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Oil Price Fixing

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

Sep 29th, 2016
by John Donovan.
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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

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Shell Can’t Duck Crude Manipulation Suit, Judge Told

Aug 25th, 2016
by John Donovan.
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By Kevin Penton

Law360, New York (August 24, 2016, 8:24 PM ET) —

Two Royal Dutch Shell PLC affiliates accused of manipulating crude market prices cannot use the Second Circuit’s recent nix of aluminum futures price-fixing claims to escape the allegations the pair face, landowner and derivatives trader plaintiffs told a New York federal court Wednesday.

The appeals court on Aug. 9 had ruled that manufacturers and buyers of aluminum products could not sue Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Glencore PLC, because the plaintiffs were not directly targeted in the alleged scheme to fix prices… read more

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Shell Units Argue Market-Rigging Claims Lack Jurisdiction

Jul 25th, 2016
by John Donovan.
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Screen Shot 2016-07-08 at 14.36.15By Cara Bayles

Law360, San Francisco (July 22, 2016, 8:48 PM ET) 

Two Royal Dutch Shell PLC affiliates on Thursday tried to escape allegations of European market manipulation from a proposed class of crude oil derivatives traders, arguing in New York federal court that U.S. courts don’t have jurisdiction over conduct by Shell’s international arm in foreign markets.

The reply in support of the affiliates’ motion to dismiss said the traders were trying to “manufacture claims and jurisdiction where neither exists” by blurring the distinction between two “sister subsidiaries” — Shell’s U.S. arm, Shell Trading US Co., or… read more

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How Saudi Arabia Turned Its Greatest Weapon on Itself

Mar 13th, 2016
by John Donovan.
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By ANDREW SCOTT COOPER: A version of this op-ed appears in print on March 13, 2016

FOR the past half-century, the world economy has been held hostage by just one country: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Vast petroleum reserves and untapped production allowed the kingdom to play an outsize role as swing producer, filling or draining the global system at will.

The 1973-74 oil embargo was the first demonstration that the House of Saud was willing to weaponize the oil markets. In October 1973, a coalition of Arab states led by Saudi Arabia abruptly halted oil shipments in retaliation for America’s support of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The price of a barrel of oil quickly quadrupled; the resulting shock to the oil-dependent economies of the West led to a sharp rise in the cost of living, mass unemployment and growing social discontent. read more

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Shell calls for stronger regulation to avoid Middle East oil price distortion

Dec 22nd, 2015
by John Donovan.
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Screen Shot 2015-11-20 at 08.55.47Anthony McAuley: December 22, 2015

Royal Dutch Shell is lobbying to reform regional oil trading after a series of price squeezes, particularly by Chinese state oil firms.

In a highly unusual move, Royal Dutch Shell has called for greater regulation of the market to improve transparency and avoid price distortion.

Now, Shell is following up its public call with behind-the-scenes efforts to gather support for change, particularly from the regional state oil firms.

“There need to be safeguards to prevent the risk of distortion, and to ensure the Dubai benchmark price mirrors true market supply and demand fundamentals,” a Shell spokesman said. “Due to some of the unique characteristics of the Dubai market, it is susceptible to and can be heavily influenced by a market participant amassing a large portion of the available three crudes deliverable in that month.” read more

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Shell calls for tougher regulation of Dubai oil benchmark

Dec 18th, 2015
by John Donovan.
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Screen Shot 2015-11-20 at 08.55.47HOUSTON/BENGALURU | BY LIZ HAMPTON AND ANKUSH SHARMA: Thu Dec 17, 2015

Royal Dutch Shell PLC on Thursday called for tougher regulation of the Dubai crude benchmark, the Middle East’s most important oil-pricing mechanism, after record trade volumes skewed prices.

Industry players have been calling on pricing agency Platts to review its Dubai assessment, saying record trading by Chinese state companies in August during the Market-on-Close process pushed liquidity to the limit and disrupted Dubai’s relationship with other global benchmarks. The Dubai marker sets the prices for more than 12 million barrels per day of Middle Eastern and Russian crude exports to Asia. read more

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Big Oil Let Off Hook

Dec 8th, 2015
by John Donovan.
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Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc and Statoil ASA no longer face an European Union investigation into potential manipulation of fuel benchmarks, the regulator indicated on Monday. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg

By Aoife White: Stephanie Bodoni: Peter Levring and Gaspard Sebag: Bloomberg.com: 7 December 2015

  • EU’s Vestager shows willingness to dump cases going nowhere
  • Commission retreats from high-profile oil investigation

Days after dropping a high-profile probe into some of Wall Street’s top banks, the European Commission quietly sounded the retreat from an antitrust case that’s embroiled some of the world’s biggest oil producers since 2013. read more

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EU drops Shell, BP, Statoil from ethanol benchmark investigation

Dec 7th, 2015
by John Donovan.
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Screen Shot 2015-12-07 at 20.10.17Reuters – Mon, 7 Dec 2015 17:58 GMT

By Philip Blenkinsop and Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS, Dec 7 (Reuters) – EU antitrust regulators have dropped Shell, BP, and Statoil from an investigation into suspected rigging of ethanol benchmarks, focusing instead on three producers of the biofuel.

The European Commission said on Monday it had opened a formal antitrust investigation into the actions of Spanish company Abengoa SA, Belgium’s Alcogroup SA and Lantmännen ek för of Sweden.

In April, EU antitrust regulators raided several bioenthanol companies and at the same time stepped up a two-year investigation into biofuel price benchmarks. In 2013, it searched the offices of BP, Shell and Statoil too. read more

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Oil Firms Dropped From EU Probe Into Fuel-Price Manipulation

Dec 7th, 2015
by John Donovan.
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By Aoife White: December 7, 2015

  • Crude oil sector no longer under investigation in case

  • EU steps up case focusing on ethanol benchmarks rigging

Oil companies, including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc and Statoil ASA, no longer face a European Union investigation into potential manipulation of crude oil benchmarks.

The European Commission “is currently not investigating further behaviors in price benchmarks for the crude oil sector,” Ricardo Cardoso, a spokesman for regulator said in an e-mail. He said the EU’s current probe focuses “on price benchmarks for the ethanol sector.”

Raids on Shell, BP, Statoil and price publisher Platts in May 2013 over suspected benchmark-rigging echoed probes into banks for trying to fix the London Interbank Offered Rate and foreign exchange markets. EU antitrust regulators levied 1.7 billion euros ($1.8 billion) in fines later that year over Libor manipulation. read more

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OPEC ‘dead’ as oil countries go it alone on price and production

Dec 7th, 2015
by John Donovan.
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December 7, 2015

OPEC has abandoned all pretence of acting as a cartel. It’s now every member for itself.

At a chaotic meeting Friday in Vienna that was expected to last four hours but extended to nearly seven, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries tossed aside the idea of limiting production to control prices. Instead, it went all in for the one-year-old Saudi Arabia-led policy of pumping, pumping, pumping until rivals – external, such as Russian and US shale drillers, as well as internal – are squeezed out of market share. read more

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

Nigerian Probes Uncover $12bn Oil Fraud

Nov 10th, 2015
by John Donovan.
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Screen Shot 2015-11-10 at 17.18.45In 2012, the Senate investigated the contentious Malabu Oil Field transaction. The Upper House re-opened investigation into an allegation of $1.1 billion round-tripping involving the federal government and two international oil companies – Shell and Eni (Agip) – over the sale of a contentious OPL 245 oil block.

BY EDEGBE ODEMWINGIE AND BODE GBADEBO: Nov 10, 2015 

The National Assembly has conducted 18 legislative probes into sundry cases of crude theft, pipeline vandalisation, misappropriation, Joint Venture agreements, missing crude revenue in Nigeria’s corruption-tainted oil and gas sector from 1999-2014.

According to the outcomes of the selected major probes in the oil sector, about $15bn was lost to fraud while a whopping $6.8bn subsidy was unaccounted for. The period also witnessed the alleged missing N500bn SURE-P claims for oil subsidy for a period of time. read more

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EU Said to Ramp Up Oil-Benchmarks Probe With Evidence Request

Sep 18th, 2015
by John Donovan.
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Regulators may be moving toward sending antitrust complaint

Probe began two years ago with raids on BP, Shell and Statoil

By Gaspard Sebag and Javier Blas: BLOOMBERG.COM: 17 Sept 2015

Major oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and price publisher Platts were told by regulators to redact business secrets from documents obtained during antitrust raids in a sign the European Union may be moving ahead with a two-year-old probe, according to four people familiar with the investigation.

The redaction request could be a precursor to the European Commission sending a formal complaint, or statement of objections, to some of the firms, said the people who asked not to be named because the investigation into fuel-benchmark rigging isn’t public. read more

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Royal Dutch Shell, BP plc Oppose New European Oil Trading Regulations

May 21st, 2015
by John Donovan.
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By: MICHEAL KAUFMAN: Published: May 21, 2015 

Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR) (NYSE:RDS.A) has sided with oil rival BP plc (ADR) (NYSE:BP) in calling on European regulators to step back from enforcing tougher new capital requirements and increased disclosure measures pertaining to oil trading. The Markets in Financial Instruments Directive or Mifid II regulations are being introduced by the European authorities, which will be applied in 2017. The regulations include capital requirement directive (CRD IV) the purpose of which is to mitigate systemic risks in the commodity, fixed income and equity markets. read more

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Oil Price Fixing

May 21st, 2015
by John Donovan.
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Screen Shot 2015-05-21 at 20.23.44FROM A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR

Campaigns by or on behalf of Shell

It’s interesting that we have campaigns (one fronted by BP, but backed by Shell, and the other fronted by Shell’s lawyers, de Brauw) which will have the effect of avoiding regulation of oil trading activities, and will also decriminalise fraud for companies in Holland.

Both have been highlighted on your site in recent weeks.

Given the issues surrounding the banks’ manipulation of Libor and Forex, and the complaints by Total to the EU that Platt’s oil prices are not representative of the market, both of these proposals should be given very close scrutiny – the oil companies concerned cannot be trusted (any more than the banks) to exercise control of the market for their primary product. read more

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Shell joins BP in calls against excessive oil trading regulation

May 21st, 2015
by John Donovan.
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Screen Shot 2015-03-24 at 16.05.44May 20 2015 | By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

Shell joins BP in calls against excessive oil trading regulation

  • Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) joins BP in calling on European regulators to refrain from imposing stricter capital requirements and greater disclosure measures on oil trading.
  • Regulators would achieve undesired effects if companies and trading houses were forced to follow stricter capital requirement rules or be limited in their ability to trade derivatives, Shell VP for trading Mike Muller says, seconding recent statements from BP trading division chief Paul Reed.
  • Both BP and Shell trading divisions employ hundreds of people and trade millions of barrels of oil and refined products every day, and Shell’s trading business will become even bigger when it finalizes its acquisition of BG Group.
    • read more

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    US CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT AGAINST SHELL AND OTHERS FOR OIL PRICE FIXING

    Apr 29th, 2015
    by John Donovan.
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    (NOW UPDATED WITH 98 PAGE DOCUMENT FILED 24 APRIL 2015 WITH THE U.S. COURTS)

    A 194 page Complaint filed in the US Courts two months ago confirms that investigations are underway by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, the EU Commission and the UK Serious Fraud Office into an alleged oil price-fixing conspiracy involving Shell, BP, Statoil and others. 

    The plaintiffs provide what they describe as “concrete evidence” within the Complaint of oil price manipulation.

    A link to the entire 194 page document is provided.

    Extracts from 194 page Court document dated 27 Feb 2015

    SECOND AMENDED CONSOLIDATED CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT FILED 27 FEBRUARY 2015

    Case 1:13-md-02475-ALC Document 308 Filed 02/27/15

    UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK

    I. NATURE OF THE ACTION

    1. This action arises from manipulations of North Sea Brent Crude Oil Market  (defined herein) by Defendants Shell International Trading and Shipping Company Limited (“STASCO”), Shell Trading US Company, BP pic (“BP”), BP America, Inc., BP Corporation North America Inc., Statoil ASA (“Statoil”), Statoil US Holdings Inc. (“Statoil US”), Morgan Stanley Capital Group, Inc. (“MSCGI”), Trafigura Beheer B.V., Trafigura AG, Phibro Trading LLC (“Phibro”), Phibro Commodities Limited, Vitol, S.A. (“Vitol”), Vitol, Inc., Hess Energy Trading Company, LLC (“HETCO”), Mercuria Energy Trading S.A., Mercuria Energy Trading, Inc., (collectively, “Defendants”) since at least 2002 through the present (the “Class Period”). read more

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