The US has issued a permit which allows Shell to resume its oil exploration off Alaska’s Arctic coast.
The permit, which approves Shell’s ability to disturb marine mammals, was granted in the wake of a Greenpeace protest targeting the company’s Polar Pioneer drilling rig.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration signed off on a permit which allows noise from air guns, icebreaking, drilling and anchor handling.
The move is in line with the Department of Interior’s earlier decision which approved Shell’s general plan for its oil exploration in the area.
Environmental campaign group Greenpeace says 13 of its activists have blocked Shell's Polar Pioneer drilling rig as it tries to leave Seattle for Arctic waters.
Oil major Shell is said to be considering whether to pull the plug on its last exploration well in Ukraine.
The move is being considered as the project has been on hold for almost a year, due to the conflict between pro-Russian separatists and Ukranian forces.
European oil majors are for the first time openly declaring interest in Iran in anticipation of a possible end to sanctions against the country over its nuclear program.
Leaders of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, BP Plc and Total SA all said Wednesday they were ready to return to the nation with the world’s second-largest natural-gas reserves and fourth-biggest oil cache, after similar comments by Italy’s Eni SpA last month.
US oil companies, constrained by the history of American sanctions against Iran dating from the 1979 Islamic revolution, are more cautious in their statements on a return. The current curbs have prevented investment in Iran for a decade.
Shell’s decision to remove the topside of its Brent Delta platform in one has shaved off about a million hours of high-risk offshore work, a senior manager from the British-Dutch oil major said in Aberdeen yesterday.
Shell said in February it would seek approval for the Pioneering Spirit, thought to be the largest ship ever built, to lift and remove the topside in one piece, shunning more traditional methods which involve cutting installations into smaller sections.
The camera pans up with a slight jerk, and lingers for a moment on the oddly familiar woman in the pink dress, splayed on the grass, holding herself up on her arms. Did she trip? What is it that she's trying to see?
We follow her gaze to the two weathered farm houses and back, have a second or two to recall that this woman Andrew Wyeth painted back in 1948 was his neighbor, Anna Christina Olson. Next we're transported to William Bradford's depiction of Melville Bay, before skipping to the pastiche of Highway 138 in David Hockney's Pearblossom Highway.
By the time we jump back seconds later, Christina's World has caught fire.
An appeal by oil major Shell against a ruling that a proposed oil-by-rail project at its Washington state refinery must undergo a full environmental review, has been denied.
A judge made the ruling just two weeks after a crude train derailment caused a fire in North Dakota.
Shell had appealed a ruling in February from a Skagit County Office of Land Use Hearings examiner that a plan to move 70,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil to is 145,000 barrels bpd Puget Sound refinery in Anacortes must be completely reviewed.
Growing global oil demand will create a daily shortfall equating to about 80 times the size of current North Sea output without more investment in production, Royal Dutch Shell boss Ben van Beurden has said.
The gap between supply and demand could grow to 70million barrels per day by 2040, he said, adding: “That’s the equivalent of six times Saudi Arabia’s 2013 production and 80 times the size of today’s UK North Sea production.”
Hundreds of protesters in small boats and kayaks came together in Seattle to make a stand against oil giant Shell and its plans to resume Arctic oil exploration.
The company, also plans to keep two of its drilling rigs in the city's port.
The move has been met with dismay from a number of environmental groups, including Greenpeace, with a vow to disrupt the company's efforts to use the city as a base for drilling.
Oil major Shell said it would consider smaller additions to its business in North America.
The company - which ruled out large acquisitions after its deal to buy BG Group - said while its cash reserves are more limited, it would consider smaller acquisitions.
According to reports, Marvin Odum, director of Shell's Americas exploration and production business, said the company would look at other option including the Permian Basin in Texas and New Mexico, the Utica in Appalachia and Western Canada.
A protester perched herself on a 15-foot tripod in a bid to block the entrance of a Shell fuel transfer station earlier this week in protest to the oil major’s planned Arctic drilling.
The protest was staged on Seattle’s Harbor Island after the US Department of the Interior gave conditional approval to Shell for it to explore for oil in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska.
The company has not drilled in the region since a mishap in 2012.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc won US approval to resume oil exploration off Alaska’s Arctic coast after regulators imposed safety conditions meant to avoid the mishaps that plagued the company three years ago. Environmental groups decried the decision.
The Interior Department on Monday endorsed Shell’s plan to have two rigs drill up to six exploratory wells in the Chukchi Sea, if it gets other permits needed, sets plans to control any leaks and keeps its ships at least 4 miles away from any walruses.
Shell wants to resume work halted in 2012 when its main drilling rig ran aground and was lost. It also was fined for air pollution violations.
“As we move forward, any offshore exploratory activities will continue to be subject to rigorous safety standards,” Abigail Ross Hopper, the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said in a statement.
Deal making in the oil and gas sector is set to accelerate as higher oil prices and an improved outlook for the sector boost investor appetite, a broker has predicted.
Royal Dutch Shell's £46billion bid for smaller rival BG Group last month highlighted the shift in sentiment in the sector after mergers and acquisitions (M&A) slumped in the first quarter of 2015 to a 20-year low, a report by Morgan Stanley revealed.
The research found that there were only 30 deals completed at a value of £2.6billion in the quarter, most of them in North America.
Northern Petroleum has completed its Italian farm-out to oil major Shell.
The company said Italian regulatory authorities had approved the transfer of 80% of the permit interest to Shell, which has paid it $850,000 as part of the deal.
The work programme has started with the re-processing of existing seismic data to detrmine whether there is a requirement for further seismic acquisition to help delineate a proposed target for an exploration well.
The chief executive of BG Group said he welcomed the takeover bid by oil major Shell with "mixed emotions".
The deal, was announced just months after former Statoil boss Helge Lund, took up his new role.
Lund said there was still work to be done before the deal would be finalised.
Oil major Shell could face delays in its bid to return to Arctic drilling after a ruling in Seattle that the city's port must apply for a permit for the company to use it as a hub for its drilling rigs.
The region has previously been a hub for equipment used in energy drilling in Alaska and could be used as a space as Shell makes its first stride back into the Arctic in three years.
The company has been planning to return to Arctic oil and gas exploration since 2012, however it is still waiting for the US Interior Department to issue a full blessing.
Oil giant Shell is said to be pushing ahead with plans to explore for oil in the Arctic Ocean near Alaska despite strong opposition from environmental groups.
The company is said to be preparing vessels to begin a two-year programme to explore two to three wells in the Chukchi Sea off the coast of Alaska.
Shell's chief financial officer Simon Henry said work was "currently on track".
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, the oil producer buying BG Group Plc for $70 billion, reported first-quarter profit that beat analysts’ estimates as refining and trading earnings countered part of the drop in crude prices.
Profit adjusted for one-time items and inventory changes fell 56 percent to $3.2 billion from a year earlier, beating the $2.5 billion average estimate of 12 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
Spending for this year will be cut by about $2 billion to $33 billion or less, The Hague-based Shell said Thursday in a statement.
Shell is cutting investment after oil’s slump over the past year forced producers to defer projects to strengthen their balance sheets. Trading and refining operations have cushioned the bear market for Shell and other European oil majors, including BP Plc, Total SA and Statoil ASA, which all reported better-than-expected quarterly earnings this week.
I was off by one letter.
If you had told me a year ago that Shell was going to make one of the biggest acquisitions in energy industry history, I would have guessed the target was BP.
Instead, Shell plunked down $70 billion for BG after a month of whirlwind talks that reportedly began with a Sunday afternoon phone call between the two top executives.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc hired Barclays Plc to help arrange a 10 billion pound ($15 billion) loan to help fund its purchase of BG Group Plc, two people with knowledge of the matter said.
The short-term bridge facility will replace an existing 3 billion-pound loan provided by Bank of America Corp. on April 8, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the transaction is private.
The loan will help fund the cash component of the purchase price, the people said.
Shell’s plans to cast off a number of North Sea assets will not be affected by its proposed £47billion “mega-merger” with BG Group, a Scottish oil and gas consultancy has said.
The Anglo-Dutch oil giant last week said it plans to buy Reading-based BG in a deal that would be the second biggest deal of its kind after Exxon and Mobil’s £51billion tie-up in 1998.
Analysts have said that the announcement could spark a rash of similar deals as companies look to consolidate against the backdrop of a low oil price environment.
Offshore giant Shell has been accused of breaking safety rules at its site at the huge St Fergus gas terminal.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has issued an improvement notice for the second time in just over a year after it emerged not enough was being done to prevent “major accidents” at the complex north of Peterhead.
The HSE accused Shell of failing to take “all measures necessary” to identify tasks which had the potential to cause a “critical” situation.
Oil giant Shell has played down concerns that its £47billion proposed “mega-merger” with BG Group will lead to hundreds of further job cuts in the North Sea.
Sources have claimed that up to 300 jobs are set to be cut in Aberdeen as the two firms plan to join forces and trim £1.6billion in costs annually. Shell is currently negotiating to cut at least 250 staff and agency contractors from its 4,500-strong North Sea workforce.
Combined, BG and Shell will employ 5,500 people in the region and be the biggest oil and gas producer on the UK Continental Shelf.
A further 300 jobs would amount to a 10% drop in employee numbers between the two firms.
A spokeswoman for Shell said she did not “recognise” the 300 jobs figure, but pointed to chief executive Ben van Beurden’s admission that there are “of course going to be synergies” if the deal goes ahead.
BP Plc coined the slogan “Beyond Petroleum.” The new industry mantra might be “Beyond Oil and Into Gas.” Oh, and while we’re at it, “Down With Coal.”
Consider Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s recent $70 billion acquisition of BG Group Plc -- clearly a huge bet that natural gas will prove to be its cash cow of the future.
The petroleum industry’s move toward gas is hardly new -- the hydraulic fracturing shale revolution is in its second decade, after all.
Still, Shell’s move is an emphatic confirmation that some among the Big Oil family firmly believe gas will play a growing role in meeting the energy demand of emerging countries such as China and India that are trying to move away from dirtier coal.
