Posts from ‘January, 2015’

BY PHUONG LE ASSOCIATED PRESS: 01/28/2015 9:43 PM: SEATTLE

A plan to allow Royal Dutch Shell PLC to use Seattle’s waterfront as a homeport for its Arctic drilling fleet is drawing opposition from environmental groups that say it’s not consistent with the region’s environmental goals.

Several state and national groups, and local city leaders on Wednesday urged the Port of Seattle to halt lease negotiations that would allow Shell to use 50 acres of port property across from downtown Seattle.

Shell could house about two dozen vessels, including exploration drill rigs, ice breakers, tugs and barges at the site in the winter when they’re not exploring for oil off Alaska’s coast.

Port commissioners this month approved moving forward with a short-term lease with Foss Maritime, whose clients include Shell. The port is renovating the terminal to handle bigger ships and was looking for interim uses that could bring revenue. read more

Jan 29 (Reuters) – Oil major Royal Dutch Shell said on Thursday it would curtail spending by $15 billion over the next 3 years while keeping dividends stable in a bid to calm investors amid plunging oil prices.

Europe’s largest oil company by market value kept its fourth-quarter dividend stable versus the previous quarter at $0.47 per share and pledged to pay the same amount in the first quarter of 2015.

The company reported fourth-quarter 2014 earnings on a current cost of supplies basis at $4.2 billion, compared with $2.2 billion a year earlier, meeting expectations.

Oil prices have fallen by almost 60 percent since June because of weak global demand and a boom in U.S. shale production. OPEC in November decided not to cut output in a move the group of oil producing nations hopes will force higher cost producers to trim production. read more

Goldman Sachs analysts said in a Tuesday note that they expected U.S. crude, also known as WTI, to remain near $40 a barrel in the first half of this year

REUTERS

By Barani Krishnan

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil slumped on Wednesday, with U.S. crude prices at near six-year lows, after the government reported record-high inventories in the United States that raised anxieties about the global oil glut that had pressured the market since last summer.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said domestic crude oil stocks rose by almost 9 million barrels last week to reach nearly 407 million, their highest since the government began keeping records in 1982. read more

Comment: These events appear to have happened on Paul Goodfellow’s watch?: According to his current Linked-in profile Goodfellow was Shell VP Unconventionals from 2012-2013

FROM AN ARTICLE BY SUSY KELLY PUBLISHED 28 JAN 2015 BY THE HERALD-STANDARD UNDER THE HEADLINE:

“Report: Fracking failures lead to environmental harm in area and state”

Extract

A report released Tuesday by a nonprofit environmental research group shows that despite assurances to the contrary, companies who develop unconventional natural gas wells have polluted the environment in Pennsylvania and will continue to do so under current regulatory standards.

In April 2013, EQT, Chevron Appalachia, Consol and Shell formed the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD), promising not only that safe, sustainable shale resource development was possible, but that they would do it of their own accord, according to the report. Data from the state Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) shows those four companies failed to uphold state requirements at least 100 times, according to PennEnvironment’s research. read more

AN OPEN LETTER TO MR EDWARD HEEREMA, FOUNDER AND SOLE OWNER OF ALLSEAS

I am sure you are aware of the aggressive email I received at an early stage in my contact with Allseas. Your PR Manager Mr. Jeroen Hagelstein, informed me that Allseas reputation and integrity are extremely important. The last paragraph of his email amounted to a full broadside, with threats of immediate legal action. Shell can testify that I am not susceptible to threats. 

Dear Mr. Heerema

You are well aware of my petition trying to persuade you to change the name of your new ship, The Pieter Schelte, named after your father, an officer in the infamous German Waffen SS.

You have already paid a self-inflicted price for your good-intentioned, but wrongheaded decision and are apparently prepared to stick with the Nazi linked name in the long term.

I am referring to the collateral damage to your own reputation (for unwise decision making) and the reputation of your company, Allseas, as a result of being seen to brazenly operate a prominent ship under a Nazi linked name. That evil association will precede and follow the ship like an albatross, wherever it sails, for the rest of its days. read more

FROM REUTERS

Shell signs $11 billion deal to build petrochemicals plant in Iraq

(Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) signed deal with Iraq worth $11 billion (7 billion pounds) to build a petrochemicals plant in the southern oil hub of Basra, Industry Minister Nasser al-Esawi said on Wednesday.

Esawi told a press conference in Baghdad the Nibras complex, which is expected to come on line within five to six years, would make Iraq the largest petrochemical producer in the Middle East. The factory’s expected output was not immediately clear.

Shell, which is one of the main oil majors operating in south of Iraq, signed a memorandum of understanding with the ministry for the project in 2012. read more

FROM BLOOMBERG

Crude at $49: The New Reality for Big Oil Companies

by Joe Carroll

(Bloomberg) — Financial results from a fourth quarter that saw the collapse of the crude market will provide a window into how the world’s biggest oil companies are adjusting to a new reality of slowing growth and low prices.

Oil that topped $115 a barrel as recently as June has been trading below $50 a barrel since the first week of the year, portending a bleak 2015 for the world’s five so-called supermajors — Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp., Total SA and BP Plc. The companies, whose businesses combine oil and natural gas exploration with refining and chemical manufacturing, have historically been among the most resilient players during down cycles. read more

Krestia DeGeorge,Nathaniel Herz: January 27, 2015

Citing biodiversity and Alaska Native subsistence whaling, the Obama administration moved to block development in 9.8 million acres within the Beaufort and Chukchi seas as part of a new five-year outer continental shelf oil and gas leasing program, the draft of which was released Tuesday morning by the Department of the Interior.

The announcement came two days after President Barack Obama said he planned to ask Congress to declare much of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Northeast Alaska as wilderness, including the possibly oil-and-gas-rich coastal plain — and a month after the president closed waters in and around Bristol Bay to oil and gas development. read more

26 JAN 2015

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. Interior Department will lay a framework as soon as Tuesday for oil exploration in the nation’s coastal waters in a five-year plan that is expected to withdraw areas off Alaska while possibly adding parts of the Atlantic.

Republican Lisa Murkowski said the head of the offshore energy office told her the agency will place areas of the energy-rich U.S. Arctic off limits. Those areas had been previously deferred from new leasing. Current leases in the Arctic, such as those held by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, won’t be affected. read more

by Ton Biesemaat, Dutch investigative journalist

…there is overwhelming proof that Pieter Schelte Heerema remained a staunch Nazi until his death. Yet the world does not seem to care when one of the largest ships is named after this man 

There is a lot of media noise about one of the world’s largest ships, which is now in its finishing building stage in the port of Rotterdam. The ship is named Pieter Schelte after his father by the owner of the Allseas company Edward Heerema. So far so good. Allseas is an international player in the offshore industry and the Pieter Schelte will be used for pipe laying on the seabed and decommisioning of obsolete oil and gas platforms in for example the North Sea and Gulf of Mexico. However Jewish organisations are angry because the ship is named after a Dutch Nazi and SS-officer who was vehemently anti-Semitic (1). read more

FROM AN ARTICLE BY DANNY FORTSON OF THE SUNDAY TIMES PUBLISHED 25 JAN 2015 UNDER THE HEADLINE: 

“Oil price lays waste to energy giants”

THE chaos unleashed by the collapse of the oil price will be laid bare in the next fortnight as BP reveals a halving of profits, Shell cuts billions in spending, and Centrica comes under pressure to slash its dividend.

Crude prices have fallen from $114 a barrel in the summer to just $47.12 on Friday.

This week, Shell is expected to slash 5%-10% from its $35bn (£23bn) spending plans for 2015. The company, which recently shut platforms at its Brent field in the North Sea after nearly 40 years of production, is likely to target pricy onshore operations in the US and Canada. read more

By John Donovan

The Observer newspaper, the Mail Online  and the Dutch Financial Times, plus a variety of other news outlets, all published articles over the weekend covering The Pieter Schelte Nazi Ship Controversy. 

SOME OF THE HEADLINES

Jewish outrage as ship named after SS war criminal arrives in Europe: The Observer/Guardian

Named after SS Nazi war criminal: World’s largest ship sparks outrage as it arrives in Europe just as 70th anniversary of liberation of Auschwitz is marked (Mail  Online) read more

By GEOFF HO: Published Sunday January 25, 2015  

Royal Dutch Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden will outline how the company plans to deal with the collapse in crude oil prices when he unveils its results on Thursday.

The oil giant is expected to reveal further cost-cutting measures alongside a 4.6 per cent fall in its 2014 pre-tax profits to $35 billion (£23.4 billion).

Earlier this month, Shell dropped a $6.5 billion (£4.3 billion) project in Qatar due to the impact of falling oil and gas prices. read more

SCREENSHOTS OF ARTICLE PUBLISHED SUNDAY 25 JAN 2015 BY THE DAILY MAIL/MAIL ONLINE read more

FROM AN ARTICLE BY ED VULLIAMY PUBLISHED BY THEGUARDIAN.COM AND THE OBSERVER NEWSPAPER, SUNDAY 25 JAN 2015 UNDER THE HEADLINE:

World’s biggest ship, the Pieter Schelte, sparks Nazi outrage on arrival in Rotterdam

Extracts

Leaders of Jewish communities and Holocaust memorial groups in Britain and the Netherlands have reacted with rage and despair at the arrival in Rotterdam of the world’s biggest ship, the Pieter Schelte, named after a Dutch officer in the Waffen-SS.

The vice-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jonathan Arkush, said: “Naming such a ship after an SS officer who was convicted of war crimes is an insult to the millions who suffered and died at the hands of the Nazis. We urge the ship’s owners to reconsider and rename the ship after someone more appropriate.” read more

NON-PROFESSIONAL TRANSLATION OF AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY THE DUTCH FINANCIAL TIMES UNDER THE HEADLINE:

Criticism swells of Heerema’s ‘bad name’ heavy lift

Alexander Weissink
Sunday, January 25th, 2015, 11:26
Updated: Sunday, January 25, 2015, 16:56

The Dutch owner of offshore company Allseas in Delft is increasingly criticized for the naming of its newest vessel. Edward Heerema named the largest floating crane in the world after his father Pieter Schelte who was an officer in World War II in the German Waffen SS before he made his name as an offshore pioneer.

The Guardian

The Guardian Saturday citing various Jewish organizations complained about this tribute. The vessel with a size of eight football pitches and a cost of € 2.4 billion was early this month the subject of a ceremony on its arrival in the port of Rotterdam. In the backwater of Maasvlakte Pieter Schelte is being assembled in the coming months. After that lights the vessel obsolete oil platforms in the North Sea from their pedestal and drains. read more