Posts Tagged ‘UPI’

Jan. 5, 2012 at 10:07 AM

TRIPOLI, Libya, Jan. 5 (UPI) — The post-war government in Libya told the Dutch ambassador existing contracts with Royal Dutch Shell were still valid, the country’s oil minister said.

As of November, the International Energy Agency said Libyan oil production was around 500,000 barrels per day, up from the 75,000 recorded in September. Before the war began in March, Libya was producing around 1.6 million bpd.

Production in the country is returning faster than most analysts expected when NATO forces established a no-fly zone over the country last year.

The new government in Tripoli had said it would honor agreements reached during the Moammar Gadhafi regime.

Libyan Oil Minister Abdurahman Benyezza told the Dutch ambassador that existing contracts with Royal Dutch Shell were still valid, the Platts news service reports.

Italy was one of the main partners in the Libyan energy sector. Platts quotes the country’s oil minister as saying it was reviewing memorandums of understanding reached between Italian energy company Eni and the former government as opposed to final contracts. No information was given for the negotiations.

The IEA last year called on member states to release oil from their strategic supplies to offset market disruptions from diminished Libyan crude oil production.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Published: Oct. 19, 2011 at 8:36 AM

NEW YORK, Oct. 19 (UPI) — Officials were divided on how a U.S. Supreme Court decision to hear a case against Shell filed by Nigerians reflects on Chevron’s legal issues in Ecuador.

The Supreme Court announced Monday it would hear a case filed by 12 Nigerians who claim Royal Dutch Shell is responsible for human rights violations in the Niger Delta in the 1990s.

Fadel Gheit, an analyst at Oppenheimer, told the Platts news service that ruling could have ramifications for a legal case against Chevron’s activity in Ecuador.

Plaintiffs in Ecuador blame Texaco, which later merged into Chevron, for environmental contamination and adverse health effects tied to operations in the country’s rainforests from 1972-90. Chevron points to a 1998 agreement between Texaco and Ecuador that absolves of it liability in the case.

Gheit said Chevron might have to rethink its position in light of the Supreme Court decision.

“If you open the case for Shell, you have to open it for Ecuador,” he was quoted as saying.

But Chevron spokesman Kent Robertson told the news service the legal connection wasn’t so clear cut.

“Chevron is being sued under Ecuadorian law, not U.S. law,” he said. “I’m not sure I see how a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court, regardless of which way it goes, would have any influence over Ecuador’s courts.”

SOURCE ARTICLE

Published: Oct. 4, 2011 at 7:55 AM

BERLIN, Oct. 4 (UPI) — Executives in the energy industry need to invest more in shale gas while advancing environmental issues, an official said from Berlin.

The United States is examining its shale gas potential as a way to address energy security issues. European countries like Poland and Ukraine are doing the same, though France has enacted a moratorium on shale gas exploration because of environmental concerns.

Jeroen van der Veer, a former chief executive officer at Royal Dutch Shell, told delegates at a petrochemical summit in Berlin, that shale could be a “game changer” if managed effectively, the Platts news service reports.

“Personally, I’m in favor of full transparency and I think Shell will very soon come out with announcements in this direction,” he said.

Van der Veer was referring to chemicals used in the extraction of shale gas. Critics note that some of the chemicals used in the extraction process, known as fracking, pose a significant risk to underground water resources.

Energy companies counter that fracking, if done correctly, doesn’t pose a significant environmental threat. Some environmental regulators in the United States note that shale gas exploration has a long safety history.

ABUJA, Nigeria, Sept. 27 (UPI) — The amount of crude oil stolen from Royal Dutch Shell’s pipelines in the oil-rich Niger Delta of Nigeria is “unprecedented,” the company said.

“The scale of crude theft is unprecedented,” the company was quoted by the Platts news service as stating.

Shell declared force majeure in Nigeria, releasing the company from contractual obligations because of circumstances out of its control, through October. The action came after the company said a series of spills in the area may have been the result of sabotage on a pipeline carrying crude oil through the Niger Delta.

“Besides the money lost to government, a significant portion of the stolen volumes are spilled affecting large swathes of land,” the company added.

Nigeria is dealing with renewed security concerns following a series of attacks by Islamic militant group Boko Haram, which took responsibility for an August attack on U.N. offices in Abuja.

Amnesty offered to Nigerian militants in the Niger Delta in 2009 brought some relief for the oil sector though theft has cost the country around 200,000 barrels of oil per day.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Published: Sept. 23, 2011 at 8:22 AM

BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN, Brunei, Sept. 23 (UPI) — Natural gas resources will help fuel economic growth in Asia, where advances are vastly outpacing the rest of the world, a Shell executive said.

Malcolm Brinded, executive director for upstream developments at Shell, spoke to delegates at an energy conference in Brunei.

He said advancing economies in Asia, coupled with the energy deficit brought on by Japan’s nuclear power disaster, means the region needs to “invest heavily” in all resources, including solar and wind.

Beijing is moving to include more renewable energy on the national grid. The country set a goal of increasing its solar power capacity significantly in the next five years.

Brinded noted, however, that conventional resources like oil and natural gas will continue to dominate the global energy mix.

“Natural gas will not just be a reliable and abundant fuel for Asia’s remarkable economic growth,” he said. “As the cleanest burning fossil fuel, it can also make an immediate impact in cushioning the environmental impact of the region’s rising energy consumption.”

This week, Howard Gruenspecht, acting administrator at the U.S. Energy Information Administration, said top energy consumer China is expected to use 68 percent more energy than the United States within the next quarter century.

The EIA said the expected increase in world energy consumption by 53 percent by 2035 to be driven largely by economic growth in China and India.

Published: June 30, 2011 at 9:44 AM

LONDON, June 30 (UPI) — A so-called revolution in gas supplies driven in part by shale-gas reserves will allay global energy security concerns, a Shell official said in London.

Malcolm Brinded, executive director of global upstream activity at Royal Dutch Shell, told delegates at an energy summit in London natural gas is one of the best ways to cut greenhouse gases and develop a secure and sustainable energy supply.

He points to analysis from the International Energy Agency that predicts a rise in global gas demand of around 60 percent, fueled by booming economies in China and India, by 2035.

“This demand growth is being supported by the boom in the production of tight gas, shale gas and coal bed methane,” Brinded said.

North American unconventional gas reserves are large enough to meet domestic demand for the next century. Concerns about hydraulic fracturing, the method used to get natural gas out of shale rock, has resulted in bans on the method in several countries, however.

Brinded said this means energy companies must provide assurances to its customers while at the same time adhering to the highest operational standards.

“Otherwise, a public good in the form of abundant supplies of cleaner energy is at risk of being obscured by a deluge of misinformation,” he said in his prepared remarks.

Brinded noted that when unconventional natural gas operations are done correctly, there is little cause for concern.

SOURCE

HOUSTON, June 9 (UPI) — Shell said expected production at its Cardamom oil and gas field in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico could reach 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

Marvin Odum, upstream director for Shell operations in the Americas, said the estimate bodes well for energy supplies for the United States.

“It will also secure employment for more offshore workers,” he added.

Cardamom is expected to reach an eventual peak production rate of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. More than 140 million boe is expected from the project over its lifetime.

Shell’s announcement follows similar declarations from Exxon Mobil, which announced discoveries while drilling in 7,000 feet of water south of Louisiana that have a recoverable resource potential of more than 700 million barrels of oil equivalent.

“This is one of the largest discoveries in the Gulf of Mexico in the last decade,” the company said.

Deep-water exploration is under scrutiny following last year’s oil disaster in the gulf. Republican lawmakers pushing for more access to domestic reserves praised the latest finds, however.

“The prospect of new American-made energy supplies means less pain at the pump for American families and more American jobs,” U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement.

© 2011 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

CANBERRA, Australia, June 7 (UPI) — Australia’s liquefied natural gas industry is on course for a “golden age,” with the sector posed to boost the country’s economy by $38.5 billion by 2020, the International Energy Agency said.

IEA’s “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?” report unveiled Monday forecasts global use of gas to increase by more than 50 percent from 2010-35.

“We think Australia will play a crucial role in the golden age of gas. It could be a golden age for Australia’s LNG industry,” IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol, the lead author of the report, told The Australian newspaper.

By around 2020, Birol said, Australian LNG production could increase threefold.

The latest figures indicate that Australia exported $7.71 billion worth of natural gas in 2009. In 2010, it was the fourth largest LNG exporter after Qatar, Indonesia and Malaysia.

The push to develop long-term supplies of LNG in Australia has sparked more than $214 billion worth of LNG projects.

IEA says Australia’s key customers would be Asian countries, with China leading the pack, followed by India.

In its high-gas scenario, IEA predicts China’s natural gas demand alone to rise from about the level of Germany’s in 2010 to that of the entire European Union in 2035.

“Australian gas would be directed to meet new energy demand and, especially in the coastal part of China, to replace the coal currently transported over long distances from the interior of China,” Birol said.

Projects such as Western Australia’s Gorgon represent the backbone of Australian LNG supply, IEA says. A joint venture between Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Shell in Australia, Gorgon has supply contracts from China and India totaling $64 billion in advance of production slated for 2014.

Chevron, Japan’s Inpex and Perth’s Woodside Petroleum are also close to signing multibillion-dollar LNG development deals in Australia.

Shell upstream international Executive Director Malcolm Brinded said government studies indicate there are 140 trillion cubic feet of stranded gas in Australian water yet to be developed, The Australian reports.

Over the next 10 years, Shell plans to spend $32 billion-$54 billion on Australian LNG projects, he said.

Last month, Shell announced final approval for Prelude, a colossal floating LNG plant to be built 124 miles off the northern coast of Western Australia. The first shipment of gas from the 1,601-foot-long Prelude is slated for 2017.

While Shell didn’t disclose figures, the project is costing an estimated $12.6 billion.

Commenting on Shell’s Prelude, Frank Harris, head of global LNG consulting at Wood Mackenzie told the Financial Times: “This is another final investment decision in Australia and adds to the debate as to whether the country will ultimately overtake Qatar as the world’s biggest producer of LNG.”

© 2011 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SOURCE ARTICLE

Officials at Royal Dutch Shell and the Iraqi Oil Ministry refute claims that a proposed gas joint venture would have exclusive access to Basra province’s gas industry, though a key member of Parliament criticizes the project.

Jeroen van der Veer, the top Royal Dutch Shell director, has echoed the views of many members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries that the world oil market is well supplied.