October, 2007:

by Carlye Malchuk
Oct 31, 2007

Fuel company Shell Canada will be conducting an environmental site assessment at Avery Beach in the coming weeks to determine if there was any leaching of petroleum products into the park.

In the late 1920s the Canadian Oil Company acquired property adjacent to the park that was used as a bulk plant.

The site was taken over by Shell in 1965 but has not been used as a bulk plant for at least 25 years, said John Peck, who works in the communications department at Shell Canada. read more

(Thomson Financial) – A navy officer was killed and four injured in an overnight attack on a naval vessel protecting a Royal Dutch Shell offshore oilfield in southern Nigeria, industry and security sources told Agence France-Presse.

‘We got a report that militants attacked the navy vessel NNS Obula at 2105 hours. The vessel was detailed to protect the EA oilfield operated by Shell. One navy officer was killed while four were injured,’ a Shell security official told AFP.

The State Security Service (SSS) also confirmed the attack. read more

October 31, 2007

In case you have missed it, the oil majors are quietly investing in the renewable fuel sector.

ConocoPhillips (COP) has made the largest foray with its partnership with Tyson Foods (TSN) to produce biodiesel from chicken fat and a recently announced deal with Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) to produce fuel from biomass (farm waste).

Exxon (XOM), while publicly downplaying and almost mocking the role of biofuels for years, is currently funding research at Stanford University

Marathon Oil (MRO) has actually partnered with ethanol maker The Andersons (ANDE) and the two are producing ethanol from corn at a plant they plan to retrofit when additional feedstock are viable. read more

In a dusty corner of northwestern Colorado, an energy of the future is beginning to look like the real thing. Can oil shale work? Fortune’s Jon Birger reports.

By Jon Birger, Fortune senior writer
October 31 2007: 5:43 AM EDT

(Fortune Magazine) — Touring a drilling site on a dusty mountain plateau above Rifle, Colo., Harold Vinegar stops, grins and then announces out of the blue, “I love that smell!”

No, the Royal Dutch Shell chief scientist is not referring to the crisp fragrance of the high desert air or the conifer scent wafting from the nearby stand of evergreens. Rather, it’s the faint, asphalt-like aroma of oil shale – a sedimentary rock rich in kerogen, a fossil fuel that is now the focus of Shell’s single biggest R&D investment. read more

Published On Wednesday, October 31, 2007  3:34 AM
By DAVID K. HAUSMAN and CLIFFORD M MARKS
Crimson Staff Writer

A major oil company is shelling out money for programs at the Kennedy School of Government.

A division of Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s second-largest publicly traded oil company, will donate $3.75 million over the next five years to fund energy policy research across the University, the school announced this week.

William W. Hogan, the research director of the Harvard Electric Policy Group and an architect of the agreement, said the school has yet to decide precisely how the money will be allocated. read more

By Ambereen Choudhury and Thom Rose

Oct. 31 (Bloomberg) — Macquarie Bank Ltd. and Deutsche Bank AG’s RREEF infrastructure fund are among firms that may bid for a German gas storage and transport network owned partly by Exxon Mobil Corp., said five people involved with the proposals.

BEB Transport & Speicher Service GmbH, a joint venture between Exxon Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, may fetch at least 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion), said the people, who declined to be identified because the bidding is confidential. Credit Suisse Group is assessing offers, the people said. Babcock & Brown Ltd., an Australian investment bank, may also bid, they said. read more

Wed Oct 31, 2007 9:10 AM BST

CAPE TOWN, Oct 31 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile , Research) said on Wednesday that crude oil theft at sites in Nigeria was rising, posing a problem for development and a safety risk for those engaging in the practice.

“It is on the rise again,” Ann Pickard, regional executive vice-president for Shell Exploration & Production Africa Ltd., said at the Africa Upstream 2007 oil conference in Cape Town.

Shell, the world’s second-largest non government-controlled oil company by market capitalisation, is among a handful of oil majors affected by political unrest in Nigeria, the largest oil producer in Africa. read more

By Upstream staff

Philippine National Oil Company’s upstream arm PNOC Exploration Corporation (PNOC-EC) has estimated it would cost around $1 billion to develop the Malampaya oil rim, a thin layer of oil at the bottom of the Malampaya gas field, PNOC-EC president Rafael Del Pilar said.

The oil rim’s development would involve a capital expenditure of around $500 million and an operational expense of around $400 million, Del Pilar told local media.

PNOC-EC would raise a portion of the development cost through proceeds from its share offering scheduled for February next year, Del Pilar said. read more

By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Published: October 31 2007 02:00 | Last updated: October 31 2007 02:00

Iran says it is ready to address the concerns of western oil groups that have blamed spiralling global costs for delays in signing up to multibillion dollar contracts to develop the South Pars natural gas field.

“The increase in international [construction costs] and [the] fall in the dollar are logical concerns of companies which can be met through negotiations, provided illogical demands are not mixed with them,” said Ali Vakili, managing director of the Pars Oil and Gas Company, which handles development of the South and North Pars gas fields. read more

As Reservoirs Age and Demand Grows,
Prices May Go Even Higher
By NEIL KING JR. and GUY CHAZAN
October 31, 2007; Page A6

LONDON — Oil at $100 a barrel? That may not be the worst of it.

Several leading oil experts, gathered here yesterday for an annual energy conference, sketched a near-term future in which mounting global demand and shrinking supplies push oil prices well past the $100-a-barrel mark.

Consuming countries, they argued, will simply have to deal with the fact that new pockets of oil are getting far harder and more expensive to tap. That, combined with years of underinvestment by the industry, has led to a tapering off of new oil supplies that will continue for years, despite rising energy demand in Asia, the Middle East and some industrialized countries. read more

Crude oil options traders work on the
floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange

By Russell Hotten, Industry Editor
Last Updated: 6:35am GMT 31/10/2007

OPEC oil ministers say they are powerless in the face of many factors driving up the price of crude, with one member of the producers’ cartel warning that the ‘market is out of control’.

Mohammed bin Dhaen al-Hamli, president of Opec, told a conference in London yesterday that record oil prices are the result of speculative investment and international political tensions. “We are of course concerned about high oil prices,” he said. But “the market is increasingly driven by forces beyond Opec’s control”. read more

OLUSOLA BELLO & EJIOFOR ALIKE on 31 October, 2007

Why is Royal Dutch Shell planning to drop Basil Omiyi as the managing director of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC)?

Contrary to speculations over age and length of service as reasons for his imminent removal, Omiyi may be removed to pave way for his deputy, Dale Rollins, an expatriate, to emerge as the managing director.

The move is propelled by government’s bid to review the joint-venture agreement, and there may be no stopping Shell’s parent company in The Hague, Netherlands from installing an expatriate. read more

Posting on Live Chat by Guest 1116

Guest 1116: Sakhalin Project Team morale at all time low this morning on this remote island as Schoolmaster Craig and Helpless Huijskes swing axe wildly and despatch our OPF Project Manager, Bernt Granas for no reason at all !!!!! Neither Craig nor Huijskes know anything about project management and even less about how to manage people. Cold, heartless, insensitive, incompetent and worthless managers. No wonder the project is delayed and wildly over budget. Time for all of us to get out of here before these read more

Tue Oct 30, 2007 6:01 PM GMT

DOHA, Oct 30 (Reuters) – Construction is on schedule at the project that has attracted Royal Dutch Shell’s largest foreign investment, a super-clean fuels plant in Qatar with a cost of up to $18 billion, a senior executive said on Tuesday.

“We’re broadly on schedule for a start up by the end of the decade,” said Shell’s Qatar Country Manager Andrew Brown, who is also managing director of the 140,000 barrels per day Pearl gas-to-liquids project. read more

By John Donovan

Publication on a daily basis of top secret Royal Dutch Shell internal documents relating to the reserves scandal (first revealed to an astonished world in *January 2004) began yesterday on the website royaldutchshellplc.com. The site has been described by the Financial Times as being “anti-Shell”.

*The Times: How Shell blew a hole in a 100-year reputation (Jan 10, 2004)

http://www.shellnews.net/2004%20Documents/todds/thetimeshow%20shellblewahole.htm 

*Daily Telegraph: Shell drops ‘bombshell’ on reserves (Jan 10, 2004) read more