell Wind Energy President Richard Williams presented an optimistic view of the opportunities in wind.

“Everyone asks us if a wind farm makes money,” Williams said. “The answer is yes.”

The cost of turbine construction has decreased about 30 percent, and installation costs have gone down about 10 percent, Williams said, while improvements in safety and additional technical education programs have made it easier to find and train employees to run wind farms.

Odum emphasized, however, that while Shell is continuing to explore opportunities in renewable energy, growing demand will mean continued reliance on oil and natural gas.

“Thirty percent of global energy could come from alternatives to oil and gas, but at the same time, the world will need twice as much energy as today,” Odum said.

emily.pickrell@chron.com

SOURCE ARTICLE

By John Donovan: 12 January 2012

The front page lead story published by the Financial Times newspaper today reports that European refiners have begun to sever links with Iran ahead of an EU meeting, which could impose a full oil embargo on the Iranian regime.

(A version of the article is also published on ft.com)

Iran is the world’s third-largest oil exporter.

Tensions and oil prices are heightened by the regimes threat to close the Strait of Hormuz.

The article reports that according to Argus Media, Royal Dutch Shell is the biggest supplier of Iranian crude.

As could be expected, Shell has been extremely sensitive about purchasing oil from the fanatical Iranian regime supplying road side bombs, which have maimed and killed many US and British soldiers, but has continued to do so. With Shell, money wins out over mere moral considerations.

On 28 October 2010, Shell CFO Simon Henry came clean after press reports on the subject and admitted that Shell has continued to trade with Iran:

“Simon Henry, Shell’s top financial official, said his company was still taking delivery of Iranian crude oil under the terms of its existing contracts with the Islamic republic.” (extract from UPI article)

The following month, November 2010, Reuters published an article which stated:

“Companies are still finding ways to buy Iranian oil. Royal Dutch Shell and some Italian and Spanish refiners buy Iranian barrels with finance coming from Chinese and Italian banks…”

Shell has in fact continued to buy oil from the Iranian regime for many years and and because of the obvious sensitivity, has on occasion used subterfuge to disguise shipping movements.

I discovered just how sensitive the issue is after sending an email in March 2007 to Bill O’Reilly at Fox News, under the innocuous subject heading “Shell’s treachery in Iran“.

As a result of making an application to Shell under the Data Protection Act, we discovered from Shell internal communications the company was compelled to supply, that my email had sent Shell into a panic on both sides of the Atlantic. This was out of concern that if the story was taken up by Fox News, it could result in a US boycott of Shell gasoline.

The internal emails also revealed anxiety over information being leaked to us:

“They are a continued source of leaks from inside Shell – if you read their on line blog you will see a lot of insider material”.

A media statement was drafted on a contingency basis.

As can be seen from the covering message, it contained the usual spin and was founded on deception:

“Greetings all – The lawyers are happy with the following response statement no changes from the draft I sent you yesterday). As discussed with xxxxxxx, we have phrased this as coming from Shell in the US, and have aimed to distance you as much as possible from what is essentially a dispute originating in the UK. Let’s hope there is no follow up and we don’t have to use anything.”

The Shell internal emails focused on our Iran initiative with Fox News, but also mentioned a surge in our activities relating to Sakhalin 2 and Shell North Sea “TFA” safety culture, as exposed by Bill Campbell, the former Group HSE Auditor of Shell International.

That same month, Shell set up an aggressive team to combat our activities. This was followed by an attempt to close down this website and the setting up of a related global spying operation targeting my family and all Shell employees, in conjunction with a US cyber intelligence unit partly staffed and funded by the FBI.

All in response to an entirely non commercial website publishing the truth about the dark side of Royal Dutch Shell, including its relationship with the Iranian regime.

RELATED

Royal Dutch Shell Iranian treachery

JANUARY 11, 2012

Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. — U.S. Sen. Bob Casey on Wednesday wrote to a Shell executive in hopes of persuading the oil and gas giant to choose a Pennsylvania site to build a huge new chemical plant that could mean thousands of new jobs and millions of tax dollars for the state.

The company has said it will decide early this year where to build the plant from among sites in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and those states’ officials have lobbied Shell or offered incentives for what could be a massive investment that rivals the region’s largest industrial plants.

“Pennsylvania has everything needed to make it a top choice for Shell’s facilities,” Casey wrote in his letter to Shell executive Mark Quartermain. “We have a proven work force, access to water, communities with a long history of working cooperatively with industry, an extensive rail transportation network and appropriate real estate. Pennsylvania also has an exceptional higher education network which will mesh well with Shell’s commitment to innovation.”

A spokeswoman for Pennsylvania’s other U.S. senator, Pat Toomey, said Wednesday that Toomey has been in close contact with state economic development officials who are leading Pennsylvania’s effort to land the plant, and members of his staff have met with Shell officials.

“We stressed the unbelievable workforce in the region, particularly Pittsburgh’s great universities that produce world class engineers and highly skilled workers, the easy access to the inland waterway system in the region, and our strong commitment to the continued development of the shale,” spokeswoman Nachama Soloveichik said.

Ohio’s governor, John Kasich, reportedly flew to Houston in late November to pitch his state to Shell, which is a subsidiary of Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell PLC.

Shell’s plans are driven by the vast natural gas reserves in the Marcellus Shale, a formation that lies primarily beneath New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. The Marcellus Shale is thought of as the nation’s largest-known natural gas reservoir, and has attracted the attention of some of the world’s largest energy companies and billions of dollars in investment already.

The main product at the proposed Shell plant would be ethylene, which is used to produce chemicals that go into everything from plastics to tires to antifreeze. Workers would break apart the molecules of the raw gas so it can be turned into various products.

The industrial complex would then likely attract many smaller, specialized chemical plants, the American Chemistry Council has said.

Royal Dutch Shell in 2010 bought a Pennsylvania-based drilling company, East Resources Inc., for $4.7 billion in an effort to expand and improve its land holdings in shale gas territories in North America.

—Copyright 2012 Associated Press

SOURCE ARTICLE

By John Buckley

Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc chief Peter Voser said the potential for shale gas development in Europe is limited by the region’s regulations and its dense population.

Shell expects expansion in shale and tight gas — which is locked in rock that’s difficult and expensive to break — in North America, China and Australia, and has signed a deal in Ukraine, the chief executive officer said in an interview in Shell Venster, the company’s Dutch-language personnel magazine.

“We are looking further at possibilities in Europe, but the development of shale gas there will be limited as a result of regulation, legislation, high population density and the challenge of obtaining permits,” he said in the interview.

Shell, based in The Hague, applied for permits to drill for oil in Arctic regions this year and next, he said. “We have all the permits we need but we have a long way to go before we start drilling. The emphasis is on Alaska and to a certain extent Greenland, and in Russia some possibilities may arise.”

The company said in September it agreed to invest as much as $800 million to explore for oil, natural gas and shale gas in Ukraine. Shell will cooperate with Ukraine’s Ukrgasvydobuvannia to explore six license areas covering about 1,300 square kilometers (500 square miles) in the Kharkiv region. Drilling of the first deep exploration well would begin this year, it said.

–With assistance from Eduard Gismatullin in London. Editors: Tony Barrett, Randall Hackley

To contact the reporter on this story: John Buckley in Amsterdam at johnbuckley@bloomberg.net

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

SOURCE ARTICLE