Posts Tagged ‘Brazil’

By Eduard Gismatullin – Jul 28, 2011 8:47 AM GMT+0100

Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europe’s biggest oil company, said second-quarter earnings almost doubled on higher oil prices and project startups in Qatar and Canada.

Net income rose to $8.66 billion from $4.39 billion a year earlier, The Hague-based Shell said today in a statement. Excluding one-time items and inventory changes, profit matched analyst estimates.

“The cash generation in the company was already quite strong and they proved it again this quarter,” said Dimitri Willems, who helps manage about 1.3 billion euros ($1.9 billion) at Kempen Capital Management in Amsterdam. Cash flow from operations rose 43 percent to $12.3 billion.

Chief Executive Officer Peter Voser, who sold about $4 billion of “non-core” assets in the first half, is seeking to boost production with a $100 billion investment plan through 2014. Shell started the Pearl gas-to-liquids and Qatargas 4 liquefied natural-gas ventures in the Middle East this year. It also expanded an oil-sands project in Canada’s Alberta region.

“The first half of 2011 saw the successful startup of three of the largest-scale projects anywhere in our industry today,” Voser said in the statement. “The ramp-up of our new projects should drive our financial performance in the coming quarters.”

Statoil, Repsol

BP Plc (BP/), Shell’s smaller rival, earlier this week reported profit that missed analyst estimates following field disruptions in the Gulf of Mexico. Statoil ASA, Norway’s largest oil company, and Repsol YPF SA of Spain both reported earnings today that beat estimates. Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the largest U.S. oil company, is scheduled to release earnings later today.

Adjusted earnings at Shell came in at $6.6 billion, in line with the mean estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Shell’s Class A shares traded in London fell 0.5 percent to 2,253 pence as of 8:20 a.m. local time. The stock is up 5.3 percent this year.

The startups in Qatar and Canada will contribute in excess of 400,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day at their peak, according to Voser.

Shell carried out work at its refineries in Canada, the U.S., the Netherlands, Malaysia and Singapore this year. As a result, refining availability fell to 90 percent in the second quarter from 94 percent last year.

‘Resilient Performance’

“Maintenance activities and weak industry refining margins masked a resilient performance from oil products marketing and chemicals,” the CEO said.

Production fell 2 percent to 3.046 million barrels of oil equivalent a day in the quarter, mainly because of asset sales. Shell plans to increase daily output to 3.7 million barrels in 2014. LNG sales rose 24 percent to 4.8 million tons in the latest quarter.

Brent crude futures, the benchmark for two-thirds of the world’s crude, were on average 48 percent higher in the second quarter compared with the year-earlier period. U.K. natural-gas prices were 58 percent higher.

In Mexico, Shell agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in an LNG import terminal at Altamira for about $200 million. It also completed the disposal of assets in Chile and the Dominican Republic for about $700 million in total.

Prelude Floating LNG

Shell is expanding in Australia after agreeing in May to invest as much as $12.6 billion in the Prelude floating LNG project. Earlier this month, it agreed to join Japan’s Inpex Corp. in a floating LNG project off Indonesia.

In the Gulf of Mexico, Shell started the Cardamom field development last month. In May, the company warned that its oil and gas production may be curbed by 50,000 barrels a day in the Gulf because of delays in receiving drilling permits following the Macondo crude spill last year.

Shell completed a $1.8 billion Texas gas field sale to Occidental Petroleum Corp. this year and also disposed of stakes in Canada, Pakistan and the U.K. This month it agreed to sell assets in Brazil.

Last month, Shell concluded the creation of a $12 billion biofuel joint venture with Cosan SA Industria & Comercio in Brazil. The partners plan to make transport fuel from wheat stalks and sugar-cane bagasse, a sugar industry waste product, in anticipation that the share of renewable energy in fuel will double in the next 10 years.

In Malaysia, Shell together with ConocoPhillips and Petroliam Nasional Bhd. agreed to invest in the offshore Sabah Gas Kebabangan project, which will pump 130,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day.

To contact the reporter on this story: Eduard Gismatullin in London at egismatullin@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Will Kennedy at wkennedy3@bloomberg.net

SOURCE ARTICLE

By Lucia Kassai and Andrew Herndon – Jun 2, 2011 8:38 PM GMT+0100

Cosan SA Industria & Comercio rose the most in a week after it transferring $3.3 billion in debt to a joint venture with Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), more than previously announced.

Cosan rose 93 Brazilian centavos, or 4 percent, to 24.06 reais at 4:34 p.m. in Sao Paulo trading, the most since May 25. Shell’s Class A shares fell 1.7 percent in London to close at 2,122 pence.

Cosan shifted about 5.24 billion reais ($3.3 billion) in net debt to the Raizen venture, the Barra Bonita, Brazil-based company said today in a regulatory filing. That’s more than the $2.8 billion in debt it said in August that would transfer to the new company, which was formally created today.

By transferring the liabilities to Raizen, Cosan’s net debt dropped 69 percent to 1.63 billion reais, compared with 5.3 billion reais as of Dec. 31, 2010, the latest available figure.

“Cosan is contributing more debt as it is including debt from the Zanin mill acquisition,” chief financial officer Marcelo Martins said on a call with analysts today. “Cosan will become lighter and have an improved capital structure.”

Cosan bought in February assets from Usina Zanin Acucar & Alcool Ltda in Brazil for 142 million reais in cash and agreed to take on 236 million reais of debt.

Largest Cane Processor

Shell, Europe’s largest oil company by market value, and Cosan combined their their sugar, ethanol and fuel-distribution assets in Brazil to form Raizen, the world’s largest sugar-cane processor. Cosan contributed 23 mills, 1,730 gas stations and other assets, and Shell put up as much as $1.6 billion in cash and assets, including 2,740 stations.

As part of the agreement, The Hague-based Shell transferred a 15.7 percent stake in enzyme producer Codexis Inc. (CDXS) to Raizen, which is now its largest shareholder, Codexis said today.

The deal also includes part of Shell’s interest in Iogen Energy, a 50-50 joint venture with Ottawa-based enzyme producer Iogen Corp. that is developing cellulosic ethanol technology, Shell said today.

Brazilian billionaire Rubens Ometto Silveira Mello, who controls Cosan, will be chairman of Raizen and will have an annual compensation of about 13 million reais, Cosan said.

To contact the reporters on this story: Lucia Kassai in Sao Paulo at lkassai@bloomberg.net; Andrew Herndon in San Francisco at aherndon2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Dale Crofts at dcrofts@bloomberg.net

SOURCE ARTICLE

Energy giant Shell’s joint venture partner, Cosan, is buying sugarcane grown on Guarani land. © João Ripper/Survival

A Brazilian rancher supplying sugarcane to a joint venture partner of energy giant Shell has reportedly issued a death threat against a political opponent.

 José Teixeira, who is also a state deputy, is said to have recently warned a political rival that, ‘If it were up to me, you’d be under the ground.’

Teixeira is renting out part of his ranch for sugarcane production, even though the Government has confirmed that the land belongs to Guarani Indians.

Shell and Brazilian ethanol company Cosan are now united in a $12 billion joint venture company called Raizen, to produce ethanol to sell as a biofuel. Cosan is buying sugarcane grown on Guarani land that Teixeira continues to occupy. Survival has urged Shell and Cosan to stop using sugarcane grown on the Guarani’s land, but the companies continue to use it.

The Guarani of Guyraroká community were evicted from their land decades ago by ranchers. For years they lived destitute on the roadside. Despite now occupying a fraction of their land their lives and livelihoods are at risk as they have very little space to plant crops or hunt game.

The current boom in sugarcane production is taking over the Guarani’s ancestral land © Sarah Shenker/ Survival

They warn that the chemicals used on the sugarcane plantations are polluting the rivers they use for drinking, bathing and fishing, and provoking acute diarrhoea. They report that the vinhoto – the by-product of ethanol production – is causing intense headaches amongst adults and children.

Guarani health agent Senilda Esnade told Survival, ‘In the past, the children were happy. They had clean water, they ate traditional, healthier food. It’s different now; often, the children grow up eating food that is contaminated. If we had our own land, we’d be able to revive what we’re losing’.

Survival’s Director, Stephen Corry, said today, ‘The deputy’s death threat is yet more evidence of the brutality linked to the land struggle in the Guarani’s area. Shell and its partners cannot continue to profit from their use of Guarani territory while the Guarani themselves are squeezed on to smaller and smaller patches of land. The company must abide by the international norms requiring respect for indigenous rights, which its own policy statements claim to support’.

Download Survival’s report about the Guarani’s land situation, sent to the United Nations last year in English or Portuguese” (pdf, 2.5 MB).

SOURCE ARTICLE

From pages 17, 18 & 19 of “Royal Dutch Shell and its sustainability troubles” – Background report to the Erratum of Shell’s Annual Report 2010

The report is made on behalf of Milieudefensie (Friends of the Earth Netherlands)
Author: Albert ten Kate: May 2011.

A Shell pesticide factory

For a decade or more, beginning in 1977, Shell produced organochlorine pesticides (aldrin, dieldrin, endrin etc.) and other pesticides at a plant located near Paulínia, about 125 kilometres north-west of São Paulo, Brazil. The plant covered approximately 40 hectares.78 Due to its severe health impacts, by 1990 the use of aldrin and dieldrin was totally banned in the USA and Brazil.

After negotiations starting in 1993, in 1995 Shell sold the Paulínia facility to the companies American Cyanimid and BASF. A sales condition was that Shell would assume legal responsibility for the pollution at the site. In 2000, BASF took full ownership of the facility.79 In 2002, BASF shut it down the facility after a ban by the Brazilian Ministry of Labour, in view of existing contamination and serious risks to human health.

Pollution at the factory site

There have been many cases of pollution at the factory site: − Between 1998 and 1985 three leaks in a waste-water storage tank were officially reported. − Over the years, CETESB (São Paulo State Environmental Protection Agency) had issued three warnings that the plant’s incinerator was not operating within acceptable standards. − March 2001, the Justice Department listened to the testimony of a former company employee, Antonio de Marco Rasteiro. He confirmed the existence of four clandestine landfills inside the plant area, and accused Shell of dumping ash from its incinerator and waste from its manufacturing process in these landfills. He also confirmed that Shell’s incinerator sold its services to third parties, for example to DuPont. He also reported that drums with toxic wastes were buried in other areas inside the plant.

Pollution spreading across farmlands

Later, several studies of the area revealed that the contamination had moved into the groundwater under the farms located between the plant and the Atibaia River. For example, in February 2001, the Dutch environmental consulting company Haskoning/Iwaco, hired by Shell, produced a technical report with soil and groundwater analysis in nine sites located in the farms near the industrial site. Levels of contamination by dieldrin as high as 17 parts per billion (ppb) in soil and 0.47 ppb in water were found. The water contamination levels were higher than the levels allowed by Brazilian law (Administrative Rules 36/1990 and 1469/2000 – Ministry of Health – Highest Permissible Level: 0,03 ppb of dieldrin). However, no decontamination work had begun in the area. In February 2001, Shell admitted that it had contaminated the groundwater and sections of the nearby community, and was ordered by CETESB to begin a clean-up.

Pollution creating severe health problems

Both aldrin and dieldrin are highly toxic to humans, the target organs being the central nervous system and the liver.83 A report at the request of the Paulínia local government, produced by August 2001, showed that 156 of the 181 examined residents living near the factory had some degree of contamination from metals or pesticides which could result in various cancers, liver disorders, or neurological problems. Shell dismissed the Paulínia report, saying it used very low thresholds to measure contamination compared with those recommended by the World Health Organization. Shell also claimed its own tests showed no human contamination. “If there is proof of contamination with the products that we handled there, we will assume the responsibility immediately, which is our policy worldwide,” said Jose Cardoso, a Shell manager in Brazil. “But so far, there is no data indicating that.”84 Maria Lucia Braz Pinheiro, vice president of Shell- Quimica for Latin America, described the report as “another report with technical inconsistencies and lacking a scientific base.”

In a doctoral dissertation approved in February 2005, an analysis was made on the existing health data from a group of 62 former Shell/Cyanamid/BASF workers. Three cases of thyroid cancer were confirmed. The author concluded that the incidence of thyroid cancer among the estimated 1,120 workers of Shell/Cyanamid/BASF was 166 times greater than the incidence in the male population of Campinas, a county within Sao Paulo state. The chance of finding three cases of thyroid cancer out of a random selection of 1,120 men living in Campinas would be less than 1 out of 1,000,000.

At the beginning of 2009, it became publicly known that the Center for Excellence in Occupational Health (Cerest) of Campinas had examined 69 former employees of Shell / Cyanamid / BASF. Ten malignant cases of cancer to the prostate and thyroid were diagnosed. There was also a case of myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS, formerly known as “preleukemia”). There were 34 cardiovascular diseases, of which 21 related to hypertensive heart diseases. There were also an unspecified number of liver diseases. In 30 cases there was a prevalence of repetitive strain injury (RSI). In total 56 ex-workers had serious problems with reproductive organs and the urinary system, with prostate disorders, changes in fertility and impotence.

August 2010: Shell/BASF ordered to pay severe fine

In 2007, the public prosecutor Ministério Público do Trabalho (MPT) filed a case to ensure funds for health treatment of former employees, along with compensation for damages. The Association of Workers Exposed to Chemical Substances (ATESQ) and another union of workers had also filed a case against Shell and BASF. ATESQ was created by Antonio de Marco Rasteiro, a former employee of the Shell/BASF plant in Paulínia. He worked there for 21 years. In his role as ATESQ Coordinator, Mr Rasteiro has led the struggle of nearly a thousand former workers. In November 2009, he won the International Health & Safety Award of the American Public Health Association.

In August 2010, a Brazilian court (Tribunal Regional do Trabalho de Campinas) ruled that Shell and BASF should assume responsibility for the medical treatment of all former employees of the Paulínia facility, and pay a total of 1.1 billion Brazilian Real (about EUR 490 million89) in connection with the More than 1,000 former employees of the companies were covered by the court order, and also the children of employees who were born during or after services and independent contractors.

Some extracts from the court ruling in August 2010: − “Workers were constantly exposed to harmful substances in water and air, without any use of protective clothing. This exposure took place during and after work, during breaks, in the vicinity of the site, as well as through the use of water on site. Therefore, the simplistic explanation of Shell that the presence of harmful substances in the bodies of the workers do not constitute evidence of intoxication is unacceptable”

− “(…) Although it is not certain that all employees will develop diseases such as cancer, it is not excluded. Certainly it has been determined that among the employees exposed to the pollutants, cancer occurs much more frequently than normal.” − “(…) The most shocking is that the accused companies, especially Shell, were since 1970 fully aware of the harmful effects of substances used by them. After the production was banned in the U.S., Shell coolly moved its plant to Paulínia. BASF also has not taken precautionary measures: it was aware of the pollution at the site, which was already raised and well known in Paulínia. Nevertheless, BASF located itself in the same place, in the full knowledge that this place was not appropriate, with the result that its employees were exposed to obvious risks”.

Shell and BASF appealing

Soon after the court order in August 2010, Shell and BASF announced that they would appeal the decision. “We expect that the Brazilian courts at a higher level will eventually establish that we were not responsible for alleged health impacts and other claims”, a Shell spokesman told press agency Reuters.

Jennifer Moore-Braun, a spokeswoman for Basf told press agency Bloomberg: “We are of the opinion that the environmental damage was caused by Shell, and we will appeal the decision.” Shell was quoted saying: “We are convinced there is no link between our operations and injury to people’s health based on blood tests of local residents, medical assessments of former workers and expert medical opinions.”93 In April 2011, the Tribunal Regional do Trabalho de Campinas denied an appeal filed by Shell and BASF against the decision, and maintained the sentence. Shell and BASF may appeal the decision at the Superior Labour Court (TST) in Brasilia.

THE COMPLETE 73 PAGE REPORT (with reference sources)

Published on 15 February 2011

POSTING BY AN OUTSPOKEN FORMER EMPLOYEE OF SHELL OIL USA

John,

I recently read about Royal Dutch Shell and Cosan forming a jointly owned corporation to produce ethanol in Brazil. We all know how Shell treats the Nigerians, and how they have treated the Brazilians from previous revelations about their ‘drins’ production facilities.

Now RD Shell appears to be sleeping with the devil again. Cosan is a corporation that allegedly has a nasty reputation for engaging in human slavery to cut ethanol and sugar production costs. Apparently, RD Shell management’s lust for profits know no bounds (see attached links).

Anything goes as long as it is profitable.

Walmart Won’t Buy Cosan Sugar Amid Slavery Blacklist (Update2)

Cosan Falls on Slavery Charges; BNDES Pulls Loans (Update3)

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 …

Once again RD Shell has revealed its true attitude towards peoples in the so-called ’3rd world’. And once again they are apparently willing to use slave labor, as they did in their facilities in Germany during the days of the Third Reich. Attitudes at RD Shell have apparently changed little over the years. What is new in their business practices after the shame of the reserves scandal is actually a page from the past and the days of Deterding and his unsavory buddies in the Third Reich.

You gotta love these guys at Royal Dutch Shell. They are consistently reprehensible in their business practices, if nothing else. RD Shell is indeed ‘A company you can count on’. Shell Uber Alles.

RELATED ARTICLES

Royal Dutch Shell Reports Strong Earnings for Fourth Quarter: NOVEMBER 2010

(EXTRACT: Mr. Voser said he expects total investments of as much as $27 billion this year, including $1.6 billion for a biofuels joint venture in Brazil with Cosan, a Brazilian company that harvests and processes sugar cane.)

Cosan, Shell sign binding deal on ethanol venture: August 2010

SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell and Brazilian sugar and ethanol giant Cosan signed on Wednesday a binding agreement to create a global ethanol business, looking to benefit from growing demand for biofuels.

The joint venture, with estimated annual sales of $21 billion, was modified since its initial announcement in February to include all of Cosan’s energy generation business and 500 million reais ($283.6 million) in debt owed to Brazilian development bank BNDES.

Cosan, the world’s largest sugar and ethanol producer, also said in a securities filing that the initial accord was changed to make the venture a global biofuels provider. As a result of that, Cosan and Shell are barred from competing with the new entity.

Royal Dutch Shell is to boost its investment in Brazil by billions of dollars after surpassing its forecasts for oil production in the country last year.

By Robin Yapp, Sao Paulo 6:54PM GMT 14 Feb 2011

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Anglo-Dutch energy giant Shell and Brazilian sugar-production group Cosan said Monday they were forming one of the biggest joint ethanol fuel ventures in the world, with an estimated market value of $12 billion. The new entity, to be called Raizen, will employ around 40,000 people and produce over 2.2 billion liters (580 million gallons) of ethanol per year to Brazilian and international markets, the two companies said in a statement.

Comment from a former employee of Shell Oil USA

John,

You have Shell’s dirty laundry hanging on line again.

I am certain Shell is very unhappy about the publication of that ‘Cease and Desist’ order, etc., for all Shell employees and loyalists to read.

U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION CEASE AND DESIST ORDER: ROYAL DUTCH SHELL BRIBERY AND CORRUPTION

I have also read much of your nine parts on Shell and the Nazis. This was a revisit to my history classes when I was in college. I am very familiar with much of what you published.

Nicely done.

I was not aware of the HUGE financial support that Deterding gave the Nazis. I have always wondered how they supported themselves in the early years of their rise to power. When I was studying this stuff none of the historians that wrote the text books really figured it out either. Now I know where they got much of their money and influence to keep functioning and to keep the legal authorities off their back. The Nazi’s were given an amazing amount of ‘freedom’ in the way they operated in the early years, considering their tactics, and that ‘freedom’ clearly came from influence in high places.

Deterding’s very substantial support was clearly crucial to the survival and rise of the Nazi Party. This gave Hitler a source of funding, and respectability within the European industrial establishment his ‘competition’ did not have. That connected ‘respectability’ was as important as the money, because Deterding’s support obviously led other major leaders of German industry to likewise give Hitler support, even if they had to hold their noses while doing so. It just wasn’t the money, it was the ‘connection’ with the very powerful and influential ‘Sir Henri’ that was important. I am certain Deterding’s influence led to a host of useful connections. This in turn gave Hitler, et al, the resources they needed to buy the ‘muscle’ and ‘protection’ they needed to intimidate the opposition. Deterding has got a lot of blood on his hands.

Shell should have a small swastika on its so very famous logo.

The article relating to Shell’s relationship with Germany’s IG Farben and slave labor has a familiar ring to it today. Shell’s new ethanol joint venture in Brazil with the Cosan group, which has been accused of using enforced slave labor, would be a modern day analog of Shell’s corporate amoral ethical culture similar in nature to that which pervaded the company in the days of Deterding and the Nazi’s. Obviously, Shell did not and still doesn’t care who they get into bed with as long as the venture makes money. This will be an interesting enterprise that the human rights watch groups should keep a close eve on.

I found your reference to Deterding being mentioned in Mein Kampf to be very interesting. Hitler was imprisoned in 1924 for his involvement in the 1923 Munich ‘Beer Hall Putcsh’, and it was there he wrote Mein Kampf. So, it appears that Deterding was involved with Hitler and the Nazi’s long before they came to power.

It is my guess that Deterding was very fearful of a communist take-over from a very weak Weimer German government and chose to throw in his lot with Herr Hitler and his mob in an effort to stop such action, and perhaps to launch some sort of effort to topple the Bolsheviks in Moscow. The Communist revolution was far from solidified in 1923. In fact, the country was going through a civil war.

In my rummaging around I found this:

On the morning of January 5, 1926, the London Morning Post published an extraordinary letter signed by Sir Henri Deterding. In this letter, Deterding proclaimed that plans were afoot to start a new war of intervention against Soviet Russia. Deterding declared:

. . . before many months, Russia will come back to civilization, but under a better government than the Czarist one. . . . Bolshevism in Russia will be over before this year is; and, as soon as it is, Russia can draw on all the world’s credit and open her frontiers to all willing to work. Money and credit will then flow into Russia, and, what is better still, labor.

A well-known French journalist of the Right, Jacques Bainville, commented in Paris: “If the President of the Royal Dutch has given a date for the end of the Soviet regime, it is because he has reason for doing so. . . .”

I have not looked it up but this quote makes it clear that Deterding wanted the Bolshevik’s heads, probably so he could get his hands back on the former Baku oil fields that RD Shell once controlled.

I bet Exxon is delighted they don’t have the equivalent of your website haunting them as well. They have some rancid skeletons in their closet too.

Staff meeting of the Shell oil factory in Hamburg Curio-Haus, 8 April 1935

LONDON, Oct. 25 (UPI) — Royal Dutch Shell announced it was investing in developments in the deep waters off the coast of Brazil in order to enhance its American portfolio.

The company added that production for the first phase at Parque das Conchas was above expectations.

© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

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