Shell faces shareholder revolt over their laughably ‘inadequate’ climate change goals

Posted by John Donovan: 20 May 2023

Shell is bracing itself for an agonizing annual meeting next week, where it will attempt to juggle the demands for profits with the bothersome calls to address the climate crisis more forcefully.

Shell, that paragon of environmental stewardship, has drawn criticism for its outrageous earnings “bonanza” resulting from the skyrocketing oil and gas prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.  read more

Posted by John Donovan:

19 May 2023

Shell, the paragon of corporate responsibility, finds itself in the midst of an investor rebellion because of baseless claims that it is scaling back its bold plans to achieve net zero targets.

The noble Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), Britain’s preeminent private pension fund, has vowed to vote against the re-election of the illustrious Sir Andrew Mackenzie as chairman. Why, you may ask? Well, apparently the audacious accusation is that Shell is not doing enough to reduce its carbon footprint. How dare they besmirch Shell’s good name? read more

Posted by John Donovan 18 MAY 2023

Shell’s ‘tense’ AGM where obscene profits clash with the pesky climate

Prepare for the showdown of the century! Shell, the notorious oil giant known for its greed and pollution, is about to face a shareholder meeting that promises to be nothing short of acrimonious. It seems that Shell is struggling to strike a delicate balance between making obscene profits from oil and gas and dealing with a pesky minority who believe they should actually do something about climate change. How dare they? read more

Posted by John Donovan on 16 May 2023, authored partly in collaboration with a whistleblower source. 

Shell’s Troubling Links with Iran Exposed

Explosive leaked documents uncover Shell’s alarming collaboration with an Iranian regime-connected company through its Iraq joint venture, casting a shadow on the oil giant’s ethical standing.

The damning evidence reveals that Shell’s joint venture in Iraq inked a deal that directly benefits a company closely tied to the Iranian regime, according to documents obtained by Unearthed. read more

By John Donovan

Shell, the oil giant partly responsible for environmental destruction and climate change, has shamelessly announced a profit of nearly £8 billion for the first quarter of the year, revealing its insatiable greed for profits. This further highlights the company’s utter disregard for the cost-of-living crisis that their exorbitant fuel prices have caused. Even with oil prices down from their peaks touched after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Shell still made money at an obscene rate, almost £1,000 a second or £58,000 per minute. read more

FORTUNE

Ukraine calls on energy giant Shell to tap its massive ‘blood money’ profits from Russia’s invasion and donate $1 billion to rebuild the country

BY TRISTAN BOVE April 19, 2023 at 6:15 PM GMT+1

Oil and gas companies reported some of their highest annual profits in history earlier this year, cashing in on gas prices that soared because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But critics say energy giants are indirectly prolonging the war with their record revenues, with some Ukrainian officials even calling for a redistribution of profits to make things right. read more

The Washington Post

Breaking up with Russia is hard for many Western firms, despite war

By Robyn Dixon: April 15, 2023 at 7:21 a.m. EDT RIGA, Latvia — Only a small percentage of the hundreds of companies that promised to leave Russia after its invasion of Ukraine have exited, according to several groups keeping a scorecard — and for those that dawdled, departing has only become more expensive and complicated.

But leaving can be complex. Four days after the invasion, Shell announced it was leaving Russia and later wrote off its nearly 27.5 percent stake in the Sakhalin-2 LNG facility in the Far East at $1.6 billion. This month, an unconfirmed Russian newspaper report suddenly surfaced that Putin had given permission for the company to repatriate $1.2 billion from the sale of its stake in Russia’s Novatek. Shell had no comment. read more

REUTERS

Russia’s Novatek to acquire Shell’s stake in Sakhalin-2 for $1.16 bln

April 12, 202310:28 AM GMT+1

MOSCOW, April 12 (Reuters) – Russia’s government has approved the sale of Shell’s (SHEL.L) former 27.5% stake in the Sakhalin-2 energy project to Russian energy firm Novatek (NVTK.MM) for 94.8 billion roubles ($1.16 billion), a government order showed on Wednesday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin gave his consent for the transfer of the required funds to Shell, Russian daily Kommersant reported last week. read more

Ruble Tumbles to 12-Month Low as Kremlin Greenlights Shell Sale

The Moscow Times: Friday 7 April 2023

After months of relative stability, the Russian ruble continued to weaken rapidly against major currencies on Friday, a trend that analysts say has been spurred by increased imports and a surge in foreign capital outflows.

President Vladimir Putin’s recent approval of a deal that permits British energy giant Shell to offload its stake in the Sakhalin-2 oil pipeline project in Russia’s Far East has added to the mix of forces pulling down on the ruble. read more

OILPRICE.COM

Putin Approves $1.2 Billion Payment To Shell For Sakhalin-2 Exit

By Tsvetana Paraskova – Apr 04, 2023, 4:00 AM CDT

Vladimir Putin has approved a request by Novatek to allow Shell to receive $1.2 billion (94.8 billion rubles) from the Russian gas producer for its 27.5% stake in the Sakhalin-2 LNG project, Russian daily Kommersant reported on Tuesday, quoting sources with knowledge of the matter.

Last year, a decree from Putin stipulated that a newly set up state Russian company would take over the rights and obligations of Sakhalin Energy Investment Co., the joint venture running the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project. read more

NL TIMES

Shell: Gas field in Groningen must be completely closed this year, in light of earthquakes

SUNDAY, 26 MARCH 2023 

The gas field in Groningen must be completely closed this year, said the CEO of Shell Netherlands, Marjan van Loon. Currently, the gas field is still supplying minimal amounts of gas to keep the wells usable, but she doesn’t think that’s necessary. “It can and must be done, so the field has to be closed,” Van Loon said on the TV program WNL Op Zondag. read more

REUTERS

Shell injects $1.5 bln into UK retail power business to help it weather volatility

Reuters: Ron Bousso: Dec 08, 2022

LONDON — Shell has injected nearly $1.5 billion into its British energy retail business this year to help it weather huge volatility in power prices that caused the collapse of several rival UK power utilities, Shell Energy said in a filing on Thursday.

Britain’s power utilities have been rocked by huge fluctuations in energy prices since the end of 2021 due to a shortage in natural gas supplies, which was exacerbated after Russia sharply reduced supplies to Europe following its invasion of Ukraine in February.

Shell Energy’s operating loss rose to 102.4 million pounds in 2021 from 83.6 million pounds a year earlier, according to the company’s financial results, released on Thursday.

The loss was “principally driven by market conditions. In particular, the unprecedented rise in energy prices in the latter part of 2021 adversely impacted financial performance, including increased costs as a result of supplier failures in the market and the inability to pass on higher energy costs,” according to the results filing. read more

Shell CEO Confident on Long-Term LNG Demand

Pietro Pitts: Mon, November 7, 2022 

Shell Plc remains confident on the long-term outlook for LNG demand, especially in Europe, despite recent supply constraints, the company’s CEO Ben van Beurden and CFO Sinead Gorman concurred during a virtual webcast with various media outlets.

Shell’s LNG trading and optimization was “impacted by a combination of seasonality and supply constraints, where the business is geared towards supplying the northern hemisphere during the winter,” the company revealed in its third-quarter results.

Van Beurden continues to see LNG as a long-term growth segment with typical growth of 4% per annum and thinks the figure could be higher given higher energy consumption in Europe. In parallel with higher energy demand, the company has boosted its positioning in LNG in projects in Qatar from the North Field South and North Field East developments to Mexico, the executive said. read more

AFP

Europe faces long-term pain from energy crisis: Shell CEO

23 Oct 2022

Doha (AFP) – Europe faces painful “industrial rationalisation” due to its energy crisis that risks political trouble, the head of Shell warned Sunday, as the oil giant joined a natural gas project in Qatar.

Shell chief executive Ben van Beurden agreed a deal for a 9.3 percent stake in Qatar Energy’s North Field South project, that will play a major role in the Gulf state’s effort to increase liquefied natural gas (LNG) production by 50 percent in the next five years.

At the signing ceremony in Doha, van Beurden said European industry face taking a major hit from the energy crisis, worsened by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Europe has reduced consumption “quite effectively, quite significantly” following the loss of 120 million tonnes of Russian gas a year, van Beurden said, but “a lot of this reduction is achieved by switching off industry”.

Europe has desperately searched for quick alternatives to Russian gas, but van Beurden said Europe would need large amounts of LNG for decades. read more

The Telegraph

For Western energy giants, escaping Russia has become the longest goodbye

Not long ago oil and gas companies were scrambling to get into Russia, rather than out

By Rachel Millard: 25 September 2022 • 10:00am

Shell has had ties to Russia since 1912 after buying the Rothschild family’s interests there. More recently, its partnership with Russia’s state gas giant Gazprom has helped it access vast gas reserves in Russia’s far east.

It, too, hung on even after having to cede control of the $22bn [£19bn] Sakhalin-2 gas facility to Russia in 2006 following months of Kremlin pressure.

Shell’s boss, Ben van Beurden, met Putin in April 2014, shortly after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, to tell him they wanted to expand the project. Equinor, meanwhile, entered Russia in the 1990s and ten years ago struck a major exploration deal with Rosneft as the two Arctic powers forged closer ties.

By the start of the war, foreign companies covered about 11pc of Russia’s oil and gas production, according to James Henderson, at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. BP, TotalEnergies, Wintershall Dea, Shell and India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation were the largest. read more

Bloomberg

Shell Walks Away From Major Russian LNG Project With Nothing

By Will Mathis: 1 September 2022 at 17:30 BST

Shell Plc will walk away from Russia’s Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas project with nothing after President Vladimir Putin transferred the major facility to a new operating company.

The London-based firm’s decision is the latest indication that Putin won’t allow international energy companies to realize big financial gains as they exit Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.

Shell had already written off the $1.6 billion value of its 27.5% stake in Sakhalin-2 earlier this year. T read more