News and information on Shell Plc
18 December 2010
Shell has confirmed that they are in detailed negotiations with Essar for the sale of Stanlow Refinery and associated marketing businesses. They have set a deadline of the end of February to reach agreement on the terms of any sale.
If Stanlow is not sold by then it will continue to operate as a Manufacturing Complex within the Shell Group.
AUGUST 19, 2010
LONDON (Dow Jones)–India’s Essar Energy PLC (ESSR.LN) is still in talks with oil major Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) to buy refineries in Europe, Essar’s vice chairman Prashant Ruia said Thursday.
“Our discussions with Shell are still very much on,” Ruia told reporters on a conference call.
Shell entered talks with Essar over the sale of the three refineries–Stanlow in the U.K. and the Heide and Harburg refineries in Germany–late last year.
A couple of decades ago Shell had five refineries in the United Kingdom when the sale of Stanlow is completed soon they will have none. Is this because refining is a sunset industry with no growth potential and no chance of earning returns? Not if you take note of reliable global demand forecasts it isnt. The US Joint Forces Command the top of the American armed forces pyramid has recently said that globally a severe energy crunch is inevitable without massive expansion of production and refining capacity. Most other forecasters agree that the planet will need substantially more not less refining capability in the years ahead. So why has Shell retreated so dramatically from refining and what are the implications for the new Shell which will emerge from the radical reviews underway under Peter Voser?
Essar Energy’s own advisers have warned investors about “a complex structure and a lack of clarity on the flow of funds between the UK unit and its Indian subsidiaries” ahead of the company’s flotation.By Garry White and Richard Fletcher
Published: 6:00AM BST 15 Apr 2010
The oil and power company unveiled plans for a $2.5bn (£1.6bn) London flotation last week. The deal will be the City’s largest public offering in four years.
In pre-marketing research, seen by The Daily Telegraph, JP Morgan Cazenove raises a number of concerns about corporate governance.
The investment bank which is joint book runner alongside Deutsche Bank also warns of a history of high-profile delays and cost over-runs at the group’s Vadinar refinery in Gujarat. A timely and on budget execution of the next phase was very important to “banish concerns about project execution capabilities and fully restore reputation“, wrote the analysts.
Thu Apr 8, 2010 8:16am BST
MUMBAI, April 8 (Reuters) – Indian conglomerate Essar Group will consider buying European oil refineries from Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) in May or June, a top official said on Thursday.
Prashant Ruia, chief executive officer of Essar Group, said the company would consider the acquisition after a planned listing in London of Essar Energy to raise about $2.5 billion.
(Reporting by Pratish Narayanan and Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Surojit Gupta)
By Rakteem Katakey
April 8 (Bloomberg) — Indias Essar Group, seeking to buy three refineries from Royal Dutch Shell Plc, said it may raise $2.5 billion by selling shares in the U.K. and elsewhere.
Essar Energy Ltd., a holding company for the groups energy businesses, plans to offer a 20 to 25 percent stake to institutional investors, the company said in an e-mailed statement today. The proceeds will be spent on the groups power, refinery and oil and gas exploration projects.
Essar, owned by billionaires Shashi and Ravi Ruia, is raising funds as it seeks to acquire refineries, steel plants and coal and iron-ore mines across the world to compete with rivals. Indian companies including Reliance Industries Ltd. and Bharti Airtel Ltd. have sought assets overseas to take advantage of cheaper valuations after the worst global financial crisis in 70 years.
MARCH 30, 2010
MUMBAIIndian conglomerate Essar Group will decide by June whether to move forward with the purchase of three European oil refineries from Royal Dutch Shell PLC as part of its global expansion plans, the company’s chief executive said.
The companies extended their exclusive talks in November without specifying a time frame. Essar Group CEO Prashant Ruia said the company is studying whether the deal makes sense now, given the low refining margins globally in the oil business.
Posting by Wilt Staph on Mar 28th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Britains refinery capacity is around 92 million tonnes which is in the same ballpark as domestic consumption. Arguably, then, Stanlow which can process around 12m tonnes (13% of the UK total) is not surplus to requirements. But rumours abound that if Essar does buy the plant they will seek to close the refining capacity and just use it as a storage and entrepot depot. Around 900 Shell employees will be made redundant and few will have a chance of a job with Essar if they do close the refinery.
Shell is to cut a further 1,000 jobs. Photograph: Graham Turner
Royal Dutch Shell announced a further 1,000 job cuts today as the Anglo-Dutch firm admitted it had been slow to respond to the global slump.
The oil group, which has 100,000 staff worldwide, cut 5,000 posts last year and had already announced a further 1,000 job losses for this year.
Chief executive Peter Voser said the group would axe another 1,000 posts by the end of 2011 as he presented his strategic update for the firm.
THE WALL STREET JOURNALBy Lananh Nguyen Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES MARCH 16, 2010, 12:33 P.M. ET
LONDON (Dow Jones)–India’s Essar Oil Ltd.’s (500134.BY) potential London listing could stall the company’s negotiations to buy three European refineries from Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB), Shell’s Chief Financial Officer Simon Henry said Tuesday.
“While those negotiations [for an initial public offering] are going on, it’s very difficult for them to go forward,” with the purchase of the Heide and Harburg refineries in Germany and the Stanlow plant in the U.K., but the companies are still in talks, Henry said at a Shell strategy update in London.
MUMBAI — India’s Essar Oil Ltd. Wednesday said it is still in talks with Royal Dutch Shell PLC to buy three refineries in Europe, dismissing a local media report that the two companies had put the negotiations on the back burner.
“Shell and Essar can confirm that they are still in negotiations around the possible sale and purchase of Shell’s three refineries at Stanlow in the U.K., and Heide and Harburg in Germany,” Essar spokesman Manish Kedia told Dow Jones Newswires.
CRAIN’S MANCHESTER BUSINESS7:37 am, March 10, 2010
Essar, an Indian industrial conglomerate which is the preferred bidder for the Stanlow oil refinery in Cheshire (right), is planning a London stock market listing to raise up to $3bn.
The listing of its oil and power businesses could value them at up to $12bn and would be the largest ever overseas fundraising by an Indian company.
The group, controlled by brothers Shashi and Ravi Ruia, wants the money to fund expansion.
Essar, which also has interests in steel and telecoms and has total annual revenues of about $15bn, was named preferred bidder last October for Shell’s refinery near Ellesmere Port, which employs 1,000 full-time workers and 800 contractors.
By Anne-Sylvaine Chassany and Fred Pals
Feb. 23 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, which is seeking to focus on exploration and production, may sell its liquefied petroleum gas distribution unit, four people with knowledge of the plan said.
Shell hired Credit Suisse Group AG to manage a sale of the division, which is valued at more than 800 million euros ($1.1 billion), said three of the people, who declined to be identified because the talks are private. The company sent information last week to potential bidders including private equity firms, they said. Rainer Winzenried, a spokesman for The Hague-based Shell, declined to comment.
Following on its international acquisitions in steel and outsourcing in recent years, Essar is in talks with Shell to pay as much as $1 billion for three oil refineries in the U.K. and Germany, people close to the situation say. Last year, the company bought out the 50% stake that Shell, BP PLC and Chevron Corp. owned in a major refinery in Kenya.
PETER VOSER, chief executive of Royal Dutch Shell, is selling $10 billion (£6.4 billion) of assets as part of his drive to revitalise the oil giant.
"Negotiations are going on with Shell," Shashi Ruia, chairman of the diversified Indian conglomerate, said Thursday on the sidelines of a conference, declining to indicate when the talks would be completed. Essar Group, which controls Essar Oil Ltd. (500134.BY), is in talks to acquire Shell's Stanlow refinery in the U.K. and the Anglo-Dutch company's Heide and Harburg plants in Germany.
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