February, 2008:

02/29/2008, 10:46 am

The final settlement hearing for the class action lawsuit over Shell Oil’s 1988 gasoline spill in Limestone Township was held Thursday in Kankakee County Circuit Court, but details of the settlement order have yet to be worked out.

The settlement will total at least $26 million and involves 1,384 claims for property damages and costs associated with the spill, said the plaintiffs’ attorney, Joseph Yurgine of Kankakee.

Separate suits involving health issues relating to the contaminants have been filed, he said. read more

Reuters
Friday February 29 2008
(Recasts, adds detail)

LONDON, Feb 29 (Reuters) – How long a key British gas supply pipeline will remain closed after an import terminal fire was unclear on Friday as checks on the extent of the damage lasted into the weekend, with freezing weather forecast for next week.

One of two pipelines affected by the Thursday’s fire at Royal Dutch Shell’s terminal in Bacton resumed flows into the UK of the fuel used to heat most British homes at midday Friday. read more

By Chris Flood
Published: February 29 2008 02:00 | Last updated: February 29 2008 02:00

Gold and oil both achieved record levels for a second consecutive session yesterday while wheat markets saw further volatility after news of a commodities trader at MF Global who substantially exceeded his authorised trading limits.

The dollar’s weakness has been widely cited as a key driver of the present rally. But analysts at Barclays Capital disagree. “Commodity prices are going up in all currencies. Supply losses, strong demand and low inventory levels are the key drivers, not exchange rates,” said Barclays. read more

By Ben Farey and Alexander Kwiatkowski

Feb. 29 (Bloomberg) — U.K. natural gas prices retreated from near two-year highs after Royal Dutch Shell Plc said supplies were adequate after a fire yesterday at its Bacton gas terminal in England cut flows from the North Sea.

Natural gas for delivery a week ahead reached its highest price in almost two years today, following the blaze in a water- treatment plant at the terminal, which supplies 10 percent of the U.K.’s gas. Prices retreated from intra-day highs as shippers drew on storage and Shell said there was no adverse effect on U.K. supplies. read more

29 February 2008

The Bacton explosion was at the “water” end says the plant Manager!!  All the safety systems worked and there were no injuries!! 

Waste water treatment facilities and equipment are classified as hydrocarbon as if something goes wrong a lot of volatile hydrocarbons arrive on the scene very quickly, but the equipment is designed to handle them safely.

If men were working, for this to happen there must be more than two safety barriers breached, but what about the plant integrity. read more

Rafael Maradiaga arrived in Las Americas yesterday.

February 2008, 8:24 AM

SANTO DOMINGO. – Dominican Republic took the first step to buy 50 percent of the shares in the Petroleum Refinery (Refidomsa) from the multinational Shell, whose representative in the country, Rafael Maradiaga, arrived in the Las Americas International Airport yesterday afternoon, though declined to comment to Dominican Today.

Hacienda minister Vicente Bengoa said seven companies had been pre-selected, one of which would determine the value of those assets. He said five of those companies are foreign and two are registered in the country. read more

February 29, 2008: 05:53 AM EST

LONDON, Feb. 29, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) — Royal Dutch Shell PLC (NYSE:RDS A) said gas supply in Britain is unaffected by the shutdown of the Bacton gas terminal on the Norfolk coast following a fire at the site on Thursday.

No one was injured during the incident which occurred at the Shell-operated terminal’s waste water system. The facility remains shut for safety reasons.

‘The gas supply to the UK is unaffected. Shell has been in contact with the National Grid, which monitors the amount of gas coming into the UK, and they have confirmed there is more than enough supply coming into the country from all the various sources. National Grid is confident there will be no detrimental effect on security of supply,’ Shell said in a statement. read more

Posted on: Friday, February 29, 2008

The U.S. House took a bold step this week to change America’s oil-dependent course toward the more sensible path of renewable energy.

Lawmakers voted to eliminate lucrative tax breaks for big oil companies and use that savings for extending smart tax credits and incentives to encourage energy production from renewable sources.

The tax credits for new wind farms and other facilities generating power from renewable sources would be extended through 2011. It would also extend the 30 percent tax credit that companies can claim for investments in solar products and fuel cells that convert fuel into electrical energy without combustion, minimizing pollutants. read more

29 Feb 2008 10:52 GMT

LAGOS (AFP) – Anglo-Dutch group Shell said oil was pumping again Friday at its Bonny Island terminal in southern Nigeria after repairs following a sabotage attack.
 
“We have resumed oil lifting at Bonny following a successful repair of the burst pipeline accounting for a daily production of some 130,000 barrels of crude,” a company spokesman told AFP.

This is estimated to be about a quarter of the Bonny terminal’s capacity.

The spokesman said force majeure measures — which allow companies to suspend contractual obligations due to unforeseen events without incurring penalties — declared for February and March were still in force. read more

Paul Kellog
29 February 2008

“Never again will they rob us — the ExxonMobil bandits. They are imperial, American bandits, white-collared thieves. They turn governments corrupt, they oust governments. They supported the invasion of Iraq.”

This was the response from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to the successful lawsuit by the world’s biggest corporation (ExxonMobil), freezing US$12 billion in assets of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA — a serious escalation in Big Oil’s long running dispute with Chavez and the movement he represents. read more

Most of gift will go to faculty endowments
Friday, February 29, 2008
By Bill Barrow

BATON ROUGE — Chevron Corp. has pledged $4.75 million to LSU in what school officials Thursday said is the largest corporate contribution ever for the state’s flagship university.

Most of the gift, $3.9 million, is earmarked for the College of Engineering: $2 million for faculty endowments, $1 million for graduate student fellowships and $900,000 to help support several academic programs.

The remainder is described as a five-year commitment, totaling $850,000, to support scholarships and grants in the College of Engineering, College of Basic Sciences and the E.J. Ourso College of Business. read more

Feb. 29, 2008, 12:13AM
COMMENTARY
By LOREN STEFFY
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

The topic wasn’t on the agenda, and it wasn’t discussed on any of the panels. But in the convention center hallways and around the luncheon tables, everyone was asking the same thing: Why aren’t they here?

“They” are the presidential candidates, only one of whom deigned to attend the “presidential summit” Thursday that was devoted to energy issues.

Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke Thursday after my deadline. Other than that, it was a presidential summit glaringly unencumbered by presidential candidates. read more

By Nesa Subrahmaniyan and Megumi Yamanaka

Feb. 29 (Bloomberg) — Crude oil climbed to a record for a fourth day as a weakening U.S. dollar and global stock market declines increased the appeal of commodities for investors.

Oil also rose after a crude export pipeline broke in Ecuador because of a mudslide and fire shut a U.K. natural gas terminal, boosting prices for the utility fuel by more than 20 percent. The dollar traded at $1.5181 per euro at 12:07 p.m. in Singapore, after touching $1.5229 yesterday, the weakest since the euro began trading at about $1.17 in January 1999. read more

By NEIL KING JR. in Washington and GUY CHAZAN in London
February 29, 2008; Page A3

Oil prices finished at a new high for the second time this week, bolstering the likelihood that OPEC will sit on its hands at next week’s meeting in Vienna.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which supplies about 40% of the world’s oil, had signaled it was considering a production cut to compensate for economic softness and a slowdown in major consuming markets. But oil’s recent surge has made a production cut politically tricky, market watchers say. read more

By Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
Published: February 28 2008 16:15 | Last updated: February 28 2008 16:15

Iran’s oil revenues reached a record $62bn for the first 11 months of this Iranian year – an increase of 31 per cent over the same period the previous year, according to a senior Iranian oil official.

Hojjatollah Ghanimifard, deputy to the head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) for international affairs said Iran’s oil exports, at 2.4m b/d, would generate about $69bn by the end of the year on March 19. Iran produces around 4.2m b/d of oil, of which 2.4m b/d is exported. read more

February 29, 2008
Suzy Jagger in New York

The price of oil shot to a new high last night as Wall Street traders bought fuel contracts to offset the falling value of the dollar.

Energy traders were also unnerved by a fire at Shell’s Bacton gas terminal in Norfolk, which threatened more than 45 million cubic metres of gas supplies, about 13 per cent of National Grid’s forecast demand. The blaze – which started at 6pm – was extinguished. National Grid sought to reassure markets that the facility, the third-largest in the UK, was still receiving adequate supplies. read more