March, 2008:

Monday, March 31, 2008 – 2:07 PM CDT

Some Shell employees in Houston will be affected by Royal Dutch Shell plc’s selection of AT&T Inc. as its global communications infrastructure manager.

Shell, based in The Hague, Netherlands, has its United States headquarters in Houston, where 60 employees have been given the opportunity to transfer to San Antonio-based AT&T (NYSE: T), according to Dan Feldstein, spokesman for AT&T. The move will ensure Shell continues to receive network support at its sites. read more

Monday March 31, 3:35 pm ET
By Chris Baltimore

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Five U.S. oil company executives set to testify on Capitol Hill on Tuesday about soaring gasoline prices and record industry profits will likely offer a common defense: It’s not our fault.
 
U.S. average pump prices have risen steadily since the beginning of 2008 and recently hit a record above $3.20 a gallon, heaping yet more pressure on a U.S. economy beleaguered by an imploding housing market and recession fears. read more

By Kelly Fiveash
Monday 31st March 2008 17:31 GMT

Royal Dutch Shell today inked three outsourcing deals – worth $4.2bn over five years – to spin out IT and telecoms operations.

In January, a leaked memo to staff revealed the oil company was in outsourcing talks with EDS, AT&T and T-Systems.

Today, Shell sealed separate agreements with those companies and said most of its 3,200-strong IT workforce will transfer to the service providers.

The contracts kick off on 1 July, and see AT&T scoop up network and telecommunications, T-Systems getting hosting and storage, and EDS tackling end user computing services. read more

By Paul Dobson

March 31 (Bloomberg) — Centrica Plc, Britain’s biggest energy supplier, hired Mark Hanafin from Royal Dutch Shell Plc to replace Jake Ulrich as managing director for the natural-gas production business and European operations.

Ulrich will retire at the end of July after heading the company’s upstream business for 11 years, Windsor, England-based Centrica said today in a statement distributed by BusinessWire.

The company plans to increase the amount of gas it produces to supply consumers in Britain and northwest Europe. read more

Mon Mar 31, 2008 8:18am EDT

FRANKFURT, March 31 (Reuters) – Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) said on Monday its business client unit T-Systems has won an information technology contract from Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) worth 1 billion euros ($1.58 billion) over five years.

T-Systems, which this month announced an alliance with U.S. IT services provider Cognizant (CTSH.O: Quote, Profile, Research), said the deal was the biggest in its history and would increase revenue from abroad by more than 20 percent. read more

Author: Kostis Geropoulos
31 March 2008 – Issue : 775

UK oil giant BP downplayed the recent pressure piling on its Russian joint venture, TNK-BP. “What tension are you referring to? Where have you heard tension?” BP spokesman Toby Odone asked, laughing. The Russian Interior Ministry said the firm had violated immigration law by obtaining business visas instead of work visas for dozens of foreign employees. BP has temporarily withdrawn 148 staff working on secondment at TNK-BP because of visa problems. “They have not been recalled. They were asked not to go to work at TNK-BP until we get their visas. read more

March 31, 2008: 06:47 AM EST

DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

Electronic Data Systems Corp. (EDS) Monday said it signed a five-year, $1 billion information-technology master services agreement with Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA).

EDS said the deal is one of three IT outsourcing agreements between Shell and three key suppliers, and is expected to deliver a substantial business improvement to Shell over the five-year initial term of the contract.

EDS will manage Shell’s end-user computing services. read more

The Associated Press
Monday, March 31, 2008

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands: Royal Dutch Shell PLC, Europe’s largest oil company, says it will pay AT&T, EDS and T-Systems a combined $4 billion over the next five years to manage its computer and communications systems.

Shell says AT&T Inc. will manage its telecommunications; T-Systems, an arm of Deutsche Telekom AG, will provide “hosting and storage;” and Electronic Data Systems Corp. will provide employee computer services and infrastructure starting in July. read more

MIKE STONE/REUTERS FILE PHOTO
Exxon Mobil chair and CEO Rex Tillerson has put his company on top of the corporate world with sound investment decisions. May 30, 2007.
 
Investor-owned oil majors like Exxon will no longer be able to increase their reserves, say analysts, because of new attitudes in oil-producing nations

Mar 31, 2008 04:30 AM
David Olive
Business Columnist

The performance and strategy of Exxon Mobil Corp. is a good place to start in grasping the twilight years of the investor-owned oil sector that has dominated the extraction of petroleum resources since the industry began in the 1850s. read more

By Neil Partrick
Sunday, March 30, 2008

DUBAI: According to BP’s latest “Statistical Review of World Energy,” Iran and Qatar sit on 30 percent of the world’s total natural gas reserves.

Yet within the Gulf, the ability to meet the growing local demand for natural gas is being frustrated by underdeveloped supply mechanisms and limited regional cooperation.

The state-dominated Qatari gas provider, QatarGas, aims to be the world’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas, LNG, by 2010. But concentrating on securing the most favorable terms for its gas exports internationally, it has given top priority to supplying Europe, the United States and Asia, rather than its Gulf neighbors. read more

David Swanson
March 30, 2008

Did you realize that…?

Residents of Norco, La., poisoned by a Shell oil refinery and a Shell chemical plant, forced the company to pay the cost of residents relocating.

A housewife in Niagara Falls, N.Y., organized her community against local pollution in a campaign that led to the creation of the U.S. EPA Superfund program.

Over 100 towns in the United States have denied corporations legal personhood and constitutional rights in a campaign growing out of anger at the dumping of toxic sludge on farms. In Humboldt County, Calif., voters have chosen in a referendum to deny corporations civil and political rights, in response to a corporation-funded campaign to recall an elected official. read more

By Upstream staff

Australia’s North West Shelf Venture (NWSV) has decided to press ahead with the A$ 5 billion development of the North Rankin 2 project off Western Australia, operator Woodside Petroleum said today.

The final investment decision by the joint venture’s partners gives the green light for the installation of a second platform on the project, to recover gas from the North Rankin and Perseus gas fields, Woodside said in a statement.

The development is expected to cost about A$5 billion, the Perth-based player said. read more

By Upstream staff

Oil industry unions in Gabon threatened to call a nationwide strike if they fail to reach a deal to end a strike at Shell’s subsidiary in the country, where 60,000 bpd of production is shut in.

“We are calling for the mobilisation of all ONEP members,” Guy Roger Aurat Reteno, secretary-general of Gabon’s National Organisation of Petroleum Workers (ONEP), told reporters in the capital Libreville on Friday.

Gabon’s forecast production in 2007 was 240,000 barrels per day, according to the US government’s Energy Information Administration (EIA). read more

DEJA VU
By CYNTHIA CROSSEN
March 31, 2008; Page B1

In 1923, William McMaster, then governor of South Dakota, called the price of gas in his state — 26.6 cents a gallon (equal to about $3.16 today) — “no less than highway robbery.” Late that summer, he asked Standard Oil Co., which supplied most of his state’s gas, to reduce its price. When Standard said no, Mr. McMaster decided to cut out the middleman.

Using public funds, Gov. McMaster bought 160,000 gallons of cut-rate gas from a Chicago distributor and began selling it at a state depot for 16 cents a gallon ($1.94 now). He also announced that he planned to buy an additional half-million gallons and pump them at cost from several other state-owned stations. read more

Jill Treanor
Monday March 31 2008

HSBC is preparing to publish a potentially controversial pay scheme that could allow its top executives to earn larger bonuses.

Britain’s largest bank has consulted its biggest shareholders and is thought to have failed to reach a consensus of opinion among investors who will vote on the plan at the May annual general meeting.

Details of the consultation were revealed by activist investor Knight Vinke, which this weekend published an eight-page document sent to investors and signed by Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, the former head of Shell who now chairs the remuneration committee at HSBC. The outcome of the consultation is expected to be published shortly. read more