Posts from ‘September, 2008’

That excitement is likely to last as long as oil prices remain above $30 a barrel, a bottom-line benchmark once cited by leaseholder Royal Dutch Shell. With commercial production at least a decade away, the company has since backed away from that number even as a barrel of oil remains near $100.

The first famous cartel in the oil industry - the “Seven Sisters” - came in the 1920s and lasted until the early 1970s. This famous cartel dissolved only to be replaced by another.

Crude-oil futures plummeted more than $10 a barrel Monday after the House voted down a plan to rescue financial markets, magnifying doubts about demand growth.

TWO GOVERNMENT Ministers have described as "very constructive" a series of discussions on the controversial Corrib gas project held with politicians and community groups in Ballina, Co Mayo.

Shell declined to comment on the duration of the shutdown.

Shell said Saturday its U.S. Gulf refining throughput was about 1 million barrels per day out of a total of 1.2 million bpd.

Total and Royal Dutch Shell, which had been in talks with Iran about LNG projects, earlier this year said they won’t enter any new energy deals because of the country’s heightened political risk.

...the venture partners, which also include Royal Dutch/Shell and Osaka Gas, are "prepared to consider the results of the Timor Leste government's independent study," Woodside said in a statement, the country's official name.

Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country of 140 million people, has the continent’s biggest hydrocarbon reserves. A spate of militant attacks earlier this month has interrupted production at some oil fields operated by Royal Dutch Shell Plc and other foreign companies.

Democratic leaders had hoped to extend the drilling bans, but such a move would have risked drawing opposition from Republicans and the White House. President Bush has announced that he would allow the bans to expire at the end of September. Speaking to reporters on Friday, Marvin Odum, the head of Royal Dutch Shell PLC's U.S. operations, acknowledged that "it is a possibility that [the ban] comes right back on."

Smiths evaluates online reports on 21 criteria, some of which reflect Investor Relations Society best practice. Top of the league table is Royal Dutch Shell.

BUSINESS DAILY

A Shell petrol station in Kenya. Nigeria’s government decision to replace Shell’s operations in Ogoni was first celebrated, but not any more.

Written by Zachary Ochieng’   

September 29, 2008: The peace process in Ogoni land —a major test for efforts to bring stability to the oil-rich Niger Delta — is likely to fail if the Nigerian government refuses to consult local communities about new oil operations, a new report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank warns. 

The report—Nigeria: Ogoni Land after Shell— examines the political and economic implications of the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) departure from Ogoni land and gives recommendations on resuming peaceful oil operations in the economically strategic and politically volatile region.  read more

The national oil companies of Russia, China and India are all running the slide rule over a 5 billion euro stake that has been put up for auction in Repsol, the Spanish oil giant. European majors also known to be taking a look include Royal Dutch Shell, Total of France and Italy’s Eni.

Some suggest that oil sands require double the energy usually needed for production. Shell disputes that, putting the figure at just 15 per cent more. Whatever the truth, the oil giants need to capture their emissions via CCS to offset the higher energy use required for oil-sands exploitation.

Natalie Davies, 26, joined Shell in March last year and now works as a project services engineer based in Assen, northeast Holland. She is part of an extensive project to renovate and update the facilities and equipment used in processing gas from the huge Groningen field to make them more efficient and environmentally friendly.

Flexitricity works to match up small electricity suppliers and the national grid; its parent company, Martin Energy, won a £40,000 award from Shell Springboard, which promotes low-carbon business ideas.