Aristofanis Papadatos: 25 August 2018

Summary

By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor: 12 July 2018

By Tim Daiss – Jul 08, 2018, 10:00 AM CDT

Several oil majors, including Royal Dutch Shell and BP, are boosting their share of natural gas output. A Bloomberg report said these two oil companies, by increasing gas production, are trimming the lead between them and ExxonMobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company. ExxonMobil has a current market cap of $348 bn, while Shell has market cap of $317 bn, and BP at $156 bn.

BP expects by 2020 to produce about 60 percent gas and 40 percent oil, a reversal from 2014 when it was the opposite – a pivot that many other oil companies will likely follow. ExxonMobil for its part currently produces about 55 percent oil and 45 percent gas and remains the largest natural gas producer in the US. Shell’s acquisition of UK-based BG Group for $50 bn in 2016 boosted the share of natural gas to 50 percent of its global fossil fuels output and made it the world’s largest natural gas trader. read more

U.S. court dismisses climate change lawsuits against oil companies

Reuters Staff: JUNE 26, 2018

(Reuters) – A federal court in California dismissed climate change lawsuits by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland against five oil companies, saying the complaints required foreign and domestic policy decisions that were outside its purview. San Francisco and Oakland sued Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil Corp, ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, and BP Plc last year seeking an abatement fund to help the cities address flooding they said was a result of climate change. Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said in the ruling that the dangers raised by the complainants were real and worldwide, and both parties accepted the science behind global warming. FULL ARTICLE read more

By Kevin Crowley and Kelly Gilblom
Monday 25 June 2018, 00:00 BST

Big Oil’s fortunes are becoming tied more closely to natural gas than ever before.

Majors including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc have boosted their proportion of gas output in recent years, helping them trim Exxon Mobil Corp.’s lead as the world’s most valuable oil company. Meanwhile Chevron Corp. added two giant Australian liquefied natural gas projects and Exxon is punching back with two major projects of its own, in Papua New Guinea and Mozambique. read more

Claire Poole , CONTRIBUTOR: June 6, 2018

Royal Dutch Shell took the top spot among oil and gas companies on the Forbes Global 2000’s list of the biggest and most powerful public companies, surpassing last year’s leader Exxon Mobil Corp. The Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant ranked 11th among all companies on the list, up from 20th the previous year, mostly because of higher sales due to lofty commodity prices. Irving, Texas-based Exxon came in at 13th, the same as last year. The Forbes Global 2000 is determined by a composite score of equally weighted measures of revenue, profits, assets and market value. FULL ARTICLE read more

May 25, 2018 12:58 PM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

A confidential study that Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) has been accused of trying to shield from public view showed worsening “catastrophic” pollution around oil spill sites in Nigeria, WSJ reports.

At least one of the study’s authors has urged the findings to be widely distributed because they pointed to significant health risks to the local Bodo community in Nigeria but said that Shell had denied him permission to publish the study’s results in a scientific journal, according to the WSJ report. read more

A federal judge yesterday said he needed more information before deciding whether to dismiss lawsuits by the cities of San Francisco and Oakland alleging that Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B), BP and ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) should pay to protect residents from the impacts of climate change.

The judge also wants the companies to produce additional material backing up claims that they should not be a part of the case because the court lacked jurisdiction over them. read more

By Jeremy Hodges, Lauren Leatherby and Kartikay Mehrotra
May 24, 2018

In the global fight against climate change, one tool is proving increasingly popular: litigation. From California to the Philippines, activists, governments and concerned citizens are suing the biggest polluters and national governments over the effects of climate change at a break-neck pace. “The courts are our last, best hope at this moment of irreversible harm to our planet and life on it,” said Julia Olson, an attorney for Our Children’s Trust, a legal challenge center in the U.S. that is involved in climate change litigation across 13 countries, including the U.S., Pakistan and Uganda. Cases by San Francisco and Oakland face a motion to dismiss the lawsuit today in a California federal court, where Chevron Corp., BP Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., ConocoPhilips and Royal Dutch Shell Plc will argue that remedies and penalties for climate change are a matter for lawmakers, not a single judge. read more

FILE PHOTO: The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) headquarters are seen in Abuja, Nigeria December 5, 2017. REUTERS/Afolabi Sotunde/File Photo

For decades, communities in the Niger Delta oil heartland have complained that spills and pollution have destroyed their land and killed off wildlife. Rights group Amnesty International accused international oil majors Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Eni SpA in March of negligence when addressing spills in Nigeria. read more

By Bob Van Voris: 4 May 2018, 23:09 BST Updated on 5 May 2018, 02:09 BST

♦Case affects global economy, national security, companies say

♦New York argues oil companies denied climate change science

This lawsuit is based upon the fundamental principle that a corporation that makes a product causing severe harm when used exactly as intended should shoulder the costs of abating that harm. Defendants here produced, marketed, and sold massive quantities of fossil fuels—primarily oil and natural gas—despite knowing that the combustion and use of fossil fuels emit greenhouse gases (“GHG pollution” or “GHGs”), primarily carbon dioxide (“CO2”). Defendants have also known for decades that GHG pollution accumulates and remains in the atmosphere for up to hundreds of years, where it traps heat, a process commonly referred to as “climate change” or “global warming,” and that this process would cause grave harm.

Five of the world’s biggest oil companies asked a judge to throw out New York City’s lawsuit seeking to hold them responsible for costs related to the environmental changes caused by their products. BP Plc, Chevron Corp., ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp., and Royal Dutch Shell Plc argued that the court lacks the authority to resolve broad policy questions with “profound implications for the global economy, international relations and America’s national security.” FULL ARTICLE read more

Mar. 26, 2018 2:16 PM ET|By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor

The world’s largest oil companies have survived a life-changing crisis, and are now poised to reap the rewards, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said. Big Oil is in a sweet spot with rising oil prices and low operating costs, leaving them with the biggest cash-flow growth in two decades and boosting earnings, Goldman said in a report Monday. That will increase their attraction for investors after years of elevated spending followed by crude’s slump sent their weighting in global equity indexes to a 50-year low, according to the bank. FULL ARTICLE read more

Dana Nuccitelli: Fri 23 Mar 2018 10.00 GMT

In a California court case this week, Judge William Alsup asked the two sides to provide him a climate science tutorial. The plaintiffs are the coastal cities of San Francisco and Oakland. They’re suing five major oil companies (Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillipsand BP) to pay for the cities’ costs to cope with the sea level rise caused by global warming. FULL ARTICLE

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS: MARCH 21, 2018

HOUSTON — In a setback to Trump administration efforts to increase offshore oil production, the industry responded with only modest interest on Wednesday in a federal auction covering a record 77 million acres in the Gulf of Mexico. Companies bid on only 1 percent of the acreage, and the winning bids yielded a mere $125 million for the government. The results reflected broad uncertainty among oil executives that global oil prices can remain at current levels over $60 a barrel, as well as a general preference for drilling in onshore shale fields that require smaller investments and are less risky. FULL ARTICLE read more

David Levine: 21 MARCH 2018

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Five of the world’s biggest energy producers will be questioned by a federal judge on Wednesday about climate change science, part of a lawsuit that accuses the companies of misleading the public for years about their role in global warming. The cities of San Francisco and Oakland, California sued Chevron Corp (CVX.N), Exxon Mobil Corp (XOM.N), ConocoPhillips (COP.N), Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSa.L), and BP PLC (BP.L) last year, seeking an abatement fund to help the cities address flooding they say is a result of climate change. FULL ARTICLE read more