Borrowing from the playbook that won multibillion-dollar awards against Big Tobacco, five California cities and counties sued the oil giants last year, claiming they deceived the public for decades about the dangers of fossil fuel production.
SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — The fate of five lawsuits seeking to hold the world’s biggest oil companies liable for global climate change hinges on a murky jurisdictional question that could get some cases booted out of federal court.
For the past eight days, attorneys for more than a dozen oil companies urged two federal judges not to send lawsuits against them back to state court, where five California cities and counties sued Big Oil last year.
“The extraordinary nature of these claims encompasses conduct across the globe,” the oil companies’ attorney Theodore Boutrous said in court Thursday. “We think the federal courts need to hear this, because it’s uniquely federal.”read more
(Bloomberg) — While many oil producers are stepping back from their retail operations, Royal Dutch Shell Plc is doubling down.
Shell, which has about 44,000 filling stations around the world, opened its first one in Mexico last year, the start of $1 billion in investments over the next decade. Shell also is ramping up spending in China, India, Indonesia and Russia, Istvan Kapitany, head of Shell’s global retail business, said in an interview in Calgary.read more
New York City and a number of California municipalities, including San Francisco and Oakland, have filed lawsuits against five major oil companies—BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil, and Royal Dutch Shell—for contributing to the increased risk of global warming.
These complaints cite recent scientificreports that project that sea levels will rise from 0.2 meters to 2.0 meters (or 0.66 to 6.6 feet) by 2100, with a major loss of land surface area and serious climate disruptions.read more
The New York City government is suing the world’s five largest publicly traded oil companies, seeking to hold them responsible for present and future damages to the city from climate change. The suit, filed Tuesday against BP, Chevron, Conoco-Phillips, ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell, claims the companies together produced 11 percent of all of global warming gases through the oil and gas products they have sold over the years. It also charges that the companies and the industry of which they are part have known for some time about the consequences but sought to obscure them. FULL ARTICLEread more
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 ARTICLEread more
Shell, in an initiative called “iShale,” has marshaled technology from a dozen oilfield suppliers, including devices from subsea specialist TechnipFMC Plc that separate fracking sand from oil and well-control software from Emerson Electric Co, to bring more automation and data analysis to shale operations.
Ernest Scheyder: NOVEMBER 28, 2017
HOUSTON (Reuters) – Shale oil engineer Oscar Portillo spends his days drilling as many as five wells at once – without ever setting foot on a rig. Part of a team working to cut the cost of drilling a new shale well by a third, Portillo works from a Royal Dutch Shell Plc office in suburban Houston, his eyes darting among 13 monitors flashing data on speed, temperature and other metrics as he helps control rigs more than 500 miles (805 km) away in the Permian Basin, the largest U.S. oilfield. FULL ARTICLEread more
Norway’s proposal to sell off $35 billion in oil and natural gas stocks brings sudden and unparalleled heft to a once-grassroots movement to enlist investors in the fight against climate change.read more
The $1 trillion fund that Norway has amassed pumping oil and gas over the past two decades wants out of petroleum stocks.
Norway, which relies on oil and gas for about a fifth of economic output, would be less vulnerable to declining crude prices without its fund investing in the industry, the central bank said Thursday. The divestment would mark the second major step in scrubbing the world’s biggest wealth fund of climate risk, after it sold most of its coal stocks. The plan would entail the fund, which controls about 1.5 percent of global stocks, dumping as much as $40 billion of shares in international giants such as Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc. The Finance Ministry said it will study the proposal and decide what to do in “fall of 2018” at the earliest. FULL ARTICLEread more
Norway is western Europe’s biggest oil producer and its giant sovereign wealth fund wants to reduce its exposure to oil which hit shares in BP and Royal Dutch Shell. Oil platforms in the Cromarty Firth, ScotlandANDREW MILLIGAN/PA
Norway’s giant sovereign wealth fund has unveiled plans to dump its entire holding in oil and gas companies in a $37 billion sell-off that was welcomed by campaign groups but put downward pressure on share prices. The $1 trillion fund, which manages the assets of the oil-rich nation, signalled its intent to prune its exposure to companies including BP and Royal Dutch Shell in a move aimed at making it less vulnerable to a permanent drop in the price of crude. SOURCEread more
The companies have been accused of causing an adverse impact on the climate, resulting in global warming. The plaintiffs hold these fossil fuel companies accountable for rising sea levels, changing landscapes, higher global temperatures and increased risk of storms and droughts. The cities are located on the opposite sides of San Francisco Bay, and the lawsuit claims that the region’s water level is already on the rise. If the companies lose the case, they will be liable to pay billions of dollars in fines. Though the lawsuits do not specify the compensation amount, updating San Francisco’s seawall alone could cost up to $5 billion. FULL ARTICLEread more
(Reuters) – California cities San Francisco and Oakland filed separate lawsuits against five oil companies on Wednesday seeking billions of dollars to protect against rising sea levels they blamed on climate change, according to public documents. The lawsuits, filed in state courts in San Francisco and Alameda Counties, alleged Chevron Corp, ConocoPhillips, Exxon Mobil Corp, BP Plc, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, created a public nuisance and asked for funds to finance infrastructure to deal with rising sea levels. According to a news release from San Francisco city officials, the lawsuits mirror 1980s-era lawsuits against tobacco companies. They allege the oil giants “knowingly and recklessly created an ongoing public nuisance that is causing harm now and in the future risks catastrophic harm to human life and property.” FULL ARTICLEread more
The US cities of San Francisco and Oakland are suing five of the world’s largest oil companies for the coasts of walls and other defences against rising sea levels, saying the industry made vast profits from fossil fuels while knowing they were causing “an existential threat to humankind”.
Drawing a direct comparison to the tobacco industry’s sale of cigarettes despite knowledge of the health risks, the city attorneys announced they had filed separate lawsuits against BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips.read more
The cities of San Francisco and Oakland have filed separate lawsuits against five major oil and gas companies for allegedly contributing to the costs of climate change and sea level rise by producing massive amounts of fossil fuels, city leaders announced Wednesday.
Canada’s oil industry has faced a lot of strain lately. The list of oil majors selling off assets and withdrawing from high-cost oil sands is long. ConocoPhillips, Royal Dutch Shell, Marathon Oil, Murphy Oil and Statoil have sold upwards of $25 billion worth of oil sands assets this year. ExxonMobil also wrote down more than 3.5 billion barrels of oil reserves in Canada at the beginning of 2017. The companies viewed Alberta’s bitumen and heavy oil as no longer competitive in a $50 market, and many of them are focusing on other types of production, such as shale. FULL ARTICLEread more
Shell plans on between $25 billion and $30 billion in capex next year, with flexibility to the downside.
I do not expect Shell to achieve cash flow balance in 2016, even with asset sales.
I continue to recommend other energy companies over Royal Dutch Shell, until either oil prices recover more or until Shell does something else to achieve balance.
Over the course of 2016 I haven’t recommended much when it comes buying to upstream or integrated oil companies. The reason was that I felt many still weren’t doing enough to balance their money coming in versus money going out. The CEO of one of my favorite companies, in their latest analyst day, recently quipped that energy companies couldn’t afford to wait to be ‘bailed out’ by higher oil prices.read more
If you are looking forward to the oil industry recovery, you shouldn’t break out the champagne just yet.
Over the past eight days, the world’s largest listed oil companies have released third quarter earnings reports. From all of them, the message was that while the worst might be over, they were still facing a long hard road ahead.
Bonus Group: For a further example of outstanding performance by BG Group Alumni, London Lad need look no further than Sound Energy where the share price has plummeted from £0.935 in February 2017 to £0.0335 December this year. This remarkable performance, however, does not detract from the Directors' and the Senior Managers' whopping salaries and bonuses. One can barely hear oneself think above the slurping and grunting at the trough.
Bogus Group: Interesting news article. “Network Rail are well into devolving and restructuring the organisation so that all activities and roles are closer to passengers in order to drive up train performance”. In 2018, many UK train commuters had a tough time with timetable schedules, journeys that didn’t leave or arrive on-time and delays due to major projects.
Could this revival be attributed to the previous chief executive and one of the former Shell and BG Group ‘chosen few’, stepping down from his role?
Bonus Group: To put London Lad's rather naive comments into context. In the final days before the Executive Chairman, Andrew Gould 'pulled the plug' on the whole shooting match, at a Town Hall Meeting, the Chief Operating Officer, Sami Iskander, stood up and announced, to anyone who could be bothered to listen, that the company had spent £200MM assuring work which later cost them £2Bn because it was wrong. An absolutely, stellar performance. The people responsible for this are now deeply embedded within Shell's matrix organisation. An excellent result for the shareholders. Perhaps, a Bridge too Far?
Bonus Group: London Lad, Good to hear from you. I hope that you enjoyed your recent trip to Aberdeen. Having also been employed by Shell, I consider myself fortunate that I was not one of the 'Chosen Few'. The 'Chosen Few' are the most corrupt of the corrupt and will fit in well with your ilk. In respect of the slur about my performance, BG were involved in what can only be described as a stupendous multi-billion dollar technical fraud against Petrobras based upon a corrupt workflow which was both Functionally Approved through their Assurance Team and signed-off by the relevant Discipline Functional Head. They refused to correct their workflow and that resulted in a technical fraud. They tried to make me complicit in this fraud, but I refused. That is called integrity, something which I have no doubt that you know little of. You clearly relish brushing shoulders with fraudsters and liars.
LondonLad: I can only assume from the continuous moaning from “Bonus Group” that he/she was not one of the “chosen few” from the BG group and hence the vindictiveness. Poor performance = limited or no job opportunities which applies to both Shell and ex-BG staff. As a share holder I wouldn’t want it differently.
Bonus Group: Further to Bogus Group's post of Thursday 21st November. BG Group the failed Internet Cafe, cappucino and Belgian chocolate lifestyle company had an established reputation for: constructive dismissal, lack of transparency and corrupt 'do as I say, not as I do' line management. The acceptance of the 'Chosen Few' from BG by Shell into its upper echelons can only lead to further corruption. After all what was on the BG Portal in terms of Company Policy was of course also law, or at least that is what they would have you believe. As employers they were a complete disgrace and the company a complete shambles from top to bottom. Visitors to this site can look forward to more revelations of incompetence in due course as they unfold.
Bogus Group: I was lured by the Michael Coates (Associate General Counsel at Shell) interview by Lawyer Monthly, and the question……. what is the most challenging aspect of your job and how do you overcome this? His response “There are a number of interesting challenges but I will share one internal challenge, the management of our in-house legal team”
The acquisition of BG Group and the infiltration of “the chosen few” from that company’s in-house legal team, may have bestowed a challenge he could never have imagined.
LondonLad: Well “Theo” when you say that “I know for sure the following” followed by a former director said “Black Gold we are digging up” then I think perhaps you are making this up. Most directors of an oil company (even including Shell) would not use the word “digging”! “Drilling” or “producing” yes but certainly not “digging” - exception being the muppets in the HR departments perhaps. In addition your last two sentences are irrelevant to the usual attacks on Shell and are somewhat waffle and insulting to most readers here. You clearly have a problem. I await the onslaught!!
Bogus Group: There are normally two sides to every story, but Mike Curless’ version of his termination employment under the pretext of the takeover of BG reorganisation could hold some credence. However, if there was a fair and transparent succession strategy, Sarah Franklin’s self-promotion, see previous post and article, https://www.accdocket.com/articles/tips-and-insights-a-world-class-combination.cfm must have made her a good candidate for one of the “vacant” roles within the Shell legal team. Time will tell if the relevant due diligence was done on Ms Franklin, considering her escapades with a previous company.
Theo Benschop: I know for sure the following. A former director of Royal Dutch Shell had said: it is a simple problem with the Black Gold that we are digging up and selling. All what the government has to do is fix the price of the Black Gold at a level nobody will notice. Maybe add something. But there you have the money to pay for the transition to a more sustainable energy. So actually what everybody wants in the agreements in Paris.
Also I know for sure that beloved sister Rep. Ilham Omar was perfectly right in her conclusion that a few guilty criminals did something to create the chaos of nine eleven, so not the rest of the world.
So that about 7 Billion simple descendants of the first human beings not being a monkey are supporting her for keep on being the one and only first president of all sovereign or not sovereign United Nations.
jaun carlos: Good day
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Bill Campbell: Caution needed over false almost hysterical claims about current Brent Structures
It was a long time ago but as London Lad highlights in his blog post the onshore disposal of Brent Spar Greenpeace apologised formally to Shell for its claims during that period of intense scrutiny and public interest that the Spar could not be disposed of at sea because it held over 5000 tons of crude oil when in fact it was found to have contained 100 tons of oily sludge much of which was inert silt.
We currently see the emergence again of false and highly emotive claims about what remains in the Brent structures despite Shell and independent published reports being available with assessments of what remains in the cells. These assessments indicate that the environmental impact of leaving these structures in situ is negligible compared to the safety risks to personnel involved in the attempted removal and disposal on land.
This is not a Shell website. Click on Disclaimer link at top of page for more information.
John Donovan’s ebooks
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON. EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
ROYAL DUTCH SHELL LIVE NEWS FEED
Shell contracts for 4G LTE network in the Gulf of Mexico 10 Dec 2019 18:55 Houston Chronicle A view of Shell's new Gulf deepwater platform, Appomattox, before it's set out to sea on Monday, April 23, 2018, in Ingleside. ( Elizabeth Conley / Houston Chronicle )
A view of Shell's new Gulf deepwater platform, Appomattox, before it…
German Business Brands US Sanctions Against Nord Stream 2 Companies ‘Attack on EU Sovereignty’ 10 Dec 2019 17:55 Sputnik International Business
20:35 10.12.2019Get short URL
The US has consistently threatened companies involved in the Russian-European pipeline project Nord Stream 2 with sanctions, trying to hinder the venture to deliver natural gas to the EU and bypass Ukraine. Shortly …
Global Syngas and Derivatives Market 2019-KBR Inc. , Haldor Topsoe A/S, Air Liquide SA 10 Dec 2019 04:17 MarketWatch.com Dec 09, 2019 (Eon Market Research via COMTEX) — The industry analysis on Global Syngas and Derivatives Market 2019 includes the complete features of the Syngas and Derivatives market. This covers comprehensive analysis, recent industry statistics and …
Shell, in an initiative called “iShale,” has marshaled technology from a dozen oilfield suppliers, including devices from subsea specialist TechnipFMC Plc that separate fracking sand from oil and well-control software from Emerson Electric Co, to bring more automation and data analysis to shale operations.
Norway’s giant sovereign wealth fund has unveiled plans to dump its entire holding in oil and gas companies in a $37 billion sell-off that was welcomed by campaign groups but put downward pressure on share prices. The $1 trillion fund, which manages the assets of the oil-rich nation, signalled its intent to prune its exposure to companies including BP and Royal Dutch Shell in a move aimed at making it less vulnerable to a permanent drop in the price of crude. 
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EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.