Oil Price Fixing
Shell Says Traders’ Antitrust Claims Not Aided By Rulings
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Shell Says Aluminum Ruling Helps Kill Oil Antitrust Claims
Law360, New York (October 12, 2016, 9:50 PM EDT) — Two Royal Dutch Shell PLC affiliates accused of market manipulation told a New York federal court Wednesday that derivative traders lack standing to assert antitrust claims, citing another judge’s recent decision nixing claims in multidistrict litigation accusing Goldman Sachs & Co. and others of manipulating aluminum prices.
The Shell companies are part of multidistrict litigation accusing various oil companies of manipulating the price of North Sea Brent crude oil and Brent crude oil futures, by engaging in fraudulent physical trades and systematically submitting information about those…
OPEC decision on daily oil output freeze to have no impact on Shell’s strategy Zoom
OPEC decision on daily oil output freeze to have no impact on Shell’s strategy
September 29, 2016
Baku-APA. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC) agreement to freeze daily oil output will not affect Royal Dutch Shell ‘s current strategy, a spokesman for one of the world’s largest oil companies told Sputnik on Thursday, APA reports quoting Sputnik.
On Wednesday, OPEC oil producing countries agreed a preliminary deal on the sidelines of an international energy forum in Algiers, Algeria. The output ceiling was set at 32.5-33 million barrels a day for the whole cartel.
Is OPEC’s Output Deal A Game Changer For Royal Dutch Shell And BP?
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.
Shell Can’t Duck Crude Manipulation Suit, Judge Told
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…
Shell Units Argue Market-Rigging Claims Lack Jurisdiction
By 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…
How Saudi Arabia Turned Its Greatest Weapon on Itself
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.
Shell calls for stronger regulation to avoid Middle East oil price distortion
Anthony 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.”
Shell calls for tougher regulation of Dubai oil benchmark
HOUSTON/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.
Big Oil Let Off Hook
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.
EU drops Shell, BP, Statoil from ethanol benchmark investigation
Reuters – 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.
Oil Firms Dropped From EU Probe Into Fuel-Price Manipulation
By Aoife White: December 7, 2015
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Crude oil sector no longer under investigation in case
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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.
OPEC ‘dead’ as oil countries go it alone on price and production
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.
Nigerian Probes Uncover $12bn Oil Fraud
In 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.
EU Said to Ramp Up Oil-Benchmarks Probe With Evidence Request
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.
Royal Dutch Shell, BP plc Oppose New European Oil Trading Regulations
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.
