News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
After 11 years and $39 billion of investment, Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) and their partners have yet to sell a drop of oil from what was touted as the world’s biggest discovery in four decades.
Click to continue reading “Biggest Oil Find in Decades Becomes $39 Billion Cautionary Tale”
By Richard Orange, Almaty, Kazakhstan
5:40AM BST 01 Jul 2011
Kazakh oil minister Sauat Mynbayev has repeatedly threatened the consortium of oil companies with heavy financial penalties if it misses the 2013 final deadline.
The partners, including Shell, Total, ExxonMobil, Eni and Kazakh state oil company KMG, have repeatedly missed start dates beginning as far back as 2005.
A last-ditch plan to meet the 2013 deadline involved pumping at least 50,000 barrels per day of oil directly onshore, bypassing an unfinished processing plant on an artificial island.
However, at an acrimonious meeting a fortnight ago, the partners rejected this option. The consortium now has no choice but to ask the oil ministry for an extension, according to a source at an oil services company in Atyrau.
“Our people went to a workshop 10 days ago, and were told that the partners had rejected the ‘early oil’ concept because it was not sufficiently worked out, and so they now had a brief to go back and ask for an extension to their 2013 deadline,” he said.
A spokesman for the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC), which operates the project, said the consortium had not altered its plans to hit the 2013 target. “We are still working towards the target of the end of 2012 and a lot of effort is going into meeting that date,” he said.
When the Caspian field was found in 2000, it was the largest oil discovery in 30 years, with reserves of 9bn to 13bn barrels of oil.
But it has been dogged by technical difficulties, pushing total development costs as high as to $136bn. The delay will inevitably increase friction with Kazakhstan, complicating the group’s struggle to win approval for a second phase of the development.
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The delay, if approved, could push the start of full production from the field well into the next decade, making it all but impossible for Shell and its partners to make an acceptable profit before the contract expires in 2037.
The Kazakhs are considering shelving the new simplified design, and keeping the field producing at its initial rate of 375,000 barrels per day (bpd) for at least three years, after which the NCOC consortium could use a greater understanding of the geology to produce a better design for the second phase, when production is expected to hit 1.5m bpd.
When the oil field was discovered in 2000, it was the biggest find in more than 30 years, with reserves of 9bn-13bn barrels. But under Italy’s ENI, the company chosen to operate the project, costs soared to $136bn.
The start date also slipped from the target of 2005.
NCOC’s new design for the field was informally presented to the Kazakhs at the end of last year. An official said Kazakh oil ministry officials were unhappy with NCOC’s decision to use a new geological model of the field, which was presented last month by Exxon.
“Frankly, we laugh at their model,” the official said. “It’s based on too many assumptions and the data is very doubtful.”
Over the next three months, the consortium will present their model of how oil will flow as it is produced, after which the Kazakhs will make a final decision on the freeze.
Shell, Exxon Mobil, Total and KazMunaiGaz all have a 16.81pc stake in the field. ConocoPhillips has 8.4pc, and Japan’s Inpex 7.56pc.
04 Apr 2011
03 Apr 2011
29 Mar 2011
March 10, 2009: 07:12 AM ET
ALMATY, Kazakhstan -(Dow Jones)- Low oil prices and the economic crisis may cut costs of development at Kazakhstan’s largest oil field Kashagan, Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s (RDSA) general manager for the Caspian region said Tuesday.
“The economic situation and low oil prices should allow us to bring the cost down,” Campbell Keir told reporters. “But we’re continuing to invest.”
He said Shell’s annual investment in Kazakhstan was about $900 million.
“You could guess the majority goes to Kashagan,” Keir said.
Shell owns 16.8% in the Kashagan consortium that includes Kazakh state oil and gas company KazMunaiGas, ExxonMobil Corp. (XOM), ConocoPhillips (COP), Eni SpA ( E), Total SA (TOT) and Inpex Corp. (1605.TO).
Keir said the consortium still planned to get first oil at Kashagan, an offshore oil field in the Caspian Sea, in the fourth quarter of 2012.
Kashagan is expected to produce 1.5 million barrels of oil a day by 2019.
Company Web site: www.shell.com
-By Kadyr Toktogulov, Dow Jones Newswires; +7 701 726 4327, kadyr.toktogulov@ dowjones.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires 03-10-09 0712ET Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
MOSCOW, Nov 28 (Reuters) – Oil major BP will back the long-delayed expansion of the CPC pipeline from Kazakhstan to Russia as early as December if it faces no obstacles in selling its stakes in the pipeline venture, it said on Friday.
Click to continue reading “BP will back CPC pipeline expansion if allowed to sell stake”
U.S. oil group Chevron developing Kazakhstan’s biggest oil deposit, said on Friday it had received a note from the authorities accusing it of neglecting Kazakh as a language of business communication.
Click to continue reading “Want to do business in Kazakhstan? Learn Kazakh”
Project delays in the high-cost Canadian oil sands have been announced in the past month by Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Suncor Energy Inc. and Nexen Inc.
Click to continue reading “Conoco, Aramco Delay Saudi Refinery”
A recent settlement decided that Total will provide the first managing director of the newly established North Caspian Operating Company. The decision ended more than a year of dispute between the project’s international oil company partners – most notably ExxonMobil of the US, and Total, Royal Dutch Shell and Eni of Europe – and the Kazakh government.
Click to continue reading “French group’s executive appointed to get Kashagan oil flowing by 2012″
Kazakhstan and a consortium of Western oil companies developing the Kashagan oilfield signed the final agreement on the future of the project on Friday after more than a year of tense negotiations.
Click to continue reading “Details of the final Kashagan agreement”
Kazakhstan is interested in acquiring stakes belonging to both Britain’s BP and Oman in a key Caspian Sea pipeline pumping Kazakh crude to the Black Sea, a senior Kazakh official said on Wednesday.
Click to continue reading “Kazakhs interested in both Oman and BP stakes in CPC”
: With all of this money spent on the CEP expansion, it has been built on an old electrical infrastructure. I guess no one is counting how many times you read about a "short" electrical outage at the plant. Tom Purves and the Motiva leadership know exactly why this is happening and how to fix it. They don't want to pay for it. They have been given the project and have turned it down at least twice. Meanwhile, we just keep having outages. Going ot be interesting when both refineries come down in the future.
: LondonLad: the lack of stories concerning Shell should be welcomed, if it implies that Shell are cleaning up their act, perhaps due in part to the efforts of the Donovans.
: US Observer, surely almost all (NOT all)contributors to this website have an axe to grind against Shell, particularly those who have a perception that they have been screwed by Shell in times gone by. As for Itchy Woman, she clearly has a femanistic / burn-the-bra approach to work in Shell. AND I would like to add that once again an old old article (from someone who has an axe to grind against Shell) has to be republished due to lack of news against Shell (I refer to Briggs 2009 article). COMMENT BY JOHN D. Would it not be fairer to say that everyone posting on this blog, including you, has an axe to grind. It is easy enough to look back over your contributions and reach a conclusion.
: It is easy to figure out who Witchy Woman is (LC). She has an "ax to grind" and is using this forum
: @uscitizen Voser is a competent and amicable chap. You claim Shell has delivered on its deliverables. Let me tell you everyone delivers on their deliverable.... But joking apart, look at the promises over the years and how well Shell has delivered on these promises. Their trackrecord is not very good over the last 15 years or so. They are a good money making machine. And sofar they have delivered on their constant or increasing dividend payments. Sometimes by increasing their debt but they have done it. A nice high oilprice has helped, don't you agree?? So my only observation was that his 'promise' to extend North Sea fields is quite opposite their activities in this area. And they have promised this before and done the opposite. It was a nice promise to build a new and expensive office in Aberdeen, more jobs for the UK and more activity and extending of production. Just check back what they have done. And predicting future productionlevels by Shell in general and Brinded in particular is nothing but a sick joke.
: To - an observer of Shell Shell has been delivering on its deliverables - why would you paint Voser as some one who is not??
: This was not a personal attack now was it Witchy one?? #133 Witchy woman on May 8th, 2011 at 1:42 pm Marvin Odum who probably has the worst safety record in Shell goes for a diversity vote and someone who has no safety experience to replace the VP of safety he just fired. Clear message where his priorities lie.
: Witchy Woman - you blase me for personal attacks???? That is so rich! I am defending people that are attacked if you had not noticed - and yes I do slam the folks who are throwing garbage out! Live with it!! Enjoy your retirement! Shell has a good retirement package in the US dont they??
: I feel the value of your posts is also minimal, just a complainer. PS - here is where you bash Denise - remember - or do we need to question your integrity the way folks question Shell leaders?? Witchy woman on Dec 7th, 2011 at 12:35 pm In GOM we thought that hurricane season was done. Why is Hurricane Denise causing so much damage then? Like all Hurricanes though they move on the professionals are left to pick up the pieces.
: According to the Independent article posted today the boss of Shell is telling us all not to get too emotional about fracking. Has he not seen the confirmation that fracking causes earthquakes? You have cited the Reuters article. There are others including coverage of a fracking earthquake in Blackpool England. I have to conclude that Voser is a fracking idiot.
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