AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell is not ruling out moving its headquarters from the Netherlands to Britain, the oil company’s chief executive Ben van Beurden said in a Dutch newspaper interview published on Saturday.

Anglo-Dutch consumer products giant Unilever said last month it plans to ditch its dual Anglo-Dutch legal structure and create a single entity in Britain.

Van Beurden did not explicitly say Shell wants to move its headquarters, het Financieele Dagblad said.

“You always need to keep thinking,” Shell’s Van Beurden told the newspaper. “Nothing is permanent and of course we will look at the business climate. But moving your headquarters is not a trivial measure. You cannot think too lightly about that.” read more

Reuters: Reporting by Matthew Green in London, Valerie Volcovici in Washington and Emma Farge in Geneva; Editing by Katy Daigle and Lisa Shumaker: JULY 3, 2020

LONDON/WASHINGTON/GENEVA (Reuters) – Climate change may be having its day in court.

With the slow pace of international climate negotiations, lawyers from Switzerland to San Francisco are increasingly filing lawsuits demanding action.

And they are getting creative — using new legal arguments to challenge companies and governments before a judge. read more

Reuters: 2 July 2020

MILAN (Reuters) – Oil majors Eni <ENI.MI> and Royal Dutch Shell <RDSa.L> were aware that most of the money they spent to buy a Nigerian oilfield in 2011 would go in corrupt payments to politicians and officials, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

“They were kickbacks. And Eni and Shell knew it,” Sergio Spadaro told judges in Milan, summing up the prosecutors’ case in what is one of the industry’s largest corruption scandals ever.

Italy’s Eni and Shell, who deny any wrongdoing, bought the OPL 245 offshore field in 2011 for about $1.3 billion from Malabu, a company owned by former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete. read more

LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell said on Tuesday it would write off assets worth up to $22 billion after the coronavirus crisis knocked oil and gas demand and weakened the energy price outlook.

The Anglo-Dutch company has already been preparing a major overhaul after CEO Ben van Beurden laid out plans in April to reduce Shell’s greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050.

Global travel restrictions to prevent the virus spreading affected more than 4 billion people at one point, taking cars off the roads and grounding planes, driving down fuel demand. read more

Shell says open to new LNG projects in Russia including with Novatek – TASS

MOSCOW, June 29 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell is open to taking part in new liquefied natural gas projects in Russia including with private gas firm Novatek, the TASS news agency cited Shell Russia’s chairman Cederic Cremers as saying on Monday.

Reporting by Anton Kolodyazhnyy; writing by Tom Balmforth; editing by Katya Golubkova

SOURCE

Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Editing by Marguerita Choy: JUNE 25, 2020

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The attorney general for the District of Columbia on Thursday filed a lawsuit against Exxon Mobil Corp , BP Plc, Chevron Corp, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc for “systematically and intentionally misleading” consumers about the role their products play in causing climate change, the latest action by a U.S. attorney general against the oil and gas industry.

The lawsuit brought by Attorney General Karl Racine comes a day after Minnesota AG Keith Ellison filed a lawsuit against the American Petroleum Institute, Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries for violating state laws barring consumer fraud, deceptive trade practices and false advertising. read more

“Over the coming months we will go through a comprehensive review of the company. Where appropriate we will redesign our organization to adapt to a different future…”

LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell will announce a major restructuring by the end of the year as the energy company prepares to accelerate its shift towards low-carbon, CEO Ben van Beurden told employees according to a company source.

In a video interview published on Shell’s internal website, van Beurden said that the restructuring would involve job cuts as part of broad cost reductions, although no figures have been decided yet, according to sources who saw the interview. read more

ABUJA, June 23 (Reuters) – Britain’s Supreme Court heard an appeal on Tuesday from Nigerian farmers and fishermen seeking to pursue claims against oil major Royal Dutch Shell over spills in the Niger Delta.

The appeal re-opens the possibility of British multinationals being held liable at home for their subsidiaries’ actions abroad. It comes after a setback in 2018 when a London court ruled that the claims could not be pursued in England.

A judgement is expected later this year or in early 2021, a court spokeswoman said. read more

LONDON — Investors managing £1.8 trillion ($2.2 trillion) in assets are widening a campaign pressing oil majors to better reflect climate risks in their accounting, and will soon target other businesses with heavy fossil fuel exposure, the group said on Monday.

The investors believe their campaign is working, noting the “hugely important” news of BP joining other oil majors in lowering the value of its assets amid a global transition to cleaner energy, said Natasha Landell-Mills, head of stewardship at asset manager Sarasin & Partners. read more

Dutch gas production at Groningen set to drop to 9.3 bcm next year

AMSTERDAM, June 19 (Reuters) – Gas production at the vast Groningen field in the Netherlands is set to drop to 9.3 billion cubic metres (bcm) in the year through October 2021, the Dutch gas sector regulator said on Friday.

Production at the field, operated by a joint venture of Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil, is capped at 11.8 bcm for the year ending October 2020, although the government has said that level will probably not be reached. read more

Shadia Nasralla and Ron Bousso: JUNE 8, 2020

LONDON (Reuters) – BP will cut about 15% of its workforce in response to the coronavirus crisis and as part of Chief Executive Bernard Looney’s plan to shift the oil and gas major to renewable energy, it said on Monday.

Looney told employees in a global online call that the London-based company will cut 10,000 jobs from the current 70,100.

“We will now begin a process that will see close to 10,000 people leaving BP – most by the end of this year,” Looney said in a statement.

Reuters had earlier reported the planned job cuts, citing three company sources. read more

Shell plastics plant Trump touted faces oversupply risks: Energy institute report

04 Jun 2020 12:16PM (Updated: 04 Jun 2020 02:58PM)

WASHINGTON: A massive Pennsylvania plastics project that President Donald Trump touted during a visit last year faces risks of oversupply and a low price outlook for the materials, a report by an institute that examines energy issues said on Thursday.

The Pennsylvania Petrochemical Complex plant in Beaver County, owned by Shell, has been promoted by some as an economic savior in a region still suffering from the demise of steel industry in the 1980s. read more

Shell weighs sale of $2 billion-plus stake in Queensland LNG facilities

JUNE 3, 2020

MELBOURNE/SYDNEY (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) is considering raising more than $2 billion from the sale of a stake in the common facilities at its Queensland Curtis LNG plant in Australia, according to a sale flyer reviewed by Reuters.

“Royal Dutch Shell plc is considering a sale of a 26.25% interest in the Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG) Common Facilities – a multibillion dollar investment opportunity,” the sale flyer said. read more

UPDATE 1-U.S. senators weigh additional sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2

WASHINGTON/FRANKFURT/MOSCOW, May 28 (Reuters) – Two U.S. senators are considering drafting further sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline if Moscow goes ahead and finishes laying pipes, in another blow to a project which has already faced delays.

U.S. sanctions legislation originally sponsored by Senators Ted Cruz, a Republican, and Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat, in December halted work by Swiss-Dutch company Allseas on the pipeline that aims to boost Russia’s gas exports under the Baltic Sea to Germany. read more

LONDON — An English court threw out a $1.1 billion case Nigeria had brought against Royal Dutch Shell and Eni related to a dispute over the OPL 245 oilfield, a court document showed on Friday, while a related trial in Italy continues.

The Nigerian government filed the case in 2018 at a commercial court in London alleging payments made by the companies to get the OPL 245 oilfield license in 2011 were used for kickbacks and bribes.

Justice Butcher said in his ruling seen by Reuters that the High Court “must decline jurisdiction over the action against” Shell and the other defendants. read more

BASRA, Iraq, May 21 (Reuters) – Shell has evacuated its foreign staff, numbering around 60, from Iraq’s Basra Gas Company and flew them out of Iraq on Wednesday, two Basra Gas Company executives told Reuters.

The staff were evacuated for security reasons after workers who had been laid off from work staged a protest in the Basra Gas Company headquarters and close to another company compound, two officials said.

Basrah Gas Company is a joint venture between state-owned South Gas Company, Shell and Mitsubishi. read more