Royal Dutch Shell PLC is expanding an online program that teaches its employees artificial-intelligence skills, part of an effort to cut costs, improve business processes and generate revenue.

The Anglo-Dutch oil company, which has about 82,000 employees, said about 2,000 have expressed interest in or have been approached by management about taking AI courses through online-education company Udacity Inc. They include petroleum engineers, chemists and geophysicists, among others.

The courses are voluntary, not required, and employees can complete them at their own pace during work hours, Shell said. The oil company covers the cost of the training. read more

* Draft law circulating, split into two bills

* Expected to be presented next week

* “Operators in Nigeria are waiting” – Total

By Libby George

ABUJA, Nigeria Feb 14 (Reuters) – A Nigerian oil reform two decades in the making is urgently needed to get money into its energy sector, industry executives say, as tax increases and regulatory uncertainty scupper investments.

Africa’s largest oil exporting nation has not carried out a full revamp of the law underpinning its oil and gas sector since the 1960s. Piecemeal tax hikes, and a growing lack of certainty around terms, have made companies wary. read more

BP’s new boss set out the boldest climate goal of any major oil company, pledging Wednesday to eliminate almost all of the carbon emissions from BP operations and the fuel it sells to customers.

Bernard Looney, who has been the company’s chief executive for just a week, set an ambitious agenda for what’s becoming an existential challenge for the oil industry. While peers such as Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Equinor have responded to investor pressure by adopting targets for emissions curbs, none has promised to zero out all emissions from the fossil fuels they pump from the ground. read more

BP’s pledge to zero out all its carbon emissions by 2050 deepens the divide between major European and American oil producers on climate change, increasing the pressure for Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. to do more.

The U.S. giants have committed only to reducing greenhouse gases from their own operations. On Wednesday, BP followed Royal Dutch Shell and Equinor in pledging to offset the carbon emissions from the fuels they sell. Known as Scope 3, the emissions from cars, homes and factories are responsible for 90% of fossil fuel pollution. read more

BP Boss Looney Sets Out to ‘Reinvent’ Oil Giant With Zero Carbon Goal

Reuters: Feb. 12, 2020

LONDON — BP set one of the oil sector’s most ambitious targets for curbing carbon emissions on Wednesday as new chief executive Bernard Looney began the biggest revamp in its 111-year history.

While investor groups welcomed the 2050 targets set out by Looney, which put BP ahead of rivals Royal Dutch Shell, Total, Equinor and all of the U.S. oil majors, environmental campaigners criticized a lack of detail.

“We have got to change and change profoundly because the world is changing fast and so are society’s expectations of us,” Looney said in his first major speech as CEO, after earlier highlighting a need to “reinvent BP”. read more

Oil sector is unloved, but holding up under pressure – HSBC

February 12, 20201:20 AM Reuters

** HSBC says the global integrated oil sector is holding up well despite combined pressure of price and margin weakness

** Brokerage upgrades Royal Dutch Shell to “buy” from “hold”, saying its financial framework is not at a significant risk

** However, says Shell’s current free cash flow breakeven is above average for the sector

** BP Plc and Total SA remain at low risk, and BP is HSBC’s preferred stock with best company-specific catalysts this year read more

As BP Plc’s new chief delivers his vision to transform the company on Wednesday, investors and activists want to know just how much appetite he has to take on the existential crisis facing the oil industry.

12 February 2020

Bernard Looney’s big challenge will be to navigate BP through an energy transition with the world falling out of love with oil, and louder demands from investors to pivot toward clean energy. When climate protesters forced the company to shut its London headquarters last week, the 49-year-old Irishman promised them he would address their concerns.

BP is already taking some modest steps to address climate change, including investment in renewables and selling some of its most carbon-intensive assets. But it remains an oil major through and through, still very much the company that tapped the first fields in Iran early in the last century and drilled wildcat wells on the Alaskan frontier more than 60 years ago. read more

Last week, The Guardian announced it would no longer be accepting advertisements from big oil and gas companies. As a huge proponent of tackling climate change, The Guardian is the first major news publication to adopt this policy.

This position comes after youth activist Greta Thunberg called for news outlets covering climate change to support their own message by not accepting money from these fossil fuel companies.

And perhaps other publications like the New York Times and Washington Post, which are currently still producing ads for big oil companies, should follow suit. read more

MARIA DINZEO: FEB 5, 2020

(CN) – The Ninth Circuit waded into a thorny jurisdictional dispute Wednesday over whether federal or state law governs a spate of city and county lawsuits against oil and gas giants like BP and Chevron.

In 2017, Oakland and San Francisco filed twin lawsuits demanding billions of dollars from the big oil and gas companies to abate the public nuisance of global warming, caused by an alleged 50-year disinformation campaign designed to deny and discredit climate change science. read more

The $1.3trn cost of leaving energy underground

Unless a solution is found for climate change in the coming decade, there is a risk of a sharp collapse in asset prices of oil companies. 

Alan Livsey: Feb 5, 2020

Donald Trump was thinking about the teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg when he took aim at what he called the “prophets of doom” at Davos in January. But just as easily he could have been targeting global investors whose trenchant criticism of hydrocarbons has led to a shift in investment away from the traditional energy sector and into renewables.

This move represents a big problem for energy groups such as Exxon, BP and Saudi Aramco. Vast swaths of their oil, gas and coal reserves may never be extracted and burnt because doing so would intensify global warming, worsening weather events and threatening the loss of farmland and huge population displacement. read more

Perla Trevizo Feb. 6, 2020

In the fall of 2018, a leak at a Pasadena oil refinery led to the release of thousands of pounds of toxic pollutants, including some 8,000 pounds of cancer-causing benzene.

During that nearly 67-day stretch, the Pasadena Refining System reported its highest two-week average concentration of benzene from one of its fence-line monitors — a level that was 6.5 times above a federal guideline for short-term exposure.

The Pasadena refinery is one of 10 across the country that exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s action level for benzene as of Sept. 30, according to an analysis released Thursday by the nonprofit Environmental Integrity Project. Six of them are in Texas, including three in the Houston area. read more

Agencies: Wed 5 Feb 2020 12.19 GMTLast modified on Wed 5 Feb 2020 13.16 GMT; THE GUARDIAN

Greenpeace members have blocked BP’s headquarters with solar panels and oil barrels to mark Bernard Looney’s first day as chief executive.

About 100 environmental activists took 500 solar panels to the central London building at 3am on Wednesday as Looney prepared to take up his new role. Some protesters sat underneath the solar panels after they were prevented from installing them on the pavements and roads near the office. read more

Extracts from an email John Donovan received today from The Guardian newspaper.

Dear John,

One of the cardinal rules of news reporting is to keep yourself out of it. We are here to tell stories about other people, not about ourselves. Very occasionally, there are exceptions that warrant a personal touch, but in general reporters should take steps to ensure that their copy does not succumb to an I-infection.

Last week we broke the rule with some news about the Guardian. We declared that we will no longer accept advertising from fossil fuel extractive industries. read more

JAN 31, 2020

Many investors would like to use their money to help tackle climate change, but figuring out how has not always been easy. Now a fund that benefits 38,000 current and retired clergy and other employees of the Church of England could offer a potential solution.

The Church of England Pensions Board, which manages 2.8 billion pounds (or $3.7 billion), this week announced an index that rewards companies working to curb their carbon-dioxide emissions in line with the targets of the 2015 Paris agreement, and bars companies that are perceived as environmental laggards. read more

* Shell, Repsol included due to their climate goals

* FACTBOX on Big Oil’s climate targets:

LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) – The Church of England’s 2.8 billion pound pension fund has put 600 million pounds ($789 million) into a climate index which includes Royal Dutch Shell and Repsol, but shuns BP, Exxon and Chevron.

The Church, which has pressured oil producers to improve their climate targets, based its index on the London School of Economics’ Transition Pathway Initiative (TPI) on companies’ alignment with the goal to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius. read more

Ron Bousso, Shadia Nasralla: 30 Jan 2020

LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) is reining in its vast $25 billion share buyback programme after lower oil and natural gas prices halved its profit in the last three months of 2019 and sent its shares to their lowest in nearly three years.

The Anglo-Dutch energy company warned again that a slowing global economy could affect its buyback programme, which is the world’s largest, and Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said the coronavirus epidemic was dominating the negative backdrop. read more