Royal Dutch Shell and Italy’s Eni have been embroiled in a legal battle since 2011 over an alleged $1.1 billion paid in bribes to Nigerian government officials,  related to the acquisition of new off-shore drilling rights. Nigeria is now counter-suing for $1.14 billion (868 million British pounds) in a London court…

Ariel Cohen: Contributor, Energy: April 15. 2019

With the reelection of Muhammadu Buhari to the Nigerian presidency, Africa’s leading oil exporter faces a challenge as old as Nigeria itself: political corruption. This scourge shortchanges ordinary Nigerians and undermines the country’s development.

Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS-A) and Italy’s Eni (NYSE:E) have been embroiled in a legal battle since 2011 over an alleged $1.1 billion paid in bribes to Nigerian government officials,  related to the acquisition of new off-shore drilling rights. Nigeria is now counter-suing for $1.14 billion (868 million British pounds) in a London court, claiming that Shell and Eni assisted “corrupt Nigerian government officials to breach fiduciary duties” in the deal. This scandal comes after a leaked 2013 report, which details how Nigeria’s National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) owed the government $20 billion in revenue due to its failure to report its earnings. It seems there is no shortage of legal quagmires for Africa’s most populous nation. read more

Angry Dutch citizens on Thursday will ask their country’s highest court to put an immediate end to gas production in the Groningen region due to the risk of life-endangering earthquakes. read more

Claire Poole , CONTRIBUTOR: June 6, 2018

Royal Dutch Shell took the top spot among oil and gas companies on the Forbes Global 2000’s list of the biggest and most powerful public companies, surpassing last year’s leader Exxon Mobil Corp. The Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant ranked 11th among all companies on the list, up from 20th the previous year, mostly because of higher sales due to lofty commodity prices. Irving, Texas-based Exxon came in at 13th, the same as last year. The Forbes Global 2000 is determined by a composite score of equally weighted measures of revenue, profits, assets and market value. FULL ARTICLE read more

By John Donovan 

Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, which has pushed up the price of oil, thus benefiting Shell and other oil companies, threatens to put billions of dollars worth of trade in jeopardy.

Shell has a record of treacherous conduct involving the Iranian regime, including using subterfuge to disguise shipping movements.

How will Shell react this time in an even more complex situation?

Below are extracts from articles published in the last 24 hours.

Sky News: How business could be hit by Iran deal pull-out read more

Michael Lynch , CONTRIBUTOR: APR 3, 2018: Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

The internet is going gaga over Royal Dutch Shell’s new “Sky” scenario, which discusses the impact on the energy industry of efforts to limit climate change.  Many treat the existence of such a scenario developed by a major oil company as evidence that a) an important oil industry player expects this to happen, b) projections of a severe climate policy future are validated. Writing as an aged methane emission, this is not really new.  In the 1990s, Shell was cited by many environmental advocates for appearing to have sided with them.  As Curtis and Romm said in 1996, “Imagine another world in which fossil-fuel use had begun a slow, steady decline; more than a third of the market for new electricity generation was supplied from renewable sources; the renewables industry had annual sales of $150 billion; and the fastest-growing new source of power was solar energy. An environmentalist’s fantasy, right? No, that’s one of two planning scenarios for three to four decades from now, developed by Royal Dutch/Shell Group, the world’s most profitable oil company, which is widely viewed as a bench mark for strategic planning.”  FULL ARTICLE read more

Daniel Fisher: Writer and communications consultant and former senior editor with Forbes magazine; 21 March 2018

Five of the world’s largest oil and gas producers have filed a motion to dismiss a climate change lawsuit against them by the cities of Oakland and San Francisco even as they prepare to deliver an unusual “tutorial” on climate science to the federal judge overseeing the case. In a 45-page filing on Tuesday, Chevron, BP, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell urged U.S. District Judge William Alsup to dismiss the lawsuit seeking billions of dollars to pay for costs associated with global warming. The oil companies argue the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit have repeatedly rejected similar lawsuits against oil companies, the auto industry and electric utilities because Congress has given authority to regulate CO2 emissions exclusively to the Environmental Protection Agency. FULL ARTICLE read more

Gaurav Sharma , CONTRIBUTOR: 18 JAN 2018

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell’s trading arm Shell Trading International made a significant move into blockchain development on Thursday (18 January) by bagging a minority stake in London, U.K.-based start-up Applied Blockchain. In the simplest of terms, a blockchain is akin to a digitally distributed ledger that can be replicated and spread across many nodes in a peer-to-peer network, thereby minimising the need for oversight and governance of a single ledger. It is being actively pursued by several energy traders among others. Along with Shell Trading International, Caliberate Partners would also be taking a minority stake in the start-up founded in 2015 in London’s Level39 Fintech Accelerator. FULL ARTICLE read more

…these are also the same waters unsuccessfully explored by Royal Dutch Shell in 2015, after which the company halted Arctic operations for the foreseeable future.

Sam Ori , Contributor: JAN 8, 2018 @ 09:58 AM

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke released the Trump Administration’s long-awaited offshore drilling proposal last week. Once enacted, the plan will replace the existing leasing schedule, which was designed by the previous administration and had been set to run through 2022. New administrations are free to scrap the hold-over plans of prior administrations, and anyone who followed the 2016 presidential campaign knew that President Trump had a dramatically different view of offshore energy development than his predecessor. FULL ARTICLE read more

Norway Faces Up to Big Oil’s Snub: Bloomberg Markets 2 Jan 2018

What 2018 May Mean For The Oil & Gas Industry: Forbes 29 Dec 2017

Great Speculations: Trefis Team: DEC 7, 2017 @ 04:22 PM

With the growing inclination towards the use of cleaner and environment-friendly sources of energy, natural gas has emerged as a preferred choice of fuel worldwide. However, due to the challenges related to the transportation and storage of gas, the demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG) has grown faster than the demand for natural gas over the last decade. As a result, natural gas producers, particularly in the U.S., have been expanding their LNG operations to capitalize on the booming demand for the commodity. Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) is one such integrated energy company that has been increasing its presence in the gas markets. In this note, we discuss how Shell’s integrated gas business will drive value for the company over in the long term. FULL ARTICLE read more

Michael Lynch: CONTRIBUTOR: 9 August 2017

“Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s chief executive drew a collective gasp with his “lower forever” comment as one recent story put it.”  Funny, in 2012 when I said at an OPEC conference that the price was likely to return to the $50-60 range, it was not even taken seriously enough for gasps:  the moderator actually thought I was joking, and an oil company CEO replied, ‘Well, you hate to call someone an idiot’ apparently unaware I’ve been called much, much worse. FULL ARTICLE WITH CHARTS read more

Is OPEC’s Output Deal A Game Changer For Royal Dutch Shell And BP?

Royston Wild: Sept 29, 2016

Investors in the fossil fuel sector have finally had cause to celebrate this week after OPEC suggested that an output freeze could finally be in the offing.

The idea had initially been tabled at the start of the year as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Venezuela and Russia got around the table. But Iran’s determination to get the pumps ramped back up to pre-sanction levels put the plan firmly on the backburner.

However, with Tehran’s reluctance to take part in a deal now apparently thawing, stock pickers have become more optimistic over the growth outlook for many of the oil industry’s major players. read more

Shell’s Growth Priority Over The Next Five Years — Deepwater

Trefis Team SEP 29, 2016 @ 08:42 AM

With the ever-growing energy needs worldwide, the conventional sources of energy are likely to exhaust soon. Having explored the majority of the onshore reserves, oil and gas producers around the globe are now moving to offshore reserves, that are primarily formations in deep waters, containing thick layers of oil and gas in permeable rock. Consequently, Deepwater drilling, often used to categorize drilling in water depths of greater than around 400 meters, has become an attractive alternative to onshore drilling. In line with this growing trend, Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) has categorized Deepwater as one of its growth priorities for the next five years. (Also Read: Shell’s Growth Priority Over The Next Five Years – Chemicals) In this note, we discuss the growth potential of the deepwater market, Shell’s positioning in this market, and its strategy going forward. read more

One Floating LNG Dream Sinks As Another Gets Ready To Float

Unfortunately for Shell it formally committed to the Prelude development in May, 2011, a time when oil was selling for around $120 a barrel, three-times the current price of around $41/bbl.

By Tim Treadgold: March 23, 2016

No-one blinked and share prices barely fluttered when a $40 billion plan by Australia’s Woodside Petroleum ngIf: ticker to develop a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) project was torpedoed earlier today.

However, the knock-on consequences of sinking the Browse project will be felt most acutely at Europe’s biggest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell ngIf: ticker .

The immediate impact on Shell is that it has a 27% interest in the Woodside-led Browse LNG project, but it is also nearing completion of the world’s biggest floating LNG barge, the $12.6 billion Prelude project. read more

Ben van Beurden, Chief Executive Officer of Royal Dutch Shell, said in Brazil on Feb. 15 that the government should allow for more foreign investment in the country’s lucrative off-shore oil fields without having to partner with beleaguered oil major Petrobras.

By Contributor: Kenneth Rapoza: 15 Feb 2016

Brazil’s government-owned oil giant, Petrobras, should cede some of its drilling rights to foreign firms, Royal Dutch Shell Oil CEO Ben van Beurden was quoted saying in Estado de Sao Paulo newspaper on Monday.

The Shell Oil man is arguing for greater private investment in Brazil’s precious off-shore oil fields in the Atlantic Ocean, rather than current rules that require 50% ownership by Petrobras. In theory, such a move would entice private oil firms to explore for more oil and keep it for themselves, rather than having to share half of it with Petrobras. That wouldn’t eliminate government royalties, of course, but it would give foreign firms like Shell the incentive to explore and develop deep water oil fields on their own. read more

By Brett Owens: Forbes.com: 6 Feb 2016

The Royal Dutch Shell plc ADR (RDS.A) and BG Group plc ADR (BRGYY) merger, which looked liked such a win-win for everyone has grown a bit complicated as the deal nears completion. The premium has shrunk, as have the benefits of the merger with prices under $90 a barrel.

However, there are still some takeaways for investors to breathe easier about. First, Shell has never cut or suspended its dividend in 40 years. That includes the late 1980s when oil was at $10. And despite a 56% drop in fourth quarter profits, the firm has reiterated it will maintain its dividend for 2016.

The firm has delayed capital expenditures and cut spending. It plans to slash another 3% of its employees this year after the merger.

The Shell BG merger increases Shell’s reserves by 25% and its output by 20%. More importantly, it makes Shell a well positioned producer of LNG – a segment that is growing internationally as oil declines. The merger takes Shell from third to the second largest public oil producer by capitalization after Exxon. read more