June, 2006:

From The Houston Chronicle/The Associated Press

June 30, 2006

SAN RAMON, Calif. — Oil giant Chevron Corp. said Friday it is now the sole owner of U.S. rights to the Texaco brand of gas after a licensing agreement with Royal Dutch Shell PL expired.

Chevron acquired Texaco in 2001, but was required to license the Texaco retail brand to Shell for the sale of gas in the United States through June 2006. The companies have shared those rights since July 2004.

Starting July 1, only Texaco stations supplied by Chevron are allowed to carry the Texaco brand, Chevron said. The company has 1,800 retail locations in the United States with the Texaco brand. read more

Pure Energy: Norway Out?
From StockHouse Editorials
By Luke Burgess

How we might lose 4% of global oil production

When the drilling for Norwegian oil began back in 1965 there was a great deal of doubt surrounding the belief that much crude lay resting beneath the icy waters of the North Sea.

British Petroleum’s chief geologist at the time was one of the biggest skeptics around. In fact, he actually declared that if any oil was ever found, he’d drink it.

And for the next few years he managed to avoid that awful-sounding task. Oil companies drilled dry hole after dry hole. A total of 30 ‘unproduceable’ wells were drilled. read more

This is not a current news report: It is a news release from 2003 being added to our online searchable news archive under the category of “Shell Litigation”

U.S. Department of the Interior
Minerals Management Service
Office of Public Affairs

NEWS RELEASE

FOR RELEASE: August 5, 2003 CONTACT: Nicolette Humphries    (202) 208-3985 

Shell to Pay $49 Million in Settlement Agreement with Minerals Management Service

The Minerals Management Service has reached a $49 million settlement agreement with Shell Oil Company on unauthorized flaring or venting of large volumes of natural gas at its Auger platform and other facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.  The settlement agreement, which is the largest in MMS’s history, was forged in cooperation with the Department of Interior’s Office of the Inspector General, the United States Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Louisiana, and the Department of Justice. read more

From Upstreamonline
By Russell Searancke

Malaysian energy giant Petronas will build a 480-kilometre gas pipeline as part of the Sabah Oil and Gas Terminal (SOGT) integrated project.

The project, which Petronas said it was undertaking with its production sharing contract partners, involves the construction of a subsea pipeline from offshore Sabah to a new onshore oil and gas processing terminal in Kimanis, Sabah, with a storage capacity of 300,000 barrels per day of oil, and an onshore gas terminal. read more

Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com: Call for inquiry into oil rig safety regulator

Terry Macalister
Friday June 30, 2006
From The Guardian

Members of the Scottish parliament are calling for an inquiry into North Sea safety regulators, alleging they have failed to properly monitor the operations of Shell.

The move comes ahead of a report being published by Aberdeen’s sheriff court into an accident on Shell’s Brent Bravo platform in 2003 when two men died.

It follows revelations in this newspaper that a senior Shell consultant, Bill Campbell, told the oil company as far back as 1999 that employees had been falsifying maintenance documents relating to North Sea platforms. Shell rejects the allegations of tampering with paperwork. read more

From Houston Business Journal

Stacy Methvin has been appointed president and CEO of Shell Chemical LP, effective July 1.

In addition to her new role, Methvin will continue to have responsibility for Base Chemicals Americas and Global C4s and C5s.

Methvin takes over the leadership position from Fran Keeth, executive vice president-chemicals.

She will continue to report to Keeth from her Houston base.

Methvin began her career with Shell in 1979 as a geological engineer in the exploration and production offices in New Orleans. Since then she has held several managerial positions in E&P before taking up an assignment as president of Shell Deer Park Refining Co. in 1998, followed by president of Shell Pipeline Co. LP in 2002. She joined the chemicals leadership team as vice president of Base Chemicals Americas and Global C4s and C5s in January 2005. read more

By: Lorna Siggins in Castlebar, Co Mayo, Irish Times
Published: Jun 30, 2006

“Bertie Ahern and his backbenchers are split, aren’t they? Mary Harney and Michael McDowell are split, aren’t they? They’re together for years, we are only new into this, and if they think there’s a split, let them come on to the land with their pipe again!”

The speaker, Rossport farmer Willie Corduff, was in jovial mood yesterday outside Mayo County Council’s offices in Castlebar. A year ago, he and four colleagues were sent to jail for contempt of court over their opposition to the Corrib gas onshore pipeline. read more

By: Michael Harrison Business Editor,
The Independent – United Kingdom
Published: Jun 30, 2006

Thousands of rural households that rely on LPG for cooking and heating are being overcharged by a handful of dominant suppliers, including two giant oil companies, the Competition Commission ruled yesterday.

Unveiling plans for a shake-up in the market, the commission said that prices were higher than they needed to be because the big four LPG firms – Shell, BP, Calor and Flogas, which control 90 per cent of the market -discouraged competition and made it difficult for households to switch to other suppliers. read more

FROM THE FINANCIAL TIMES (LEX COLUMN)

Published: June 30 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 30 2006 03:00

BP’s sunflower is wilting. Having splashed its decidedly organic logo all over the place in the past year or so, right now BP could probably use its old one: a shield.

An allegation of price-fixing in the US propane market follows other public relations disasters for BP’s American operations. The worst was a fatal explosion at its Texas City refinery in March 2005, but it also faces a criminal investigation into pipeline leaks in Alaska. read more

FROM THE FINANCIAL TIMES
By Alistair Darling and David Miliband

Published: June 30 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 30 2006 03:00

Yesterday the government made a critical decision on Britain’s contribution to tackling climate change. The decision reflects three principles: our ambition to be world leaders in creating a low-carbon economy and to balance environmental and economic objectives; our commitment to do this through collective action at a European level; and our determination to use market mechanisms to enable businesses to find the cheapest way possible of meeting our objectives. read more

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
June 30, 2006

BP has tripped up in the U.S. — again. Last year, an explosion at its Texas City, Texas, refinery killed 15 people, triggering several federal investigations. This year, authorities opened a criminal probe into the company following a large spill from its pipelines in Alaska. And now the European oil company has been charged with cornering the $30 billion-a-year U.S. propane market, forcing up prices for millions of rural Americans in 2004. Other oil majors haven’t suffered a similar string of mishaps in the U.S. What has BP got wrong? read more

Terry Macalister
Friday June 30, 2006
From The Guardian

Members of the Scottish parliament are calling for an inquiry into North Sea safety regulators, alleging they have failed to properly monitor the operations of Shell.

The move comes ahead of a report being published by Aberdeen’s sheriff court into an accident on Shell’s Brent Bravo platform in 2003 when two men died.

It follows revelations in this newspaper that a senior Shell consultant, Bill Campbell, told the oil company as far back as 1999 that employees had been falsifying maintenance documents relating to North Sea platforms. Shell rejects the allegations of tampering with paperwork. read more

Terry Macalister
Friday June 30, 2006
From The Guardian

BP found itself under fire again yesterday when a raft of initiatives were announced to crack down on suppliers of liquefied petroleum gas.

The Competition Commission said its final report supported provisional findings that “competition is not working as well as it should be in this market, and that LPG consumers are losing out as a result”.

The judgment comes less than 24 hours after BP faced a civil lawsuit from a US regulator over allegations of price manipulation in the propane sector. read more

Nils Pratley
Friday June 30, 2006
From The Guardian

Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action, reckoned Ian Fleming. In BP’s case, three times could look like the actions of a company where corners are being cut. A fire in a Texas refinery killed 15 and hurt 500 last year; a BP pipeline spilled oil in Prudhoe Bay in Alaska in March; now come claims that BP traders tried to corner the market in propane – those canisters relied on by 7 million Americans who live beyond the reach of the US gas grid. read more

From The New York Times

By JAD MOUAWAD
Published: June 30, 2006

MAASLAND, the Netherlands — A few miles north of Rotterdam, in a region the Dutch call “glass city” for its thousands of greenhouses, gardeners like Frank van Os are part of an unconventional experiment by Royal Dutch Shell to curb carbon emissions.

Mr. van Os produces four million roses each year, flooding the atmosphere inside his vast glass canopy with pure carbon dioxide to bolster his crop. What is unusual is that he now gets the carbon dioxide piped in directly from Pernis, a Shell refinery that is Europe’s largest and typically discharges tons of the gas into the atmosphere every year. read more

FROM MARKETWATCH
Former BP energy trader pleads guilty to price gouging scheme
By Stephanie I. Cohen & Jim Jelter

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Federal regulators on Wednesday accused BP Plc.’s North American energy trading unit of briefly cornering the U.S. propane market in 2004 in a scheme that jacked up homeowners and businesses’ heating bills across the rural Northeast.

At the same time, the Justice Department announced that one of BP’s former traders, 34-year-old Dennis Abbott of Houston, had pleaded guilty to participating in the scheme and was working with federal investigators checking to determine if other BP executives were involved, paving the way for a possible criminal case. Abbott faces a $250,000 fine and up to five years in prison for conspiring to drive up propane prices. read more