June, 2007:

EXTRACT: Royal Dutch Shell has a license for 2,000 fuel stations, yet it has set up just 32 fuel stations.

Published: Friday, 29 June, 2007, 01:56 AM Doha Time 
By Nidhi Verma

NEW DELHI: A rebound in global oil prices to 10-month highs may force India into another small yet unpopular fuel price increase next month, dousing any lingering talk of the full-scale liberalisation that refiners yearn for.

The Congress party-led government, more wary than ever of its fragile voter base, has trimmed gasoline and diesel prices twice in the past 12 months, rolling back much of the increase of Rs2-4 in June 2006, when Indian crude was around $67 a barrel. read more

Jun. 29, 2007 (China Knowledge) – Royal Dutch Shell plans to construct its mainland sixth lubricant-blending plant in Zhuhai, Guangdong province in order to tap on the rising demand in South China. 

Shell’s latest addition is set to help capture the fast growing auto market in China, which reported an increase of 21% in passenger car sales in the first five months to 2.57 million units. The main demand of lubricant stems from car use.

The new plant once ready for operations in 2009 will be one of Shell’s three largest lubricant-blending plants worldwide. The plant will first start off with an initial capacity of 200 million liters, which might be doubled later pending market demand, according to sources. read more

Biggest investment yet in sector ends Fort Hills doubts

Claudia Cattaneo And Jon Harding, Financial Post
Published: Friday, June 29, 2007

CALGARY – As oil prices sailed past a nine-month high of US$70 a barrel yesterday, Petro-Canada and its partners pushed forward with Canada’s largest oilsands investment yet: a $33.4-billion oilsands-mining venture they said can generate a reasonable return even if oil dips to US$45.

The move casts aside uncertainty about the future of the once-beleaguered project, known as Fort Hills, and helps restore a measure of faith in the oilsands after months of doubt due to cost escalations. read more

By Bruce Nichols

NEW ORLEANS – The boom in Gulf of Mexico oil exploration since the 1970s made New Orleans a hub of the U.S. energy industry, but the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 has led some oil companies to move out, a mini-exodus that could grow.

A recent survey by New Orleans CityBusiness magazine found that 12 of 23 publicly traded companies headquartered in New Orleans had left since Katrina, including four energy-related firms.

Tidewater Inc., the world’s largest operator of oil industry service vessels, recently became the latest to say it is considering moving its headquarters to Houston, the U.S. capital of oil and gas. read more

29 June, 2007
Viewpoint: By Liz Walker

Here, in western America, petrol prices are going through the roof. 

Every TV station carries pieces where hard-up, hard-working people tell us just how difficult their lives are because gas is now three dollars 50 a gallon.

In Britain we pay nearer eight dollars, but the comparison isn’t really fair. In the USA, distances are huge and no-one has given a thought to the cost of a mere hundred miles in years. Not since they needed a horse, anyway. 

All of a sudden everyone is talking about alternatives. Bikes are being exhumed and car pools started, although no-one is considering the bus. read more

SALT LAKE CITY The federal government issued a lease on Thursday to a partnership that wants to open an abandoned oil shale mine in eastern Utah.

The Interior Department issued the 10-year lease to Alabama-based Oil Shale Exploration Co., for Utah’s only oil-shale experiment on federal land.

Last December, the department leased other 160-acre parcels of federal land in northwest Colorado to three energy companies also trying to coax oil out of hard rock. Parts of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming contain enough petroleum in theory to meet U.S. energy needs for a century, but it is an expensive process to start. read more

June 28, 2007: 12:13 PM EST

(Updates with more quotes, background.)

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday the Kremlin isn’t involved in a disagreement between the state- controlled natural gas monopoly and Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) over a multibillion- dollar, offshore energy venture.

“It will be wrong to say the Kremlin is somehow involved,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin’s first deputy press attache, told journalists during a phone briefing. “Gazprom is a Russian company. Kremlin is the state. You have to divide Kremlin and Gazprom.” read more

Company aims to produce 140,000 barrels a day by 2012
Reuters: Published: Friday, June 29, 2007

CALGARY – The first phase of Petro-Canada’s Fort Hills oil sands project in Alberta is expected to cost $14.1 billion, an amount the company hopes to keep in check by staggering the start-up of the project’s various parts, it said yesterday.

Petro-Canada and its Fort Hills partners are wrestling with a tight labour supply in Alberta and surging materials costs as the world’s oil industry rushes to develop the oil sands. read more

By Robert Tuttle

June 28 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, had a flange gasket fail at its Deer Park, Texas, refinery yesterday, according to a report on a state- administered regulatory Web site.

The gasket “blew out” while a transfer line was being flushed out, causing alkylate to spill , the report said.

The refinery, located near Houston, can process 340,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Dave McKinney, a Shell spokesman, didn’t immediately respond to a message seeking comment. read more

By Joe Carroll

June 28 (Bloomberg) — Chevron Corp., the second-largest U.S. energy company, said its $3.5 billion Tahiti oil project in the Gulf of Mexico will be delayed after shackles that connect the production platform to the seafloor were found to be faulty.

New shackles are being ordered to ensure the platform is safe and reliable, Mickey Driver, a spokesman for San Ramon, California-based Chevron, said today. He said it’s not known how long it will take to finish the project, which had been scheduled to begin pumping oil in mid-2008. read more

JULY 9, 2007 
GLOBAL BUSINESS/Commentary

Go-it-alone governments are choking back output to perilous levels

Some “peak oil” cassandras warn that global energy production will soon fall into permanent decline. But a more immediate danger to world oil supplies may be the tempestuous politics of many producing countries. Witness Venezuela’s move to wrest control of key oil projects from global companies on June 26. The move echoes steps taken in other nations that will likely either decrease production or slow its growth in coming years. “The oil is in the ground, but serious doubts are being raised about whether countries have the desire and means to produce it,” says Leo Drollas, deputy director of the Center for Global Energy Studies, a London think tank. read more

JULY 9, 2007
 
THE CORPORATION

Many savvy companies are starting to realize that a good name can be their most important asset—and actually boost the stock price

A recent print ad by United Technologies Corp. (UTX ) looks deceptively like an assembly diagram for a model helicopter. Study it more closely, however, and you’ll notice that the color schematic of UTC’s Sikorsky S-92 copter is embedded with messages aimed at Wall Street.

Text near the engine trumpets 40% lower maintenance costs than comparable helicopters and a “health and usage system” that ensures the S-92 “always operates at peak performance.” Next to a view of the cockpit, you learn that the thermal imaging system lets rescuers find people they can’t see. Other text notes fuel efficiency that allows “more rescues per gallon” and paint with few compounds that harm the environment. “You don’t have to understand everything we do to profit from it,” crows the tagline. The underlying theme: UTC is a great investment because it is a leader in innovation and eco-friendly technologies that help the bottom line. read more

By Beate Evensen

June 29 (Bloomberg) — Statoil ASA, Norway’s largest oil producer, said a project with Royal Dutch Shell Plc to use carbon dioxide to increase production from the Draugen field offshore Norway wouldn’t be profitable.

The two companies have studied whether to use carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for global warming, from a proposed natural-gas-fired power plant at Tjeldbergodden in central Norway to raise output at offshore fields by injecting the gas into the reservoirs. read more

By SARAH TURNER
June 29, 2007

European shares moved broadly higher on Thursday, buoyed by some strong performances in the oil and gas sector, ahead of a key Federal Reserve decision on U.S. interest rates.

The pan-European Dow Jones Stoxx 600 index increased 1.0% at 391.60, as oil and gas companies climbed 1.9% amid crude prices that climbed toward the $70-a-barrel mark.

Shares of oil giants BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Total were all trading nearly 2% higher.

Broker comment also lifted the sector as Morgan Stanley upgraded Royal Dutch Shell to equal-weight from underweight. read more

Jun 28th 2007 | CARACAS
From The Economist print edition

Exeunt Exxon and Conoco

WHEN Venezuela’s government announced this week that two American oil giants, Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhilips, would walk away from their large investment in the Orinoco heavy-oil belt rather than accept tough new contract terms, officials presented it as the recovery of sovereignty over another slice of the country’s all-important oil industry.

Some other Venezuelans saw a government blunder that could accelerate the decline of the state oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA). Either way, the impact of the walkout may not be immediate. read more