Posts under ‘President Trump’

Ernest Sheyder and Valerie Volcovici

HOUSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed opening up nearly all of America’s offshore waters to oil and gas drilling, but the industry says it is mainly interested in one part of it, now cordoned off by the Pentagon: the eastern Gulf of Mexico. “The eastern Gulf of Mexico could be very attractive to industry because of the proximity to existing infrastructure in the central and western Gulf of Mexico,” the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents the offshore oil and gas industry, said in a statement. FULL ARTICLE read more

Oil exploration in U.S. Arctic waters got underway this week with the spudding of a new oil well from the man-made Spy Island in the Beaufort Sea. Eni began drilling the new well off the north coast of Alaska, becoming the first company to do so since 2015.The well is expected to be over six miles (10 kilometers) long, and the project could result in oil production levels of 20,000 barrels a day. Eni is working with Royal Dutch Shell and plans to drill two exploration wells plus two potential sidetrack wells over the next two years. FULL ARTICLE read more

DECEMBER 27, 2017

HOUSTON (Reuters) – Italian oil producer Eni this week began drilling a new well in U.S. waters off the north coast of Alaska, becoming the first company to do so since 2015, federal regulators said on Wednesday.

The oil and gas firm is working from an artificial island in the Beaufort Sea about three miles off Oliktok Point in the Arctic Ocean. The well is expected to run more than 6 miles (10 km) long.

The project could result in 20,000 barrels a day of oil production, according to regulator U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE), which said it sent employees to the site to ensure compliance with federal regulations and safety standards. read more

Alan Tovey, industry editor: 27 DECEMBER 2017 • 12:03PM

Two of Britain’s biggest companies have warned that tax reforms in the US will result in a multi-billion pound hit to their earnings.

Barclays and Shell used the first day of trading since the festive break to signal the likely impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which was signed into law in the US on Dec 22, as UK markets were shutting for the Christmas break.

The measure, enacted by President Donald Trump, will result in corporate tax rates falling from 35pc to 21pc, a move that the two FTSE 100 companies said they expected to be favourable in the long-term. read more

Two of Britain’s largest companies have warned that they will have to take nearly £2 billion in combined charges after the US government pushed through a radical overhaul that slashed tax rates for companies doing business in America. Royal Dutch Shell said in a statement to the stock market that the tax cut would lead it to take a hit to its earnings of between $2 billion and $2.5 billion. FULL ARTICLE

Martin Arnold in London and Ralph Atkins in Zurich

Shell announced on Wednesday that it expected to take a $2bn-$2.5bn charge against the value of its “deferred tax assets” in response to a sweeping overhaul of the US tax system that was signed into law by Mr Trump last week. FULL FT ARTICLE

The group said it will provide details of the impact of the new US tax changes in its full-year results in February read more

Tristan R. Brown: 18 Dec 2017

Summary

By Chris Tomlinson: November 30, 2017

Major European oil companies are making major efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change. American majors are dragging their behinds.

Royal Dutch Shell pledged Tuesday to slash carbon emission by 50 percent and boost investment in clean, renewable energy. CEO Ben van Beurden promised to spend at least $2 billion on on wind power, biofuels and electric cars, about the same amount it will spend on shale oil.

“It is making sure that the products within society have an overall lower carbon footprint,” Beurden told investors, according to the Guardian newspaper. “That is the long-term way of making sure our business remains a relevant business in the face of the energy transition.” read more

By Elizabeth Harball, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage – November 28, 2017

The federal government has given an Italian company the go-ahead to explore for oil in Arctic waters this winter.

It’s the first oil exploration in Arctic federal waters since Shell abandoned its campaign in 2015.

The company, Eni, aims to begin drilling in December. It will operate from an existing man-made gravel island called Spy Island. Spy Island is about three miles offshore, in state waters west of Prudhoe Bay.

The prospect is about four miles away from the island, so Eni plans to use extended-reach drilling. According to the company, it will be be the longest extended-reach well in Alaska. read more

Mark Dixon discussed the hazards of having an ethane cracker plant close to Pittsburgh during a talk in the William Pitt Union Assembly Room Wednesday evening. (Photo by Issi Glatts | Staff Photographer)

Remy Samuels: Staff Writer: November 16, 2017

When Mark Dixon found out Shell Oil Company planned to build a petrochemical plant in nearby Beaver County, he immediately thought of the pollution and environmental devastation that would soon take place there. “It really pissed me off,” Dixon said. FULL ARTICLE read more

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell will participate in Brazil’s deepwater oilfield auction on Friday and is confident it can pump oil from the fields on offer for less than $40 a barrel, a top Shell executive said. Brazil will hold its first auction in four years for its pre-salt oilfields on Friday. The eight deepwater blocks on offer hold billions of barrels in reserves, and for the first time, Brazil will allow foreign oil firms to operate the fields in the region. Shell believes it could pump oil from the pre-salt fields below the company’s target breakeven cost of $40 per barrel, Wael Sawan, Executive Vice President for Shell’s deepwater division, told Reuters. The high quality of the reserves and the prolific output volume that the pre-salt wells can produce make them an attractive proposition, he said. FULL ARTICLE read more

By Sophie Yeo September 12 at 12:01 AM

More than 1,200 global businesses, including U.S. companies such as Disney, Shell and General Motors, are moving to embrace a carbon price — even if President Trump isn’t, according to a new report by a Washington climate think tank. While the president has suggested that tackling climate change will undermine the economy and hamstring  businesses, chief executives have been busy voluntarily putting a price on their own carbon dioxide emissions. Pricing carbon, or assigning a dollar value per ton of carbon dioxide emissions, creates a financial incentive for companies to reduce emissions. The report published on Tuesday by the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions is the first major study of corporate carbon pricing since Trump’s election. FULL ARTICLE read more

By Steve Coll: 11 August 2017

The rule, which was mandated by a law co-sponsored by former Republican Senator Richard Lugar, of Indiana, and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, of Maryland, was designed to combat bribery and corruption, especially in poor countries governed by kleptocrats. Thirty other countries, including Canada and the members of the European Union, had already adopted similar requirements. Yet the American Petroleum Institute and companies such as ExxonMobil, at the time when Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was still its C.E.O., had lobbied against the rule. They said that it was costly to implement and gave unfair advantage to overseas competitors to which it did not apply. When Trump took power, the lobbyists got their way. read more

How Europe’s Monster Gas Field Turned Into a Monster Headache: Bloomberg: 13 July 2017

Judge to consider demands to close Europe’s largest gas field; Groningen has contributed almost 300 billion euros to budget; What was once a blessing is now an expensive curse; Officials are also considering criminal charges against NAM executives READ MORE

Corrib gas timeline: 20 years of protests and controversy: The Irish Times: 13 July 2017

June 2005 – High Court jails five men who became known as the “Rossport Five” for contempt of court over their continued protests over the pipeline route. READ MORE

Trump administration approves Eni plan to drill offshore Alaska: Reuters: 13 July 2017

Royal Dutch Shell Plc quit its exploration quest offshore Alaska in 2015 after a ship it had leased suffered a gash in mostly uncharted waters… READ MORE read more