This implies that the King does not own shares in Shell, which has seen lots of negative publicity in the Netherlands and abroad over the past years…

King Willem-Alexander has no shares in companies that have the ‘Royal’ predicate, according to a message that appeared on the Koninklijk Huis website on Thursday. This implies that the King does not own shares in Shell, which has seen lots of negative publicity in the Netherlands and abroad over the past years, ANP reports.

“The predicated does not mean that the company involved is a supplier or has a different relationship with the Royal Family”, the message reads. It does not state whether any other members of the Royal Family have or had shares in Royal companies.   read more

Printed below is an English translation of information published on 18 April by Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij BV (NAM), a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil each owning a 50% share in the company responsible for the earthquake blighted Groningen Gas Field and consequential potential bill for untold billions in damages to effected residences.

Experiment with Groningen earthquake in Japan

2018-04-18

In Japan, an earthquake is imitated in the week of 7-11 May in the laboratory of NIED, the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience. It is a large-scale scientific experiment of NAM with pulvarised rock, which has the same composition as the underground of the Groningen gas field.

Four men prepare the experiment in the Japanese laboratory of NIED

The experiment takes place in Tsukuba Science City, the science city about 50 kilometers northeast of Tokyo. Prof. dr. Chris Spiers of the University of Utrecht is in charge. Spiers is an authority in the field of laboratory experiments into compaction and earthquakes. read more

Photo: Michael Macor, Staff / The Chronicle

By Jordan Blum: April 13, 2018Updated: April 13, 2018 8:19am

What did you know and when did you know it? Those are the questions increasingly directed at Big Oil as concerns about global warming, rising sea levels and climate change grow. For a few years now, Exxon Mobil has faced a bombardment of allegations — which the Texas oil company denies — that it knew about climate change related to fossil fuels in the 1970s and buried the evidence. State investigations in New York and Massachusetts continue to focus on whether Exxon Mobil misled the public and the company’s investors. Now Exxon’s European counterpart, Royal Dutch Shell, is facing similar allegations that it was aware of the impact of fossil fuels on climate decades ago, but continued to produce and sell petroleum products. FULL ARTICLE read more

Royal Dutch Shell Plc is demonstrating how tough it is for a massive, 100-year-old oil company to become a friend to the climate.

Shell’s greenhouse-gas emissions rose last year to the highest since 2014, it said Monday. The increase shows the challenge facing Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden as his company grows to meet burgeoning energy demand while investors demand a clear path toward a low-carbon future. 

“As living standards rise, energy demand could double over the course of the century,” Van Beurden said in Shell’s sustainability report. “The world is going to have to make meeting this demand part of the approach to cutting emissions.”  read more

By Irina Slav – Apr 05, 2018, 9:15 AM CDT

An internal Shell report from 1988 has revealed the supermajor was aware of the effect of its business on climate. The report, uncovered by Dutch journalist Jelmer Mommers from the De Correspondent news platform, has been published in the Climate Files and might just make life that much more difficult for the Anglo-Dutch company.

The document is an in-depth study of what was at the time called global warming with references to an earlier study and suggestions that the company was interested in researching climate change at least since 1981. read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article published on 29 March 2018 by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil each own a 50% share in NAM, the company responsible for the earthquake blighted Groningen Gas Field and consequential potential bill for untold billions in damages to effected residences.

‘A continuous gas extraction, flanked by a massive compensation, repair and reinforcement operation, is therefore not a sustainable situation’

Groningen Gas production goes to zero

Louis Hoeks Carel Grol • Economics & Politics: 29 March

The Netherlands is going to phase out gas production in Groningen, with a ceiling of 12 billion cubic meters per year as an intermediate step. The goal must be achieved by 2030 at the latest. That is what Prime Minister Rutte said on Thursday after the Council of Ministers.

Minister Eric Wiebes of Economic Affairs and Climate spoke in an explanation of ‘a turning point’. ‘It is technically possible to exhaust the gas bubble, but not socially acceptable. I fought for the Groningers. “

Uncertainty among residents

Groninger gas remains in the ground, says Wiebes. He estimates that 85 to 90% has been won by the time the extraction has stopped. The minister does not want to discuss the costs. According to him, this is due to minister Hoekstra van Financiën, who will report more about it in the Spring Memorandum. “This is not a day to talk about money,” says Wiebes. ‘The decision is not based on financial considerations, but on safety and security of supply.’ read more

And employment in Groningen? ‘At the moment, a lot of extra people are working in the construction and installation sector for the damage repair’, says Luman. ‘This will continue to be the case in the near future.’

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad. Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil each own a 50% share in NAM, the company responsible for the earthquake blighted Groningen Gas Field and consequential potential bill for untold billions in damages to effected residences.

Gas never became Limburg coal for Groningen

Carel Grol • Entrepreneurship

Natural gas in Groningen is declining. Production is falling, as is employment. At the end of the next decade, the gas crane must be completely closed by order of The Hague. That will be quite noiseless in Groningen.

The Dutch Petroleum Company (NAM) came Thursday with a summary response to the government’s decision. ‘NAM is making preparations in its business operations for lower production in the coming gas years,’ said the company, which is 50% owned by Shell and 50% by Exxon. And yes, NAM realizes that gas extraction has ‘brought a lot of prosperity, but also has a downside’. read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, Financieele Dagblad.

The whole process was given a new dynamic by the earthquake in Zeerijp on 8 January.

After closing the gas tap a trajectory full of obstacles follows

Louis Hoeks, Carel Grol • Economics & Politics

With seven-mile boots, Eric Wiebes steps through the Groninger gas file, culminating in the Cabinet decision that was made public on Thursday. By 2030, seven decades after the discovery of the first Groningen gas at Slochteren, the gas tap will close. ‘A turning point’, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Climate said correctly. “Historically,” MPs said, also from the opposition. Friend and foe were surprised by it. read more

Mar. 29, 2018 10:57 AM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

The Dutch government says it will phase out gas production at the Groningen field by 2030 as part of efforts to reduce the danger caused by small but damaging earthquakes.

Production is set for 21.6B cm this year, already down from a peak of 53.8B cm in 2013, and is planned to fall to below 20B cm for the production year beginning October 2018 and to below 17.5B cm for the 2019 year, assuming average temperatures, then to 12B cm in the coming 4-5 years and to zero at the end of the 2020s. read more

The world’s largest oil companies have survived a life-changing crisis, and are now poised to reap the rewards, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said. Big Oil is in a sweet spot with rising oil prices and low operating costs, leaving them with the biggest cash-flow growth in two decades and boosting earnings, Goldman said in a report Monday. That will increase their attraction for investors after years of elevated spending followed by crude’s slump sent their weighting in global equity indexes to a 50-year low, according to the bank. FULL ARTICLE read more

Printed below is an English translation of information published today by Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij BV (NAM), a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil each owning a 50% share in the company responsible for the earthquake blighted Groningen Gas Field and consequential potential bill for untold billions in damages to effected residences.

NAM will install 30 GPS antennas in the coming weeks and around the Groningen gas field. The soil subsidence of the Groningen gas field is monitored with the GPS antennas. The measurement data are used for the risk studies in the context of the earthquakes.
 
Measurements at one location make it possible to immediately compare soil subsidence results. Possible measurement differences are discussed with, among other things, State Supervision of Mines (SSM).
 
Placing the GPS antennas is part of the measurements made in the framework of the so-called Study and Data Acquisition Plan of NAM, part of the 2016 Winningsplan.
 
The GPS units are placed wherever possible within the enclosure of existing mining sites. The units must operate without being affected by vibrations, such as caused by local traffic.
 
Read more on NAM.nl for more information about placing the 30 GPS antennas. read more

David Levine: 21 MARCH 2018

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Five of the world’s biggest energy producers will be questioned by a federal judge on Wednesday about climate change science, part of a lawsuit that accuses the companies of misleading the public for years about their role in global warming. The cities of San Francisco and Oakland, California sued Chevron Corp (CVX.N), Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), ConocoPhillips (COP.N), Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSa.L), and BP PLC (BP.L) last year, seeking an abatement fund to help the cities address flooding they say is a result of climate change. FULL ARTICLE read more

Daniel Fisher: Writer and communications consultant and former senior editor with Forbes magazine; 21 March 2018

Five of the world’s largest oil and gas producers have filed a motion to dismiss a climate change lawsuit against them by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco even as they prepare to deliver an unusual “tutorial” on climate science to the federal judge overseeing the case. In a 45-page filing on Tuesday, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell urged U.S. District Judge William Alsup to dismiss the lawsuit seeking billions of dollars to pay for costs associated with global warming. The oil companies argue the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit have repeatedly rejected similar lawsuits against oil companies, the auto industry and electric utilities because Congress has given authority to regulate CO2 emissions exclusively to the Environmental Protection Agency. FULL ARTICLE read more

Printed below is an English translation of an article by Dutch newspaper NRC Handelsblad suggesting that future costs for the *NAM may be higher than the benefits and if so, NAM joint owners Shell/Exxon may stop producing from the Groningen gas field and ‘de-book’ the reserves.

Rising costs and declining production end gas extraction by NAM in Groningen into a realistic scenario, think Lucia van Geuns and Jilles van den Beukel.

Plan for gas reduction brings NAM Exit Closer

After the earthquake in Zeerijp (January 8) a plan is now being worked out to reduce the extraction of Groningen gas. Minister Wiebes (Economic Affairs and Climate, VVD) aims to reduce production as quickly as possible from 21.6 to 12 billion cubic meters per year.

He has informed 200 large-scale users – including companies in the chemical and food sector – that they have four years to switch from this Groningen gas. read more

Ron Bousso. Ernest Scheyder: 8 March 2018

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) is focused on increasing its U.S. shale operation’s oil production while slowing investment in lower-margin natural gas, an executive said on Thursday. The Anglo-Dutch company aims to boost its overall shale production by 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) to 500,000 boe/d between 2017 and 2020, mostly in the United States with some production in Argentina. FULL ARTICLE read more

Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden says the company is looking to finalize new investments, which may include the company’s LNG Canada project

GEOFFREY MORGAN Published on: March 8, 2018 | Last Updated: March 8, 2018

HOUSTON – The head of Royal Dutch Shell Plc dropped a hint that it’s keen to invest in liquefied natural gas projects soon on Tuesday, a tantalizing prospect for Canadian gas producers desperate to access rapidly changing global energy markets. Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden did not specifically mention the company’s LNG Canada project in Kitimat, British Columbia when he addressed a room of oil and gas executives on Wednesday, but indicated the company is looking to finalize new investments. FULL ARTICLE read more