Posts Tagged ‘Reserves’

March 17 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s biggest oil company by market value, failed to match all of last year’s oil and gas production with new discoveries, in contrast to smaller rival BP Plc.

Shell’s traditional rival BP is a safer short-term bet. Its production growth will be faster in the short term, and the projects offer higher margins. It is also spending less to deliver that growth. This gives investors greater comfort that falling oil prices won’t endanger its dividend, and might explain why BP shares have outperformed Shell’s by 7pc in since the beginning of September.

New York, New York (PRWEB) October 10, 2008 – Bernstein Liebhard & Lifshitz, LLP (“Bernstein Liebhard”) announced that on September 26, 2008, Judge Joel A. Pisano gave final approval to a U.S. settlement with a minimum cash value of $130 million in In re Royal Dutch/Shell Transport Securities Litigation, No. 04-374 (D.N.J.) (the “Action”). This settlement is in addition to a $350 million European settlement on behalf of a class of non-U.S. purchasers of Shell securities on non-U.S. exchanges (the “Non-U.S. Purchasers”), which the court-appointed lead plaintiffs and Bernstein Liebhard were, in the words of Judge Pisano, a “substantial factor” in bringing about.

Lead Plaintiffs in the Action are the Pennsylvania State Employees’ Retirement Systemand the Pennsylvania Public School Employees’ Retirement System, which the Court appointed on June 30, 2004. The Court also appointed Bernstein Liebhard to be sole lead counsel.

In their complaint, the Lead Plaintiffs alleged that Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and The “Shell” Transport and Trading Company (together, “Shell”) engaged in securities fraud related to their recategorization of billions of barrels of their oil and gas reserves beginning in January 2004.

The settlement covers all purchasers of Shell securities on U.S. exchanges and markets during the Class Period (April 8, 1999 through March 18, 2004), as well as all U.S. purchasers of Shell securities on non-U.S. exchanges and markets during the Class Period (together, the “Class”).

The settlement, which the Court preliminarily approved on June 17, 2008, includes the following elements:
• An $89.5 million cash benefit, plus interest from April 1, 2008 until Shell funds the settlement;
• Payment of all expenses related to implementing the Settlement Agreement, which already exceed $7.78 million;
• Payment of $30 million in counsel fees and $3 million in expenses (to be paid directly by Shell – over and above the amounts going directly to the Class);
• Potential additional relief of up to $60.5 million, should certain contingencies occur; and
• Unlimited “most favored nation” upside protection should Shell pay additional settlement relief in a related settlement in Europe (described below).

The potential benefit of the settlement to the Class, including all the elements listed above, is well over $180 million.

Moreover, Lead Plaintiffs and Bernstein Liebhard have obtained an additional cash payment of $28.342 million (plus interest from April 1, 2008) for the Non-U.S. Purchasers in the European settlement.

Bernstein Liebhard partner Stanley D. Bernstein stated that he was happy with the result: “The settlement, which Judge Pisano has now approved, provides fair compensation to the U.S. purchasers of Shell securities, while requiring Shell to pay additional compensation to the non-U.S. purchasers, as well. This is an outstanding result.” Said partner Jeffrey M. Haber: “The Class has every reason to be pleased.”

Bernstein Liebhard is one of the preeminent plaintiffs’ class action law firms in the country. It has been named to The National Law Journal’s “Plaintiffs’ Hot List” for the last six years.

For more information, contact Jeffrey M. Haber at haber@bernlieb.com.
Bernstein Liebhard & Lifshitz, LLP
10 East 40th Street
New York, New York 10016
(877) 779-1414

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Bernstein, Liebhard & Lifshitz, LLP

Eric Chaffin
(877) 779-1414
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AMSTERDAM, October 7 /PRNewswire/ — The Amsterdam Court of Appeals has scheduled a hearing on 20 November 2008 regarding the petition to declare the Non-US Settlement Agreement concerning reserve-related claims binding.

The parties to the settlement agreement include Shell*, institutional investors including APG (All Pensions Group on behalf of pension fund ABP) and PGGM (on behalf of Stichting Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn), the Vereniging van Effectenbezitters (VEB), the Dutch shareholders association representing individual shareholders in The Netherlands and similar organizations, and the Stichting Shell Reserves Compensation Foundation.

This settlement agreement provides relief in the amount of US$352.6 million to qualifying non-U.S.-shareholders who bought Shell shares on any stock exchange outside the United States between April 8, 1999 and March 18, 2004 (the Non-US Settlement).

The shareholders referred to in the Settlement Agreement may file a defense against the petition by the parties to declare the Settlement Agreement binding with the Court’s registry in Amsterdam by 9 October 2008 at the latest.

Please follow this link

http://www.royaldutchshellsettlement.com/Documents/Announcement.pdf to read the full official announcement.

About the Stichting Shell Reserves Compensation Foundation

The Stichting Shell Reserves Compensation Foundation (the Foundation) is a foundation representing all shareholders covered by the European settlement agreement. The Foundation’s participants, which are all fully supporting the European settlement agreement, include approximately 150 institutional investors, including APG (All Pensions Group on behalf of pension fund ABP), PGGM (on behalf of Stichting Pensioenfonds Zorg en Welzijn), DEKA, Norges, UBS and Morley, amongst others) as well as Euroshareholders, the confederation of European shareholders associations, and 18 other organizations representing individual shareholders from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, The Netherlands and a number of other countries. Together with Shell, APG, PGGM and the VEB (the Dutch Shareholders Association), the Foundation has requested that the Court declare this settlement binding. If the Court declares the settlement binding and the settlement agreement becomes final, it is the Foundation’s task to distribute the settlement amounts to the investors that are entitled thereto.

* The expression “Shell” as used in this release indicates the two former parent companies, i.e. The Shell Transport and Trading Company, Ltd., (formerly: The “Shell” Transport and Trading Company, plc.) and Shell Petroleum N.V. (the successor company to Royal Dutch Petroleum Company).

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For more information please visit our website

http://www.royaldutchshellsettlement.com

SOURCE Stichting Shell Reserves Compensation Foundation

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/10-07-2008/0004899450&EDATE=

BP’s announcement comes three days after rival Royal Dutch Shell PLC announced a C$5.9 billion (about $6 billion) takeover bid for Canadian natural-gas producer Duvernay Oil Corp. Shell also has partnered with EnCana Corp. to enter what has become the hottest new unconventional play, the Haynesville Shale in east Texas and Louisiana.

Like Shell, Repsol was forced a couple of years ago to restate and write down its oil reserves by as much as a quarter.

The regulatory changes are on the agenda of Christopher Cox, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission. But critics say the changes appear to be a last-ditch push by appointees of President Bush to dilute securities rules passed after the collapse of Enron and other large companies — measures that were meant to forestall accounting gimmicks and corrupt practices that led to those corporate failures.

Commercial interest in exploiting the Arctic is hotting up. Denmark recently attracted the likes of ExxonMobil and Chevron, the two biggest US energy groups, along with several smaller players, to explore off its western coast. Alaska, meanwhile, garnered aggressive bidding by Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest energy group, which earlier this year won the right to explore the remote part of the state’s Arctic North Slope.

There was speculation in the news media about the involvement of Jeroen van der Veer, a Group Managing Director. Recently published court documents relating to the remaining litigation arising from the scandal throws more light on his involvement

As you are probably aware, Sir Philip has already threatened to take legal action in respect of allegations accusing him of being a fraudster – an entirely accurate description based on the extensive evidence I have seen.