About $50 billion of projects approved by oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell and BP within the past year will fail to deliver economic returns if the world meets the Paris climate goals, according to new analysis.
Shell’s huge Canadian liquefied natural gas project, approved last October, and BP’s latest Azerbaijan oil development, approved in April, are among projects that risk becoming “stranded assets”, according to Carbon Tracker, a not-for-profit think tank, which aims to “align capital markets with climate reality”.read more
Bloomberg News: Mikael Holter and Christian Wienberg: September 3, 2019
A $20 billion fund in Denmark, MP Pension, is selling its stakes in the 10 biggest oil companies after deciding they haven’t done enough to live up to climate goals set out in the Paris accord.
The divestment, which represents a total of 644 million kroner (US$95 million), means MP will no longer hold shares in ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, PetroChina, Rosneft, Royal Dutch Shell, Sinopec, Total, Petrobras or Equinor, according to an emailed statement on Tuesday.read more
MP Pension’s board of directors pledged in 2018 to dump all shares in coal, tar sands and oil activities by the end of 2020, and excluded all coal and tar sands companies from its investments last year.
Dutch pension fund blacklists oil companies, including Shell
The Danish pension fund for academics, MP Pension, has blacklisted 10 of the world’s largest oil firms, a decision that will mean divesting DKK644m (€86m) of stocks.
In addition, the pension fund is considering the impact of divesting from bonds issued by oil firms.
The fund said it wanted to take responsibility for the green transition while securing long-term investment returns.
Anders Schelde, CIO of MP Pension, said: “We do not believe that this sector can deliver a return on a par with the rest of the market in the coming years.read more
Shell’s chief executive said today that he welcomed the “mobilisation” of society in the crusade to meet global climate change targets.
But Ben van Beurden said he could not agree with some of the more extreme methods used by militant activists in their protests against energy companies’ activities.
Mr van Beurden said demonstrations must not damage property or jeopardise the people’s safety.
Fellow energy giant BP suffered disruption to its plans for a well in June when Greenpeace activists clambered onto a Transocean rig in Cromarty Firth, then pursued it across the North Sea for several days in their Arctic Sunrise ship.read more
As Dutch journalist Jelmer Mommers revealed last year, Shell has known about the climate crisis for nearly four decades and its own considerable role in causing it.
THE FIRST THREE SLIDES of climate scientist Peter Kalmus’s plenary speech to Shell’s Powering Progress Together conference were intended to gauge audience reactions. First, he would have asked attendees if they are “concerned about climate breakdown.” Then, to raise their hands if they are “EXTREMELY CONCERNED” about it. In the third slide, Kalmus would have asked panel-goers to raise their hands if they agreed with a simple statement: “Fossil fuel causes harm.”
He never got the chance. Last Wednesday, the day before he was scheduled to appear, Kalmus was disinvited from what the oil giant billed as “an action-oriented day of dialogue focused on accelerating the energy transition.” For those curious about what spooked them, The Intercept is publishing Kalmus’s contraband slideshow.read more
The world needs to get to the point at which it will no longer add to the stock of greenhouse gases, and reducing emissions to net zero “is the only way to go,” Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden said in a speech at The Energy Summit near London, calling on businesses to work together to move faster in addressing climate change.
While admitting that the world still needs oil, and will need it still for decades to come, van Beurden said that the supply and the demand side of the energy use should work together to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement to restrict the rise in global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius.read more
Don’t buy the greenwash. Shell’s initiatives, which have won over many conservation groups, are dwarfed by its investment in oil and gas
It is hard to believe it needs stating, but it does. The oil industry is not your friend. Whatever it might say about its ethical credentials, while it continues to invest in fossil fuels, it accelerates climate breakdown and the death of the habitable planet. You would think this point was obvious to everyone. But over the past few weeks, I have spoken to dozens of environmentalists who appear to believe that Shell is on their side.read more
Fossil fuel industry giants such as ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell are maintaining an outsized presence at global climate discussions, working to undermine scientific consensus and slow policy progress, according to findings released Wednesday…
Delegates from major oil companies have influenced international accords for decades.
By Luke McGrath: 24 June 2019, 10:00 BST
Fossil fuel industry giants such as ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell are maintaining an outsized presence at global climate discussions, working to undermine scientific consensus and slow policy progress, according to findings released Wednesday by an environmental monitoring organization.
The Climate Investigations Center (CIC) report claims that fossil fuel trade associations have sent more than 6,400 delegates to climate talks since 1995, including delegates from Shell, BP and ExxonMobil.read more
Greenwashed rhetoric is such a staple of the oil industry that it’s easy to assume every energy executive talking about climate and the transition to a zero-carbon economy is just mouthing words.
Barely a year after BP Plc Chief Executive Officer John Browne promised “action and solutions” on climate change in a 1997 speech, he led the then-biggest oil takeover in history with the acquisition of Amoco Corp. On his retirement a decade later, after years of rebranding about moving “beyond petroleum,” he left a base of oil and gas reserves more than twice the size of the one he inherited.read more
The annual general meetings of BP and Royal Dutch Shell this week confirmed Europe’s two largest oil and gas majors are on diverging tracks in the battle against climate change. Both companies now accept the need to overhaul their businesses in a manner that would have been unthinkable even five years ago, as the clamour from investors and activists has become too loud to ignore. But their approaches differ…
New technology to cut emissions needs funding: oil major
The FTSE 100 oil giant Shell has called for taxpayer subsidies to help it cut pollution by trapping carbon dioxide emissions underground.
Carbon capture and storage is seen by many as vital to meeting global pollution reduction targets. It involves “scrubbing” pollutants from factory and power station emissions, transporting the gas to special locations and storing it to avoid damage to the atmosphere.
The government is ploughing millions of pounds into getting the technology up and running by the mid-2020s, but the question of who pays to help combat climate change has proved controversial, with complaints over increases to electricity bills to subsidise renewable energy and pay for smart meters.read more
Shell will invest $ 300 million in planting trees in the coming three years. As part of the global investment program, Shell is investing more than € 17 million in the outside fund of Staatsbosbeheer. Both organizations want to plant more than five million trees in the coming twelve years. It is about the largest planting in the past hundred years. Shell announced this on Monday.
The global program must help Shell to achieve its goals of reducing CO₂.
Cooperation with business
“We invest in the Netherlands in, among other things, offshore wind energy, solar energy, electric mobility, biofuels and energy efficiency, but CO₂ compensation is also an important part of achieving climate goals,” said Marjan van Loon, president Director of Shell Nederland in a statement.read more
From next week Wednesday, Shell will offer customers in the Netherlands the option to pay one cent extra per liter of fuel. The Dutch oil and gas giant will then use that extra money to compensate for CO2 emissions. “This offers customers in the Netherlands an interim solution as long as electric driving is not yet affordable for everyone”, Marjan van Loon, director of Shell Nederland, said to NOS.
According to Shell, that one extra cent per liter is enough to drive in a “CO2 neutral” way. The voluntary contribution from customers will be invested in CO2 compensation projects, such as planting trees in Peru and Indonesia. The company invests abroad in such projects because the Netherlands does not yet have a certified CO2 compensation system, Shell said.read more
The world’s five largest publicly traded oil companies are increasing their investments in oil and gas, putting a combined $110 billion in new fossil-fuel production.
Meanwhile, those firms are projected to spend just $3.6 billion on low-carbon investments, such as biofuels and renewables, according to a new analysis that Influence Map, a British nonprofit that analyzes corporate influence on climate policy, derived from industry data and numbers buried in company disclosures.
The reckless disparity comes just months after the United Nations warned that the world must rapidly phase out fossil fuel use over the next decade or face catastrophic global warming of at least 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit.read more
When an activist shareholder group last year launched a campaign to force Royal Dutch Shell to set hard targets for cutting carbon emissions, just 6 per cent of those eligible to vote backed the plan. Yet within months Shell had announced an “ambition” to halve its carbon footprint by 2050… This December it pledged to set firm short-term emissions targets from 2020 that will be tied to executive pay. “If we don’t meet them there will be consequences to my salary and others,” said Ben van Beurden, Shell’s chief executive. FULL FT ARTICLEread more
singapore love: Rumor on the street is the Shell Vito project is over a year behind schedule, AND Shell plans to double down and award Whale to the same contractors in the coming weeks.
Must be some serious love going on between the Singaporeans and Shell decision makers....
Bonus Group: To uscitizen,
BRAZIL:
'PS - Shell is investing 2 billion a year into Brazil and already paying off'. Assuming $2Bn (you did not quote currency), that would just about cover Shell's share of the costs of replicants, operating expenses and of course managers' BONUSES!
$2Bn would represent approximately 10% of Shell's income in 2018.
https://reports.shell.com/annual-report/2018/consolidated-financial-statements/statement-of-cash-flows.php
FPSO unit cost: our initial case ($91bn total capex) assumed a cost of $2.5 billion for each of 13 FPSO units. However, our research shows a wide range of possibilities for this cost depending on the vessel configuration; plus the fact that Brazilian shipyards should get better at building them so the cost could reduce over time. Also the project might choose to lease rather than buy the FPSOs outright, which could improve economics for the consortium depending on the lease terms.
http://openoil.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/OO_br_Libra_narrative_1.0_161104.pdf
Bonus Group: To uscitizen,
BG GROUP ASSETS SOLD BY SHELL SUBSEQUENT TO TAKEOVER:
Petrobras and Total announced that they have finalized a decisive milestone in the realization of their Strategic Alliance, signed in March 2017, with the completion of the following transactions: Transfer from Petrobras to Total of 22.5% of the rights of the Iara area, which comprises the Sururu, Berbigão and Oeste de Atapu fields in Block BM-S-11A in the Santos Basin pre-salt, operated by Petrobras (42.5%) alongside Shell (25%) and Petrogal (10%). The consideration for the above transactions amounts to US$1.95 billion, including closing adjustments. This amount does not include US$ 400 million that can be triggered by Petrobras to carry a part of its investment share in the Iara development fields and contingent payments.
http://www.petrobras.com.br/en/news/petrobras-and-total-complete-the-transfer-of-rights-in-the-lapa-and-iara-concessions-as-part-of-their-strategic-alliance.htm
Royal Dutch Shell is nearing the sale of a large part of its North Sea oil and gas assets to private equity-backed Chrysaor for $3 billion, banking sources said, marking a milestone in its drive to reduce debt after buying BG Group.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-shell-m-a-northsea/shell-set-to-sell-3-billion-north-sea-assets-to-chrysaor-idUSKBN15B14M
Including this week’s US$750 million sale of an offshore shallow water gas field in Thailand.
https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2018/1/shell-has-sold-us27-billion-assets-acquiring-bg-group-charts/
The deal covers Shell’s interests in the fields Buzzard, Beryl, Bressay, Elgin-Franklin, J-Block, the Greater Armada cluster, Everest, Lomond and Erskine, and a 10% stake in Schiehallion. Shell also announced on Tuesday that it had sold its stake in a Thai gas field for $900m to a subsidiary of the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/31/shell-sells-north-sea-oil-gas-fields-chrysaor-linda-cook
TOTAL: $5.7Bn = 21% of $27Bn
uscitizen: Bonus group, Contradict myself - lol. Poor guy - like I said do your own research - tell us what you find, you will look like the irrational uneducated poster you are. PS - Shell is investing 2 billion a year into Brazil and already paying off. Do you ever look anything up?
Bonus Group: To US Citizen. Thank you for your post of September 9th 2019 20:12. Congratulations on also being an avid reader of this blog. You are correct in my post of June 26th 2019 23:05 I did say that '..Shell had a ‘fire sale’ of a plethora of BG ‘dross’ assets in order to raise $30Bn to disguise the amount by which they had overpaid for BG Group.' More correctly, Shell had a ‘fire sale’ including a plethora of BG ‘dross’ assets in order to raise $30Bn to disguise the amount by which they had overpaid for BG Group. This does not detract from the fact that Shell did have a 'fire sale' in order to raise $30Bn. By my estimation Shell over paid for BG Group by about 30%. The Christmas boxes were very large, but the presents were very small. You contradict yourself when you say that you will not do my homework for me, but then tell me that the split of the $30Bn assets sold was 80:20 Shell:BG. Is that correct? If so, thank you that just goes to show how worthless those BG assets were, but then that is what you can expect from a Cappuccino and Belgian chocolate lifestyle company. Any comments about what the Brazil Asset are up to these days?
uscitizen: To Bonus Group - the large percentage of assets sold by Shell were non BG assets. I will not do your homework for you, but the split is 80/20. A great example of why you do not take what this sites protagonists post as good information. But go ahead, say I am wrong and also posting garbage, do your research and tell me the number of BG asset sales vs the 30 billion Shell raised thru asset sales.
John Donovan: MESSAGE FROM JOHN FOR THE ATTENTION OF BOGUS GROUP. I have received the information you kindly sent and have replied by encrypted email.
Bill Campbell Prelude Comment: I might write in more detail but I find it rather ironic that it was this website that was telling the world 6 or so years ago that this installation did not have risk levels as low as claimed and one of the principal risk drivers was the compact nature of a hazardous substances plant with not enough space to swing a cat in. Unless you are not aware I wrote to Shell Australia at the time giving them data from 8 existing or planned onshore LNG plants which varied from 80 to 100 hectares or on average 20 to 22 times the footprint of Prelude, could they tell me as a stakeholder with shares in the Company how they arrived at their ridiculously low number but can guess I assume that a reasonable explanatory reply was not forthcoming, as sure as eggs are eggs if this plant is currently having problems or if it has problems or major accident events in future it will be due to the force fitting a complex plant, with risk levels much above which they have published, on a postage stamp of a footprint.
God willing they will never live to regret their fraudulent overly optimistic claims, risk is based on reality not wishful thinking.
Bill
Thanks. Problem is that it's behind a paywall and despite it being a great publication for the oil industry, none of us retired folk wants to invest in a subscription.
FURTHER REPLY FROM JOHN
I have received the further Prelude information you have kindly provided and have replied by encripted email.
Bonus Group: Further to Bogus Group's post yesterday. I am absolutely appalled that a Senior Executive of Royal Dutch Shell plc should spout so much nonsense concerning the Prelude installation. The statement is redolent of Malcolm Brinded and his 'Touch F*ck All' policy, which led to the deaths of Keith Moncrieff and Sean McCue on Brent Bravo on 11th September 2003. What is boring is the continuous misleading spin and blather from the top of this company and their lackadaisical approach to safety. 'Chronic Unease' is a well known expression in the Oil and Gas Industry, and that state of mind is far from boring or routine. In fact nothing is either boring or routine in Oil and Gas operations. Rob Jager moved last year to the post of VP Prelude after spending thirteen years as Country Chair and VP for Shell New Zealand/Shell Taranaki, after Shell announced the sale of its New Zealand interests in March 2018. Jager clearly previously has spent too much time being 'laid back' in the fantasy land of Lord of the Rings, marvelling at New Zealand's scenery and wondering who will be entertaining him for his next luxury seafood dinner accompanied by a glass of chilled expensive New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
Bogus Group: PLEASE SEE REPLY FROM JOHN WHICH FOLLOWS THE COMMENT FROM BOGUS GROUP
More on Prelude article in Upstream.
I’m stunned by what can only be described as idiotic statements. Nothing like the utopia of self-aggrandisement without verification. What is Jagers’ level of technical and operational capabilities? I recall similar rhetoric from BG Group charlatans, with the “best in class” mentality and use of the most overstated expression ever to be used outside the education sector, all aimed at pleasing their taskmasters.
Ramp-up of Prelude and what Jager hopes will be decades of “uneventful” and “boring” operation.
“This will be a state where little or nothing happens. We have few if any alarms, no surprises and where things are running like clock work and we are effectively in autopilot,” he said.
“We will know when we have succeeded in this ambition because Prelude will be recognised as the most boring asset in Shell global portfolio our people will refer to it as the safest and most desirable place to work, and when the rest of the industry is knocking on our door to find out how we have achieved such a best in class outcome, especially for a facility as complex and unique as Prelude.”
REPLY FROM JOHN
Hello, I would be grateful if you could send me a copy of the article via [email protected] using an anonymous email address. I would pass it on to retired Shell EP experts for their assessment.
This is not a Shell website. Click on Disclaimer link at top of page for more information.
OPL 245 CORRUPTION SCANDAL: LATEST NEWS
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FG names Shell, Eni executives in $1bn bribery case – The Punch 08 May 2019 11:43 Google ’Femi Asu with agency report
Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA face additional corruption allegations over a Nigerian oil deal, after the Federal Government said in a London lawsuit that it believed a handful of executives, including Chief Executive …
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FG said in the court files …
FG names Shell, Eni executives in $1bn bribery case 08 May 2019 08:09 Punch Newspapers ’Femi Asu with agency report
Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA face additional corruption allegations over a Nigerian oil deal, after the Federal Government said in a London lawsuit that it believed a handful of executives, including Chief Executive …
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Emily Gosden, Energy Editor
Bloomberg News: Mikael Holter and Christian Wienberg: September 3, 2019 
MP Pension’s board of directors pledged in 2018 to dump all shares in coal, tar sands and oil activities by the end of 2020, and excluded all coal and tar sands companies from its investments last year.
George Monbiot: Wed 26 Jun 2019
Delegates from major oil companies have influenced international accords for decades.
By David Fickling | Bloomberg: June 5 at 7:03 AM
David Sheppard
New technology to cut emissions needs funding: oil major
Printed below is an English translation of an article published today by the Dutch Financial Times, 
Bert van Dijk
Spreadsheet-analysing investors in control of trillion-dollar funds are forcing polluters to change
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