Posts under ‘Houston Chronicle’

Shell celebrates 40 years of deep-water innovation: CISION: 15 Oct 2018

Gazprom and Shell discuss next steps in Baltic LNG project: LNG INDUSTRY: 15 Oct 2018

Shell reaches milestone on plastics plant in Northeast, potentially a Gulf competitor: Houston Chronicle: 14 Oct 2018

Shell’s greener future is a matter of survival: The Telegraph 13 Oct 2018

Shell launching new retail fuel pilot programs in U.S.: Houston Chronicle 12 Oct 2018

Shell Makes a Comeback in the North Sea With New Gas Field Investment: OilVoice 12 Oct 2018

Exclusive: Shell seeks to sell Venezuela JV stake to France’s Maurel & Prom – sources: Reuters 12 Oct 2018

..reacting to the allegation of intimidation, Mr Bamidele Odugbesan, Media Relations Manager of Shell, denied use of force to compel the company’s host communities to sign the JIV report.

27 August 2018

The Joint Task Force (JTF) in the Niger Delta and oil major, Shell on Monday denied allegations of coercing the leadership of Aghoro 1 community in Bayelsa to sign a disputed report on oil spillage. FULL ARTICLE

Russia’s Gazprom PJSC owns the project, with Royal Dutch Shell Plc and four other investors including Germany’s Uniper SE and Wintershall AG providing half of the 9.5 billion-euro ($11 billion) in cost.

By Elena Mazneva and Anna Shiryaevskaya | Bloomberg
August 27 at 12:00 AM

A planned new natural-gas pipeline into Europe from Russia is shaking up geopolitics. Nord Stream 2, as it’s called, worries leaders in Eastern Europe, has stirred the ire of U.S. President Donald Trump and has put German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the hot seat. FULL ARTICLE read more

Photo: Michael Macor, Staff / The Chronicle

By Jordan Blum: April 13, 2018Updated: April 13, 2018 8:19am

What did you know and when did you know it? Those are the questions increasingly directed at Big Oil as concerns about global warming, rising sea levels and climate change grow. For a few years now, Exxon Mobil has faced a bombardment of allegations — which the Texas oil company denies — that it knew about climate change related to fossil fuels in the 1970s and buried the evidence. State investigations in New York and Massachusetts continue to focus on whether Exxon Mobil misled the public and the company’s investors. Now Exxon’s European counterpart, Royal Dutch Shell, is facing similar allegations that it was aware of the impact of fossil fuels on climate decades ago, but continued to produce and sell petroleum products. FULL ARTICLE read more

By Chris Tomlinson: February 9, 2018

The leaders of the world’s largest and most powerful energy companies are talking about the fight to mitigate human-caused climate change.

Some are even putting their money where their mouths are.

While some conservative political leaders still deny that the Earth is heating up due to humans burning fossil fuels and releasing greenhouse gases, the people who produce those fuels and chemicals have recognized the imperative to limit global warming to a rise of 2 degrees Celsius. read more

Jordan Blum, Houston Chronicle: Updated 7:01 am, Wednesday, January 31, 2018

BP said it made two successful discoveries in the North Sea – one of which is with fellow Big Oil giants Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron. BP said it struck oil in its Capercaillie prospect in the central North Sea east of Scotland, as well as the northwestern corner of the North Sea in the Achmelvich well, the latter of which is the partnership with Shell and Chevron. The discoveries lend optimism to a slowly rebounding offshore energy sector, especially in the North Sea that’s so critical for Europe’s oil supplies. FULL ARTICLE read more

Still, as company invests in solar firm, it plans to commission oil production vessel

Photo: John Davenport, STAFF

By Collin Eaton and Ryan Maye Handy

January 15, 2018 Updated: January 15, 2018 9:29pm

Shell Oil Co. plans to plow around $200 million into a Tennessee solar company, the latest deal that finds a major oil company investing in renewable energy as the industry prepares for a day when crude demand plateaus. A unit of Houston’s Shell Oil will purchase almost half of Silicon Ranch Corp., a Nashville company that operates solar projects around the United States, for up to $217 million, the company’s biggest investment in utility-scale solar energy yet, the company said on Monday. Shell Oil is the U.S. subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo-Dutch oil major. FULL ARTICLE read more

Steve Hill, executive vice president of Shell Energy, discusses Shell’s growth in the liquefied natural gas industry aboard Dynagas’ Lena River LNG carrier as its docked at Cheniere Energy’s Sabine Pass LNG

By Jordan Blum: December 7, 2017

SABINE PASS, La. – In 2011, Cheniere Energy was a little-known company with big ambitions when it signed an $8 billion contract that would transform the United States into an exporter of liquefied natural gas after decades of relying on foreign suppliers. Five years later, just days before the Houston company shipped its first LNG cargo, another big deal gave a jolt to nascent U.S. industry. Royal Dutch Shell bought Cheniere’s customer, BG Gas for $50 billion, a move that made Shell the world’s largest international LNG producer and marketerand allied it with this nation’s biggest LNG exporter. Shell remains Cheniere’s best customer, buying almost half the production of Cheniere’s massive Sabine Pass LNG terminal. FULL ARTICLE read more

Jordan Blum, Houston Chronicle: 27 August 2017

Royal Dutch Shell said Sunday the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey is causing the shutdown of its massive refining and petrochemical complex in Deer Park. Shell is closing one of Texas’ largest refineries, which can refine more than 315,000 barrels of crude oil a day into gasoline and other petroleum products. “The top priority of Shell Deer Park is to operate in a safe and environmentally sound manner. Due to continued inclement weather conditions from Hurricane Harvey, Shell Deer Park is conducting a controlled/planned shut down of the refinery and chemical plant,” Shell said in an email response. FULL ARTICLE read more

The departure is the latest milestone for a gigantic venture the European company sanctioned two years ago in the face of a raging oil bust that forced many of its rivals to scuttle offshore plans. As oil prices tumbled, Royal Dutch Shell spent $600 million and employed 1,500 workers in Texas and Louisiana alone to fabricate parts for the so-called Appomattox platform, the company’s largest in the Gulf, expected to start pumping oil 80 miles off Louisiana by the end of the decade. Even so, Shell says it could still wring a profit from its 125,000-ton platform with oil prices below $50 a barrel, after deep cost cutting. FULL ARTICLE read more

It’s a world of worry for oil companies: Houston Chronicle: 8 July 2017

Some oil companies have made moves to brace for a future in which oil plays a diminishing role. Many are increasing investments in the production of natural gas, the fuel of choice for generating electricity, and some are investing in renewables. BP, for example, operates a wind farm in West Texas. In June, Royal Dutch Shell announced it plans to acquire MP2 Energy…  Read More

Nigeria Delta Communities Demand Stake in Ex-Shell Oil Block: Bloomberg: 8 July 2017

A group of communities in Nigeria’s Niger River delta demanded a stake in an oil block it said it was promised when Royal Dutch Shell Plc sold its share to a local company six years ago. Read More read more

Shell sues former head of security for threatening to reveal secrets: HOUSTON CHRONICLE

The issue of confidentiality comes up most often when employees who feel wronged were former high-level executives privy to corporate secrets that they promised not to reveal…

Crockett Oaks III, a former FBI agent who led the U.S. security operations of Shell Oil Co…  Shell Oil, the U.S. subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell, last week obtained a temporary court order blocking Oaks from revealing potentially damaging information about Shell’s…

Shell switches New Zealand holdings ahead of possible divestment: REUTERS

Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) sold its stake in a New Zealand gas field while taking over the field’s operating company as part of a plan to possibly divest its holdings in the country later on, the company said Thursday.

Shell starts offloading its New Zealand assets: MARKETWATCH

WELLINGTON, New Zealand–Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) has taken a step toward an exit from its New Zealand assets with a deal to sell its 50% stake in a natural-gas field to its local venture partner, Todd Energy. read more

Shell leaves One Shell Plaza HQ after 45 years

By Sebastian Herrera: December 7, 2016

In the coming months, roughly 3,400 Shell Oil Co. employees will be moving from the oil giant’s downtown headquarters into its Energy Corridor campus as Shell looks to eventually house all of its Houston-based employees on the west side.

The move is indicative of an energy industry downturn in Houston that has led oil companies to slash thousands of jobs and consolidate office space to meditate costs.

Shell will leave its One Shell Plaza headquarters, a 50-story skyscraper, after 45 years. read more

Next year will mark the end of an era as Royal Dutch Shell largely abandons its iconic tower and consolidates workers on the west side of town in its Woodcreek complex in the Energy Corridor and the Shell Technology Center a few miles south of Woodcreek. Only Shell’s energy trading team will remain downtown.

The move – largely to cut costs in the ongoing oil bust – continues the exodus of Big Oil from downtown Houston. Exxon Mobil moved out last year when it built its massive new campus by Spring. Of Houston’s 10 largest energy employers, just Chevron and CenterPoint Energy remain downtown. read more

By David Hunn: August 26, 2016

Landmark, a technology unit of the energy services company Halliburton, is betting that it is, unveiling a cloud-computing platform last week that will allow companies to collaborate on developing software to process the massive volumes of data they collect on everything from geology to seismology to chemistry to drilling to flows of oil and gas. The idea is that easy and open access to the code on which the platform is based will lead to faster and better analysis of the data and ultimately to innovations that allow the industry to extract more oil and gas at lower costs. read more

Posted by Jordan Blum: Date: May 05, 2016

The oil and gas sector largely has itself to blame  for the financial hemorrhaging many energy companies now face, said Harry Brekelmans, Royal Dutch Shell’s projects and technology director.

Rather than just  low price of oil, redundancies, cost overruns and inefficiencies throughout the supply chain have made the industry far too inefficient during years of growth with $100 per barrel oil, Brekelmans said at at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston. read more