Union plans ‘protected action’ strike aboard Shell’s Prelude floating LNG

18 MAY 2020

Leaked information outlines union plans to conduct a ‘protected action’ strike aboard Shell’s Prelude floating LNG vessel offshore Western Australia, as well as other offshore facilities.

Members of the two unions voted unanimously in taking action over an impasse on working arrangements and a new Enterprise Bargaining Agreement with contractor Sodexo.

Sodexo provides catering, cooking and cleaning staff to oil and gas facilities including Shell’s Prelude FLNG project, and Inpex’s offshore facilities.  read more

BP, Shell Must Face Claims Emissions Caused Fatal Cancer

law360.com — Law360 (May 19, 2020, 7:51 PM EDT) — An Illinois appeals court has restored a wrongful death lawsuit brought against BP and other companies over a man’s cancer allegedly linked to a nearby refinery’s benzene emissions, deciding that suspicion alone of benzene’s link to the cancer isn’t enough to start the clock running on a claim.

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Shell policies on directors’ pay and carbon emissions in spotlight

By Mark Williamson Group Business Correspondent

INVESTORS have signalled unease about Royal Dutch Shell’s boardroom pay policy at the company’s annual general meeting.

Around seven per cent of votes cast opposed approval of the directors’ remuneration policy of the oil giant at the meeting.

Chief executive Ban van Beurden’s total remuneration dropped by around £9m last year, from £17.8m in 2018, following a fall in the value of his performance-related awards. read more

‘Big win’ as Shell urged by more shareholder activists to meet climate targets

by David McPhee: 19/05/2020, 3:15 pm

A shareholder activist group has claimed a ‘big win’ after an increase in the number of investor votes urging Shell to meet its climate targets.

Follow This, which has led a campaign to encourage oil firms such BP, Shell, Chevron and Equinor to align their targets with the Paris Climate Agreement, saw 14.4% of investors vote for its resolution at Shell’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) – an increase from 5.5% in 2019. read more

Protesters chant ‘Shell must fall’ at oil major’s meeting

Environment: May 19, 2020 / 11:51 AM / Updated 3 hours ago

THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Dozens of demonstrators chanting “Shell must fall” gathered on Tuesday outside the oil giant’s headquarters in the Netherlands, where a virtual annual shareholders’ meeting was underway.

Roughly 30 activists from environmental groups Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion and Code Red sang and danced in protest at the Hague offices of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L).

Hundreds of activists had signed up to attend, but Dutch authorities allowed no more than 30 due to coronavirus distancing measures. read more

CNOOC, Shell to invest 5.6 billion U.S. dollars in new ethylene project

GUANGZHOU, May 17 (Xinhua) — China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), the largest offshore oil and gas producer in China, and Royal Dutch Shell, the world’s leading energy and petrochemical conglomerate, signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement worth 5.6 billion U.S. dollars on Sunday.

Representatives in Guangzhou, capital city of south China’s Guangdong Province, Beijing, and The Hague, signed the agreement via 5G video link. read more

* European oil majors boost share of low-carbon investments

* European CEOs see faster energy transition after coronavirus

* GRAPHIC: European oil majors’ spending tilts green tmsnrt.rs/3dWh9VV

By Ron Bousso and Shadia Nasralla

LONDON, May 18 (Reuters) – Europe’s top oil and gas companies have diverted a larger share of their cash to green energy projects since the coronavirus outbreak in a bet the global health crisis will leave a long-term dent in fossil fuel demand, according to a Reuters review of company statements and interviews with executives. read more

English translation of an article published this weekend by the Dutch Financial Times, the FD.

Shell, Total and Equinor give green light to major international CO₂ storage project

Bert van Dijk

Shell, together with the French oil and gas group Total and the Norwegian Equinor, has made a final investment decision for a large CO₂ storage project in Norway. The companies want to build infrastructure to transport captured CO₂ from industrial factories in Europe to Norway and store them there in a reservoir under the bottom of the North Sea.

Equinor will lead the project, which will store 1.5 million tons of CO₂ annually. The parties announced this on Friday. It is one of the largest CO₂ storage projects in the world. read more

Expert comments received in response to the BoilingCold article by Peter Milne “No winners from Shell’s $US17B Prelude floating LNG”

Comment from retired Shell International Global Safety Consultant, Bill Campbell:

It’s all rather depressing, most worrying aspect as implied in the article is the potential gas supply, or lack of it, from the homogeneous and shared reservoir with another operator bleeding off volumes.

The boilingcold.com.au journalist Peter Milne has given the most detailed analysis yet of the Prelude story, elements of both tragedy and farce.

COMMENT FROM “AN OLD SHELL E&P ENGINEERING SEA DOG”

As before I feel very sorry for the Aussies who are under extreme pressure to get this unit up and running.  I do not quite understand the journalist comment of “gas is running out”.  It is a shared reservoir therefore there will be an agreement for the total volumes in place and a regular review taking place to determine the remaining producible volumes and the agreed volume share for each operator.

The links below are to a series of articles, many triggered by a well-placed whistleblower directly involved in the pioneering Royal Dutch Shell Prelude project. Includes articles by Mr Bill Campbell above, the retired distinguished HSE Group Auditor of Shell International and another retired Shell guru with a track record of spotting potential pitfalls in major Shell projects.

The fears voiced by Bill Campbell about a loss of containment (see article link 3) have proven well-founded.

Ask the Australian National Offshore Petroleum and Environmental Management Authority.

ARTICLE: Voser wisely abandons an unstable ship: 28 December 2013

ARTICLE: Royal Dutch Shell Prelude to disaster?: 10 Jan 2014

ARTICLE: Shell Prelude FLNG: loss of containment of hydrocarbons almost inevitable: 21 Feb 2014

ARTICLE: What should frighten stiff Royal Dutch Shell shareholders: 15 March 2014

ARTICLE: Tales of the Unexpected and Royal Dutch Shell Prelude FLNG: 28 March 2014

ARTICLE: Prelude FLNG: A case of all your eggs in the one basket: 10 July 2014

ARTICLE: Prelude FLNG risks are on par with modern offshore oil and gas facilities say Shell – but are they?: 23 Sept 2014 read more

Malabu: How Etete’s ally, Abubakar Aliyu, withdrew N24bn in cash – Prosecutor

May 14, 2020: Oladeinde Olawoyin

Details have emerged of how a Nigerian businessman and principal suspect in the Malabu OPL 245 scandal, Abubakar Aliyu, allegedly withdrew N24 billion ($60,593,000) in cash.

According to the transcript of a Milan court hearing held in 2018, but obtained recently by PREMIUM TIMES, Mr Abubakar, an ally of controversial former petroleum minister, Dan Etete, made the huge cash withdrawal from funds passed to him by Mr Etete, another suspect in the criminal trial.

Prosecutors believe that that magnitude of cash withdrawal does not have much precedence, raising suspicion that portions of the fund were used to bribe some officials of the Goodluck Jonathan government. read more

  Peter Milne: 15 May 2020 • 10 min read

ANALYSIS

Shell’s Prelude floating LNG facility off the WA coast was to be the first of many that would open up stranded gas reserves around the world thanks to the technical and project management prowess of Anglo-Dutch oil and gas giant Shell.It has not turned out that way.When the 488m-long giant arrived in Australia almost three years ago, Shell expected to receive cashflow from the Prelude in 2018.

While the Prelude did export LNG at about half its capacity for the second half of 2019, it is now idle.

Moored far off the Kimberley coast it is plagued with technical problems, dwindling gas reserves and safety processes condemned by the regulator despite Shell and its partners spending about $US19.3 billion ($A30.0 billion) to the end of 2019.

Neither Shell and its partners nor Australia have gained anything near what they expected from the giant experiment. read more

Bloomberg: May 14, 2020

Royal Dutch Shell said it will be well placed to boost shareholder payouts once the oil market recovers as it sought to appease investors after last month’s surprise dividend cut.

Shell broke with industry convention playbook when oil’s collapse forced it to slash payouts. For decades, Big Oil had used its hefty balance sheet to borrow money when needed and keep investors sweet until the next upward cycle. But 2020’s unprecedented market rout has seen several major players – including Exxon Mobil and Equinor – freeze or reduce dividends. read more

In July 2005, the news media including The Wall Street Journal covered the domain name battle between Donovan and Shell over the domain name royaldutchshellplc.com.

When Shell tried to register it following the merger of the cinders of the Anglo-Dutch arms of the Royal Dutch Shell Group, its lawyers were horrified to discover that Shell’s arch-enemy had beat them to the registration. Shell issued proceedings but lost the case.

The World’s Most Controversial Gas Pipeline Is Nearing Its Endgame

The almost 10 billion-euro ($11 billion) project is being financed by Royal Dutch Shell Plc… and…

Bloomberg News: Jonathan Tirone: May 13, 2020: 5:29 AM EDT: Last Updated May 13, 2020

(Bloomberg) — Construction of the world’s most controversial natural gas pipeline is about to enter the endgame of an energy dispute that’s pitted the U.S. against Russia and some of its closest trans-Atlantic allies, satellite images show.

The Nord Stream 2 pipeline, built to increase the flow of Russian gas into Europe’s biggest economy, was thwarted five months ago after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sanctions that forced workers to retreat. Now, after a three-month voyage circumnavigating the globe, the Akademik Cherskiy, the Russian pipe-laying vessel that’s a prime candidate to finish the project, has anchored off the German port where the remaining pipeline sections are waiting to be installed. read more

By Laura Hurst: 13 May 2020, 14:10 BST: Updated on 13 May 2020, 16:42 BST

• Company should be in ‘strong position’ to raise distributions
• Finance chief cites potential to revive both dividend, buyback

Royal Dutch Shell Plc said it will be well placed to boost shareholder payouts once the oil market recovers, as it sought to appease investors after last month’s surprise dividend cut.

The Anglo-Dutch major tore up the industry’s financial playbook when oil’s collapse forced it to slash payouts. For decades, Big Oil had used its hefty balance sheet to borrow money when needed and keep investors sweet until the next upward cycle. But 2020’s unprecedented market rout has seen several large players — Exxon Mobil Corp. and Equinor ASA as well as Shell — freeze or reduce dividends. read more

Shell wants to be net-zero emissions business by 2050

12 May 2020

Shell aims to be a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, or sooner if possible, as it focuses on its intention to “lead and thrive” through the transition to a low-carbon energy future.

In a recent Responsible Investment Annual Briefing, the company’s chief executive, Ben van Beurden, revealed an ambition to be net zero on all the emissions from the manufacture of all Shell products by 2050 at the latest. read more