Posts under ‘United States’

Andy Sheehan: March 18, 2020 at 3:59 pm

MONACA, Pa. (KDKA) – Union officials say Shell is temporarily shutting down construction at the Beaver County cracker plant after workers raised concerns related to the potential spread of coronavirus.

On Wednesday, Beaver County Commissioners called on Shell to shut down construction at the multi-billion-dollar cracker plant. Workers had complained of crowded buses and unsanitary conditions.

Workers at the construction site have been reporting a lack of progress on a laundry list of concerns related to the potential spread of COVID-19. read more

By Andy Sheehan March 16, 2020 at 5:38 pm

BEAVER COUNTY (KDKA) — Over the last few days, KDKA has received questions about the Shell Cracker plant that is under construction in Beaver County.

The coronavirus has not slowed construction at the multibillion-dollar cracker plant as thousands of workers continue to speed the project towards completion.

But those same workers say the site is riddled with unsanitary conditions and standard social distancing protocols are being ignored.

In more than a dozen emails to KDKA, workers raised concerns about being transported to the site on crowded buses and called daily to mandatory mass meetings. read more

By Erwin Seba and Gary McWilliams

HOUSTON, March 15 (Reuters) – Major energy companies in the United States imposed work-from-home rules for office staff and began health checks for remote or critical workers as coronavirus spread across the United States and threatened an industry reeling by falling demand and profits.

BP, Exxon Mobil, Kinder Morgan, Motiva Enterprises and Royal Dutch Shell told non-essential staff to work from home starting Monday, workers and officials said. Shell and Chevron have begun routine health checks of workers and visitors at some key U.S. facilities, spokesmen said. read more

HOUSTON (Reuters) – A catalytic reformer was shut on Sunday night at Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s (RDSa.L) 211,270-barrel-per-day (bpd) refinery in Convent, Louisiana, after a brief fire, said sources familiar with plant operations.

The reformer has the capacity to process 40,000 bpd of feedstock, according to Refinitiv Eikon.

Shell spokesman Ray Fisher said the fire was quickly extinguished and there were no injuries.

Fisher also said Shell is investigating the cause of the fire.

He declined to discuss the status of individual units at the refinery, but said, “We will bring our units back on line only when it is safe to do so.” read more

At a time when the oil industry is gripped by fears that demand for petrol will collapse in an era of electric vehicles, many hydrocarbon producers are betting on petrochemicals — and in particular, plastics — to fill the gap.

Michael Pooler in Paris: 12 Feb 2020

Along the banks of the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, giant cranes whir overhead as thousands of construction workers toil away at what will be one of the largest plastic factories in the world.

The multibillion dollar Royal Dutch Shell plant, on the site of an old zinc smelter in the American rust-belt, is the biggest investment in the state since the second world war…

At a time when the oil industry is gripped by fears that demand for petrol will collapse in an era of electric vehicles, many hydrocarbon producers are betting on petrochemicals — and in particular, plastics — to fill the gap. But doubts are emerging about the wisdom of a huge expansion in capacity that will leave the world awash in products that can take hundreds of years to decay. read more

MARIA DINZEO: FEB 5, 2020

(CN) – The Ninth Circuit waded into a thorny jurisdictional dispute Wednesday over whether federal or state law governs a spate of city and county lawsuits against oil and gas giants like BP and Chevron.

In 2017, Oakland and San Francisco filed twin lawsuits demanding billions of dollars from the big oil and gas companies to abate the public nuisance of global warming, caused by an alleged 50-year disinformation campaign designed to deny and discredit climate change science. read more

Benjamin Storrow, E&E News reporter Climatewire: Tuesday, January 21, 2020

A recent study identified 88 petrochemical projects along the Gulf Coast that are either in the planning stage or under construction. If all are completed, their combined emissions output could reach 150.8 million metric tons, the equivalent of 38 coal plants.

The same oil and gas boom that helped clean up the power sector has also made it cheaper to turn natural gas into plastics, fertilizer and other products. The process is emissions-intensive. Large quantities of natural gas liquids like ethane and propane are fed into enormous furnaces and heated to extremely high temperatures, creating smaller hydrocarbon molecules that can be separated and turned into different plastic products. read more

Companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Saudi Aramco are ramping up output of plastic — which is made from oil and gas, and their byproducts — to hedge against the possibility that a serious global response to climate change might reduce demand for their fuels, analysts say.

BETH GARDINER

As public concern about plastic pollution rises, consumers are reaching for canvas bags, metal straws, and reusable water bottles. But while individuals fret over images of oceanic garbage gyres, the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries are pouring billions of dollars into new plants intended to make millions more tons of plastic than they now pump out.

Companies like ExxonMobil, Shell, and Saudi Aramco are ramping up output of plastic — which is made from oil and gas, and their byproducts — to hedge against the possibility that a serious global response to climate change might reduce demand for their fuels, analysts say. Petrochemicals, the category that includes plastic, now account for 14 percent of oil use, and are expected to drive half of oil demand growth between now and 2050, the International Energy Agency (IEA) says. The World Economic Forum predicts plastic production will double in the next 20 years. read more

By Jackson Lewis on Jan. 17, 2020

HOUSTON — Shell Oil Co. will now accept payment for fuel and services through Uconnect Market, an in-car commerce program from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA).

The Uconnect Market platform is available in model-year 2019 and 2020 Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep and Ram brand vehicles equipped with eligible connected services. Customers fueling such vehicles at participating Shell stations will be able to use Shell Pay & Save within Uconnect Market to pay for their fuel directly from their in-vehicle touchscreens, plus earn and redeem Fuel Rewards savings. read more

Shell must grapple with its own existential crisis: How should a company that generates most of its profits by serving the world’s enormous appetite for oil navigate a long-term future in which shifting political and economic tides threaten to make fossil fuels obsolete?

BY JUSTIN WORLAND

A peculiar theme park in the Hague celebrates the history of the Netherlands through a series of miniature models. The Madurodam features little canals, old-fashioned windmills, tiny tulips and, amid it all, an homage to Royal Dutch Shell, the oil giant that is the biggest company in the country and, by revenue, the second largest publicly traded oil-and-gas company in the world. There’s a Shell drilling platform, a Shell gas station and a Shell natural-gas field, complete with a drilling rig. The display is at once odd–energy infrastructure in a children’s theme park–and entirely fitting: Shell has been, for decades, one of the most powerful players both in Dutch politics and on the global economic stage. read more

Jessica Resnick-Ault, Laura Sanicola: January 9, 2020

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L) is looking to sell its oil refinery in Anacortes, Washington, according to three people familiar with the matter.

If completed, this and other asset sales currently underway would reduce Shell’s North American refining operations to large plants on the U.S. Gulf Coast, said the people, speaking on condition of anonymity as the talks are private.

Oil and gas major Shell has publicly committed to selling more than $5 billion (3.8 billion pounds) of assets per year in 2019 and 2020. The Netherlands-based company is trying to use its global scale to build a power business as the world moves toward cleaner energy. read more

January 6, 2020 – SACRAMENTO – California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, co-leading a coalition of 13 states, filed an amicus brief supporting the State of Rhode Island in its lawsuit State of Rhode Island v. Shell Oil Products Company LLC et al. In the lawsuit, the state seeks to hold oil companies accountable for their actions contributing to climate change and the resulting harms from sea-level rise, changes to the hydrologic cycle, and increased air and ocean temperatures. read more

By OilPrice.com Editorial Dept – Jan 03, 2020, 1:00 PM CST

Shell says it’s made a “significant” natural gas discovery offshore Australia at the Bratwurst-1 exploration well. This could tie back to Shell’s Prelude FLNG facility, which is about 160 kilometers from the new discovery. The discovery comes as Shell divests the last of its US Haynesville shale assets.

Reporting by Camillus Eboh in Abuja and Libby George in Lagos, Dec 27, 2019

* Train 7 will boost LNG output to 30 mln t/y

* Deal shows “renewed confidence” from investors – Kyari

* FID was delayed from Q4 2018

ABUJA/LAGOS, Dec 27 (Reuters) – Nigeria signed a major gas expansion deal on Friday, a much-needed collaboration with oil majors that Nigeria LNG said would boost its liquefied natural gas output by more than 30%.

The agreement marks a moment of amity with international oil majors, even as a tax dispute and a new law increasing the government’s take on deepwater oil production have irked some companies.

The final investment decision on the Train 7 processing unit at the Bonny Island plant was signed by Nigeria LNG partners state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Eni , Total and Royal Dutch Shell in Abuja. read more

By Anna Shiryaevskaya and Dina Khrennikova | Bloomberg Dec. 24, 2019 at 7:06 a.m. GMT

A new natural gas pipeline into Europe from Russia is shaking up geopolitics. Nord Stream 2, as it’s called, worries leaders in Eastern Europe, has put German Chancellor Angela Merkel on the hot seat and most recently has become the target of U.S. sanctions. The punitive measures approved by U.S. President Donald Trump have stymied construction just as the final sections of pipe were about to be laid.

1. What is Nord Stream 2?

It’s a planned 1,230-kilometer (764-mile) undersea pipeline that will carry natural gas from Russian fields to the European network at Germany’s Baltic coast. It will double the capacity of an existing undersea route — the original Nord Stream — that opened in 2011. Russia’s Gazprom PJSC owns the project, with Royal Dutch Shell Plc and four other investors including Germany’s Uniper SE and Wintershall AG providing half of the 9.5 billion-euro ($10.7 billion) cost. Denmark removed one of the project’s last hurdles in October when it approved construction of the link through its waters. read more

In 2018 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused Shell of violating clean air laws for over a decade and reached a settlement with the corporate giant shortly after.

Extracts

The Shell Norco Manufacturing Complex has been operating by the banks of the Mississippi River in southern Louisiana for almost a century. A sprawling set of oil refineries and petrochemical plants that dominate the landscape and pollute the air about 20 miles outside the city of New Orleans.

In 2018 the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) accused Shell of violating clean air laws for over a decade and reached a settlement with the corporate giant shortly after.

Since 2001 the Norco Civic Association, a community group heavily backed by Shell, has run a Christmas parade that winds through the industrial complex, which sits on the site of old sugarcane fields in the heart of a region known as “Cancer Alley” due to its high levels of industrial pollution. read more