Greenpeace protests who had tried to prevent a Shell oil ship from reaching Alaska could face fines of up to $5,000. According to reports, the Coast Guard has warned the protestors have 30 days to either pay the fines or contest the civil citations before a hearing officer. The environmental group has been ramping up its protest against the move in the past couple of months as Shell looks to resume its operations in the Arctic.
Thai state energy firm PTT PCL has won approval to buy a total 2 million tonnes a year of liguefied natural gas (LNG) from Shell Eastern Trading (PTE) and BP Singapore PTE Ltd in long-term contracts, the energy minister said on Thursday. Shell Eastern and BP will supply 1 million tonnes each to state-controlled PTT from 2017, Energy Minister Narongchai Akrasanee told reporters after a meeting of the ministry's policy and planning office. As part of the 15-to-20 year contracts, PTT will import 0.5 million tonnes of LNG from Shell Eastern and 0.317 million tonnes from BP in April 2016, Narongchai said.
The chief executive of Shell has revealed he embarked on a “personal journey” before making the final decision to resume drilling in the Arctic this year. Ben Van Beurden said he was aware of the risks the company were taking but believed Shell could responsibly explore for hydrocarbons in the Arctic. His comments to a BBC programme on climate change were made as former BP chief executive Lord Browne – who was also interviewed – warned the company could be taking both reputational and financial risk with the move. Lord Browne made the comments as Shell announced it had just started preliminary drilling in Alaska’s Chukchi Sea after several setbacks.
Oil giant Shell’s plans to build a strategic alliance with Gazprom could be affected after the US placed one of the Russian company’s biggest oil fields under sanction. Earlier this year the two companies signed an agreement which would see them develop an alliance in the gas sector. The deal could see them work in a number of areas including exploration and production, to sales – which could include asset swaps.
Oil giant Shell is said to have ended its ties with the market lobby group the American Legislature Exchange Council (ALEC). The company said the move was as a result of their climate change stance being “inconsistent” with their own. A spokesman said:"While we engage with a number of organisations on selected, and often complex, energy topics, we don't always agree on every position adopted by these organisations.
Royal Dutch Shell is considering investing billions in Brazil, set to become a focal point after the planned acquisition of BG Group, even as it prepares to sell huge chunks of its business to pay for the $70 bln deal. Despite a broad drive to cut spending in the face of persistently low oil prices, Chief Executive Ben Van Beurden remains steadfast in his plans to buy BG, which will transform Shell into the world's biggest liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplier. The company has announced plans to sell around $30 billion in assets between 2016 and 2018 to improve its balance sheet and focus on its core deepwater oil and LNG business.
Oil companies are making the largest cost cuts in a generation to reassure investors. They’re risking their own future growth. From Chevron Corp. to Royal Dutch Shell Plc, producers are firing thousands of workers and canceling investments to defend their dividends. Cutbacks across the industry total $180 billion so far this year, the most since the oil crash of 1986, according to Rystad Energy AS, an Oslo-based energy consultant. BP Plc Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley said last week his “first priority” was payouts to shareholders. Chevron CFO Patricia Yarrington said her company was committed to continuing its 27-year record of annual dividend increases. While the dividend payouts please investors, the producers risk repeating the patterns of 1986 and 1999, when prices slumped and they slashed spending. It took years for them to rebuild their pipelines of production growth.
Royal Dutch Shell has agreed to sell its controlling stake in Tongyi Lubricants in China, in the energy company's latest step to restructure its global refining business. Shell said it expects to complete its exit from Tongyi, in which it bought a 75 percent stake in 2006, by late 2015 or early 2016. The value of the sale to Huo's Group, its partner in Tongyi, and private equity firm Carlyle International, was not disclosed. The Anglo-Dutch oil and gas company will remain present in China's growing lubricant industry, which produces liquids such as engine oils and greases.
With Brent crude prices falling below $50, widespread trader views of continuing oversupply and massive cut-backs in the oil and gas industry, Shell has begun drilling in one of the world’s highest cost locations, endeavouring to tap the huge reserves of the offshore Arctic! So what’s going on? We all know, but often choose to forget, that the oil industry is an extremely cyclical business, the continuing victim of regional wars, global geopolitics and macroeconomics. After nearly 20 years of subdued prices, oil convincing broke through $50 in the second quarter of 2005, surging to exceed $140 in summer 2008 before collapsing again to $40 during the global financial crisis.
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Shell has declared force majeure on gas supplies to Nigeria's LNG export terminal on Bonny Island in Rivers State due to a pipeline leak, a spokesman for the company said on Thursday. "Shell declared force majeure on gas supplies from SPDC to NLNG (Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Co), effective August 4," spokesman Precious Okolobo said, adding that the company was investigating the cause of the leak.
Oil major Shell and Esso Exploration have signed a sales and purchase agreement to sell off their interest in the Anasuria cluster in the Central North Sea for $105million. The move comes after the company announced in February last year it planned to sell its stake in the asset as it looked to focus on assets where it sees an opportunity for growth. In a joint venture, the assets have been taken over by Hibiscus Petroleum and Ping Petroleum, in a first step for both companies to enter the UK market.
Sound Oil, the Mediterranean focused upstream gas company, has signed a gas sales agreement with Shell for the Casa Tonetto production concession.
An offshore worker has died while working on an FPSO (Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading) vessel in the North Sea. Tributes have been paid to William Nichol, 61, who had been working for IKM Testing UK Limited on the Anasuria FPSO. Police were sent offshore to investigate following the incident which happened at around 4pm on Tuesday on the Shell-operated vessel.
Russia has submitted its bid for vast territories in the Arctic to the United Nations. It is claiming 1.2 million square kilometres (more than 463,000 square miles) of Arctic sea shelf, the Russian foreign ministry said. Russia, the US, Canada, Denmark and Norway have all been trying to assert jurisdiction over parts of the Arctic, which is believed to hold up to a quarter of the planet’s undiscovered oil and gas.
Environmental campaigners have begun a month of protests over oil giant Shell’s efforts to drill in the Arctic with a Titanic-themed orchestral performance. Greenpeace is holding protests outside Shell’s London headquarters against the company’s attempts to undertake oil drilling in the Arctic, which the campaigners warn could lead to environmental disaster and worsen climate change. The protests began with a performance of Requiem for Arctic Ice, an orchestral piece inspired by the famous story of the musicians continuing to play as the Titanic sank after it hit an iceberg, by the Crystal Palace Quartet and supporting musicians.
Profits slipped at BG Group in the second quarter despite oil and gas production reaching record levels.
Shell revealed it would take a “good look” at its North Sea portfolio as it considers $30billion of asset sales over the next two years.
Shell’s chief executive Ben van Beurden said its landmark takeover of BG will act as a “springboard to change Shell into a simpler and more profitable company”.
In the 36 years since the Islamic revolution swept over Iran, the country has tapped international debt markets exactly twice.
Oil companies’ least-loved business over the past five years is proving to be their lifeline. Margins from refineries in northwest Europe rose fivefold last quarter to the highest since at least 2003, data from Total SA show. In the preceding quarter, the share of profit from processing crude and chemicals at Royal Dutch Shell Plc and BP Plc was four times higher than the same period a year earlier. The turnaround follows last year’s end to an oil boom that tripled the cost of crude for processing since 2009 and spurred a focus on drilling instead of refining. A decade-long doubling of refining capacity in China also swamped European efforts to rein in supply. Crude’s slump in the past year has reversed the dynamic, curbing refining costs and raising demand for fuels. “Refining has become a boon in these times from being a burden over the years,” Iain Armstrong, an oil analyst at fund manager Brewin Dolphin Ltd., said July 22 in London. “The companies will look to make the most of this dramatic change while it lasts.” Shell and BP are scheduled to release second-quarter earnings at the end of the month. Results at their downstream businesses, which include trading as well as refining, are likely to show they also benefited from a market structure called contango, where future prices are higher than those for immediate delivery. That allows their traders to profit by storing cheap oil now to sell for more later.
A venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Canada's Petromanas has applied to drill two onshore blocks in central Albania close to another promising well they are drilling further south, an official said on Thursday. The official said three bids had been submitted for the blocks - from Shell Upstream Albania B.V with Petromanas Albania GmbH, Israel's Delek Group Limited and Interland Investments SA.
Shell has been given approval by the US Department of Interior to carry out limited offshore drilling in the Arctic. The decison comes amidst strong opposition from environmental groups who fear a potential oil spill in the region could have a lasting impact. The oil major will not be able to begin drilling until it has all necessary hardware in place to proceed as well as necessary safety measures.
Shell has attempted to calm investor jitters over its proposed £55billion takeover of BG Group by saying it expects to save billions of dollars by cutting costs once the deal goes through.
Oil major Shell is expected to move to a three on, three off shift pattern at the start of 2016. The company previously revealed it was in consultation with staff over the move, which is in line with a number of companies including Chevron and EnQuest.