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The Perdido spar will bring production in from three fields—Great White, Silvertip and Tobago—with a production design of 130,000 boe/day. The Shell-operated Perdido Regional Development Spar has arrived in the ultra-deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) and is currently being secured to the seafloor in 7,816 ft (2,382 m) of water, a process that will take about one month. Perdido will be the deepest oil development in the world, the deepest drilling and production platform in the world and have the deepest subsea well in the world to date. Other partners in the joint venture are BP...

The consequences for federal restrictions on oil and gas exploration go beyond just higher gas prices, interfering with the basic free-market principle of allowing enterprise to meet demand by providing a supply, according to former Shell Oil CEO John Hofmeister. Hofmeister, who is the founder and CEO of the recently-formed advocacy group Citizens for Affordable Energy, appeared on CNBC’s July 15 “Squawk Box.” He criticized government for 30 years of inaction. “I think if you look at it in real time – looking at it in this month, next month, the following month, the answer is no – it’s not...

Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB) is in the final stages of striking a production sharing agreement with the Jordanian government to explore oil from the country's vast oil shale, a senior official at the state-run Natural Resources Authority said Thursday. "We are about to complete drafting a production sharing agreement with Shell and expected to sign the agreement initially in September this year," NRA's assistant director-general for mining and petroleum, Hisham al-Rabi, told Dow Jones Newswires. The PSA needs the approval of the Jordanian government and parliament, he said. Shell is expected to invest more than $20 billion in the...

In its quest to remove oil from western Colorado's shale, Royal Dutch Shell has been buying land and water rights in anticipation of what is likely to be a thirsty new industry. Some officials worry that the demands of the oil-shale industry could drain every drop of the region's remaining water. "On the upper end, we're looking at potentially several hundred thousand acre-feet of water — more than people think is commonly available to develop in the Colorado River," said Dan Birch, deputy general manager for the Colorado River Water Conservation District. Shell and other energy companies have amassed tens...

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil major Royal Dutch Shell has pulled out of a planned gas project in Iran, after coming under pressure not to participate from U.S. lawmakers who were concerned about Iran's nuclear programme. A spokeswoman said on Saturday that the world's second-largest non government-controlled oil company by market capitalisation was pulling out of Phase 13 of the giant South Pars gas field but may yet join later stages of the field's development. Shell, Spain's Repsol and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding in January 2002 to develop Phase 13 in a project to...

John Hofmeister, the Houston-based president of Shell Oil's U.S. operations, expressed doubt about the validity of peak oil theory in an appearance on CNBC's Squawk Box show. "The peak oil theory has really swamped the world. God bless Matt Simmons," Hofmeister told CNBC anchor Carl Quintanilla, according to a transcript provided to WND by CNBC. "His assumptions are correct based on his hypotheses, but his hypotheses are too narrow." Matt Simmons, a Houston-based investment banker who specializes in the energy industry, is widely known for his 2005 book, "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World...

Russian police have raided the Moscow offices of the oil giant BP and its joint venture TNK-BP. The searches have renewed fears that the Russian government wants greater control of foreign-owned energy assets. There is market speculation that the Kremlin would like the state-owned gas firm Gazprom to buy the stakes of BP's Russian partners in TNK-BP. Last year, TNK-BP was forced to sell its stake in the Kovykta gas field at a discount price to Gazprom. In 2006, Shell was forced to cede control of its Sakhalin gas field to Gazprom. "We will co-operate with the authorities but we...

Royal Dutch Shell has been forced onto the defensive after its announcement of record profits sparked calls for a windfall tax and complaints from motorists about soaring pump prices. While investors fretted about whether the $27.6bn (£13.9bn) profits based on the current cost of supply masked deep problems facing the world's second largest non-government oil company, Shell received a barrage of complaints that its earnings were "obscene". Understatement: Shell's chief executive,Jeroen van der Veer, said the figures were "satisfactory The annual profits, which were up 9pc, are a record for a European listed company and were driven by last year's...

(IsraelNN.com) MK Reuven "Ruby" Rivlin wrote Wednesday in a column at Nrg that Israel needed to bomb Gaza civilians in response to the ongoing "Kassam" fire coming from Gaza. Rivlin thinks Israel should transfer a certain amount of money to the PA so that it can build shelters on the streets of Gaza. At the same time it will build improvised rockets that will resemble the fire power of the PA "Kassam" and "Grad" missiles. Israel will announce that from now on, every time the sirens sound in Sderot, Ashkelon and the Gaza perimeter, identical rockets will fall on the...

Two decades ago, when Dutch oil giant Shell was poking holes in the ice-clogged Arctic Ocean, Rick Fox was a young buck managing the company's drilling rigs. Some of the holes hit oil, and Fox and the other oil men felt pretty good about what they found. But none of the discoveries was developed -- the price of oil was too low and the finds too remote -- and Shell abandoned Alaska's Arctic. Now Fox, 55, and Shell are mounting an aggressive return to the polar ocean, staking hundreds of millions of dollars to lease vast offshore acreage, staff an...

The Royal Dutch/Shell Group is gearing up to tackle one of the biggest and costliest projects in oilpatch and Canadian construction history. The company announced Monday that it has filed a regulatory application to build a new upgrader east of Edmonton to serve its oilsands expansion projects in northern Alberta and that the cost could run as high as $27 billion. The Scotford Upgrader 2 will have a total capacity of up to 400,000 barrels per day and will be built in four phases, taking as long as two decades to complete. It will be located adjacent to Shell's existing...

DALLAS -- Royal Dutch Shell and Dallas-based TXU Corporation agreed to jointly develop a wind-powered electricity generation project in the Texas High Plains on Friday. The proposed 3,000-megawatt project would be situated in Briscoe County, southeast of Amarillo. One megawatt of electricity is enough to light 1,000 homes. The deal between Shell Wind Energy and TXU subsidiary Luminant also commits both sides to work together on other renewable energy projects in Texas. Both companies said they'll also research whether compressed air can be stored and used to drive the wind-driven turbines at times of low winds or peak demand.

It has become almost a regular stop for San Francisco tourists. Once they've seen the Golden Gate Bridge and the Transamerica Pyramid, they can drive down Harrison Street to see the most amazing sight of all. Regular gas for $4 a gallon. Actually, it is higher than that. At Bob Oyster's Shell station at Sixth and Harrison, regular is $4.33 a gallon, plus is $4.43, and "V-Power'' is $4.53. Motorists can be seen rolling their eyes as they drive by. Just another example of a greedy station owner, sticking his customers for all they are worth? Not really. There's a...

BRUSSELS -- In a legal milestone, American trial lawyers have reaped their first big payday in Europe: $47 million in fees from settling a securities-fraud case with Royal Dutch Shell PLC, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. Europe's largest oil company by market capitalization said Wednesday it would pay $352.6 million to settle claims brought in the U.S. by European shareholders, who accused Shell of defrauding them by overstating its reserves. The Netherlands-based oil giant also agreed to pay attorneys' fees to three American law firms that represented the European investors, the paper reported. The agreement marks the first time...

What You Can Do about Iran March 23, 2007 FrontPageMagazine.com Kenneth R. Timmerman This week brought unusual news from Russia, which until now has been a major supplier of Iran’s nuclear programs. The Russians said they were pulling engineers and technicians out of Busheir, the Persian Gulf site where since 1995 they have been building a nuclear power plant for Iran. They cited as pretext Iran’s failure to make timely payments on the $800 million contract. Should this turn out to be more than just a tactical maneuver, Russia’s pullback from Iran signals a real success for U.S. diplomacy. But...

FORWARD OPERATING BASE SALERNO, Afghanistan, Feb. 22, 2007 – Long hours of stressful work faced by deployed troops, combined with little privacy and not much free time, can end up taking a mental and emotional toll. Fortunately, soldiers serving in every Brigade Combat Team in the Army will now have a greater opportunity to visit a behavioral health clinic and speak to a trained specialist. Behavioral health used to be a division-level function, but the Army’s adoption of a modular brigade combat team structure changed that, explained Spc. Alex Townsend, a behavioral health specialist assigned to the 82nd Airborne...

Shell defies US pressure and signs £5bn Iranian gas deal Terry Macalister Monday January 29, 2007 Guardian Unlimited (UK) Shell has signed an important deal to help Iran develop a major gas field, ignoring growing pressure from George Bush to isolate the country for being part of what he alleges is an "axis of evil". The Anglo-Dutch group, which is struggling to bring more momentum to its business after being forced to hand over vital Russian reserves at Sakhalin island to the Kremlin, confirmed it had finally reached agreement on various aspects of its "Persian LNG" - liquefied natural gas...

Gale Norton is back providing oversight of energy development issues on public lands in the American West, this time as a key legal advisor for a major global oil company. Months after she resigned her cabinet post as President Bush's Interior Secretary—and then seemed to disappear from public view—the Coloradan apparently has accepted an offer to serve as counsel for Royal Dutch Shell PLC. Shell, one of the world's largest producers of oil, was also one of the companies that Norton's Interior Department routinely engaged on matters of drilling in sensitive ecological settings. According to Dow Jones Market Watch, which...

Gazprom grabs Sakhalin gas stake State-owned Russian energy giant Gazprom has wrested control of a massive oil and gas field from Anglo-Dutch rival Shell.Gazprom will pay $7.5bn (£3.8bn) for a 50%-plus-one-share stake in the Sakhalin-2 project after Shell was accused of breaking environmental laws. The deal was signed by President Vladimir Putin and top executives from Royal Dutch Shell and Gazprom. Analysts said the deal was better than expected for Shell. Shell and Japanese companies Mitsui and Mitsubishi will see their stakes in the $22bn project on the Pacific island halved. Holdings cut Shell will now be left with...

/begin my excerpts A N. Korean Shell Lands on Chinese Village An unidentified shell landed on a field near a house On Oct. 1, a shell flew in and landed on a field next to senior citizen's hall at Qing-shi-zhen, Jian City, Jilin Province, China. People were startled, and reported to police. Later, experts from PLA Engineering Unit inspected the shell at the scene and concluded that it is a anti-personnel howitzer shell, and fired from a an artillery unit stationed at Manpo District, Jagang Province, N. Korea. They disassembled it and the further examination showed that it is indeed...

Abuja, Nigeria (AHN) - The Nigerian military has launched several raids against oil militants, a few days after they killed 17 soldiers in the Niger Delta. Militants say the army swept through an oil producing community of the region with crushing strength. A militant group dubbed the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) said, "In light of this attack on a helpless community, we are at present considering reciprocal action against the military or oil installations in Rivers [State]." A local army spokesman, Sagir Musa, has denied the report saying, "There is no truth in the...

YUZHNO-SAKHALINSK -- Oleg Mitvol, the state official leading the charge against Shell's Sakhalin-2 venture, warned Thursday that he would seek to shut down work at the $20 billion project for purportedly causing $50 billion of damage to the environment. "The project must be stopped and all that's been done must be reworked," Mitvol, deputy head of the Natural Resources Ministry's environmental watchdog, told reporters after a daylong tour of sites that have borne the brunt of the project's environmental effects. "For every destroyed tree or damaged river, we want to bring a criminal case," Mitvol said. The Natural Resources Ministry...

Kremlin 'bullying' leaves western energy companies furious By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow (Filed: 23/09/2006) In the past few years, mention of Vladimir Putin at the dinner table of some western leaders could have brought on a case of indigestion. In the past week, though, the Russian president has been causing ulcers. Sakhalin Energy extracts oil and gas from one of the world's most inhospitable regions On Monday, Russia suspended an environmental permit for an oil and gas project led by Royal Dutch Shell on Sakhalin Island in the Pacific Ocean. The international community has watched with queasiness as democracy in...

When Shell started shelling out mega bucks to drill for oil off the coast of Sakhalin Island, Russia wasn't one of the global oil suppliers. Russia is now. It is just plain costing too much for Shell to get the oil out of the icy water in the sea of Oshkosh. So...Shell has teamed up with Russia's Giant Gazprom. Gazprom will get a share of whatever they find in the sea of Oshkosh, and Shell gets a 50% stake in a Gazprom field in western Siberia. The relationship with Gazprom is supposed to give Shell some political protection, but it...

<p>I think something at the Shell refinery just exploded. There was some kind of pressure wave that hit our house (here in Destrehan). I thought it was a strong gust of wind at first, but now it seems like there's an enourmous fire burning in that direction. I can hear a low roar when I go outside, and there's a orange glow in the sky in that direction.</p>

I am writing this letter in answer to article concerning high gas prices, in the May 3 edition of the Calvert Independent. In addressing the high gasoline prices, I am not surprised to see the slant, or “spin,” that the greedy oil companies are the blame for the high prices. It never fails to amaze me when liberal minds continually spout the talking points spewed forth daily by the media. Why are gasoline prices high? Who is to blame? First, we have the onerous fuel blend regulations of the Carol Browner EPA of 1997, creating nearly 30 fuel blends nationwide....

PORT HARCOURT, Nigeria - Militants battling for a bigger cut of Nigeria's oil revenue exploded a car bomb inside a military base, ending weeks of relative calm with a blast that killed at least two people and sent a fireball into the night sky. The Movement for Emancipation of the Niger Delta claimed responsibility for the blast late Wednesday at a barracks in the southern oil center of Port Harcourt. The group's attacks on oil installations in Nigeria, Africa's leading oil exporter, had already helped drive up world oil prices. This country is the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports....

Capital movements due to fears over a possible US-Iran war, financial speculation or market meltdown are driving crude prices upward. Milan (AsiaNews) – Capital movements on commodity exchanges, not low supply are pushing oil prices upward. Brent crude has reached US$ 74 a barrel because of lowered refinery use and a backup in crude inventories that has left many a super tanker waiting to unload. Oil storage has become a problem since facilities are full in the Persian Gulf, Europe, the Americas and even Asia. Even Israel, which built huge embargo-busting oil depots to allow the country to survive every...

Fascism is an ugly though greatly misunderstood word. Few realise that fascist economics involved the socialisation of the economy in practice though not in word. So-called capitalists kept the deeds to their property, as did everyone else, but only so long as they did as instructed by the state. In other words, fascism made a mockery of property rights. But another aspect of fascist thinking is that it sought to direct business from commercial to ‘social’ ends, as if they were different and incompatible. Unfortunately Shell and BP Amoco have apparently decided that green fascism is the “wave of the...

Thanksgiving marked the day that some analysts thought global oil production would have reached its peak, ushering in a new era of fuel shortages. These petro-pessimists were using the same formula as the one that accurately predicted the apex of U.S. oil production in 1970. Matthew Simmons, author of "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy," is one of them. He thinks Saudi Arabia has pumped much of its usable reserves and will start to experience production declines. Even analysts who are more optimistic warn that chronically high prices and occasional supply crunches...

Chairman of the Shell companies in Iran, Yves Merer, said here Sunday the Anglo-Dutch oil giant would make an investment worth billions of dollars in the Islamic Republic's industry. Merer, who talked to Fars News Agency, added the demand for energy, including oil, would soar in the future but oil prices would keep fluctuating. He reiterated, The Shell will inject billions of dollars into Iran's industry if the country pays more heed to investment. The Shell Companies Group has allotted some 15 billion dollars for development of complicated oilfields across the world. The task is faced with two main problems...

MADRID, Oct 5 Asia Pulse - Iranian Oil Ministry Deputy for International Affairs Hadi Nejad-Hosseinian said that Iran could run out of oil reserves in nine decades. Speaking at a gathering dubbed "Iran in the 21th century: Energy and Security" here Monday, he cited latest figures which put Iran's crude oil reserves at 137 billion barrels, accounting for 11.6 per cent of the world's total reserves. He also said that Iran has about 29,000 billion cubic meters of gas which is 15.3 per cent of the world's total gas reserves. Quoting research findings, the official said that due to the...

Is Oil Shale The Answer? September 30, 2005 by Alan Burkhart With fuel prices skyrocketing many people are thinking that extracting petroleum from a soft rock known as oil shale may provide an answer to America’s energy woes by providing an additional source of crude. Although no one is saying that oil shale could replace traditional exploration, I have serious doubts about its viability. I’m not ruling it out, mind you, but if history is to be our guide we likely have little to gain and much to lose by sinking money into the expensive process of extracting oil from...

After leaving the state in 1998, the company has returned and hopes to join BP, ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil as a major player in Alaska. Shell this year made its intentions clear by spending more than $44 million for 84 offshore leases in the Beaufort Sea. Company officials say that is just the beginning. "Alaska is a great and vast land. It is for people who think big ... and that's what we're doing," said Chandler Wilhelm, the company's Alaska Exploration manager, at an open house Tuesday at Shell's new offices in midtown Anchorage. ... Annell Bay, Shell's regional vice president...

México. Pemex, the Mexican oil monopoly, is studying an alliance with Anglo-Dutch Shell to develop a crude oil deposit in the Gulf of Mexico, near the maritime boundary with the US, according to newspaper El Universal de México. The newspaper cites sources close to the project and Secretary of Energy Fernando Elizondo, who acknowledged that Shell is interested and that "there have already been contacts". "But we have to adjust our activities absolutely to the legal framework", he emphasized. "We have to resolve this matter quickly because there is a risk that someone could beat us" to the development of...

An American Traitor: Guilty As Charged By Henry Mark Holzer and Erika HolzerFrontPageMagazine.com | June 10, 2005For three decades Jane Fonda obfuscated, distorted and lied about virtually everything connected with her wartime trip to North Vietnam: her motive, her acts, her intent, and her contribution to the Communists’ war effort.  With the aid of clever handlers, she so successfully suppressed and spun her conduct in Hanoi that many Americans didn’t know what she had done there, and, more important, the legal significance. Three years ago, our book, “Aid and Comfort”: Jane Fonda in North Vietnam (McFarland & Co.), laid bare...

We’ve all been had. The bottom has long since fallen out of the key group that master-minded the Kyoto Protocol credit scheme, but nobody seemed to have joined the dots. It all began with the flight of Canadian Maurice Strong’s Earth Council from Costa Rica as noted by the National Post’s Peter Foster in May, 2004. With no fanfare, the Earth Council landed in CH2M Hill’s Consumer Road Toronto office towers. The Costa Rican government has been pursuing the Earth Council for payment of U.S.$1.65 million, for the wrongful sale of a tract of land it imprudently donated to the...

SHELL yesterday reported an "excellent" first quarter with a strong financial performance across its businesses. The oil giant, which reported the biggest annual profits in UK corporate history in February, said its income had risen by 42% to $6.7bn (£3.5bn) in the period.

PLEASANT GROVE — Scott and Lori Connors' family room looks like it was bombed. There are random holes in the walls, gashes in the fabric of the couch and chair. There's broken glass everywhere and a sheet of plywood where the window used to be. Outside, a shed is in tatters, and there's a boulder-size crater in the lawn. Upstairs, there are pieces of shrapnel imbedded in the bathroom wall. A large mirror has what looks like bullet holes in the glass. It looks like it was bombed — because it was.

MICHIGANTOWN, Indiana (AP) -- An Indiana pet store owner says he sees the image of Satan on the shell of a turtle that was the only survivor of a store fire in October. The palm-sized red-eared slider turtle, named Lucky, was the only animal to survive the fire at Dora's A-Dora-ble Pet Shop in nearby Frankfort, about 40 miles northwest of Indianapolis. Owner Bryan Dora now says he sees Satan's face on the critter's shell. He can spot lips, eyes, a goatee, shoulders and a pair of pointy horns on Lucky's back.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Tuesday it has filed civil lawsuits against 15 natural gas traders for reporting false information on deals to industry newsletters in an attempt to manipulate market prices.The traders worked for Enserco Energy, Mirant Americas Energy Marketing (MIRKQ: news, chart, profile) , Cinergy Corp. (CIN: news, chart, profile) , Duke Energy Trading and Marketing (DUK: news, chart, profile) , CMS Field Services (CMS: news, chart, profile) , and Shell (RD: news, chart, profile) affiliate Coral Energy Resources, when they carried out these activities, the commission said in a statement. Concord Energy, a...

Shell to hire 1000 engineers to lift credibility Royal Dutch/Shell is planning to hire more than 1,000 engineers for its core exploration and production business in a bid to restore the credibility of its oil and gas reserves accounting. The Anglo-Dutch energy group was forced to cut its proved oil reserves by almost a quarter last year and hopes the ambitious recruitment drive will help it catch up with rivals - whose records on reserve replacement and production growth have left it trailing. The move, disclosed in an internal newsletter, also appears to support the view of some people close...

Eleven people, including nine Orleans Parish parking meter attendants, made false claims to Shell Oil Co. totaling more than $7,000, alleging that tainted Shell gasoline caused their gas gauges to malfunction, according to Louisiana State Police. Members of the State Police Insurance Fraud Unit arrested nine people Tuesday morning and booked them with conspiracy and theft or attempted theft in connection with the crime. Two others are wanted on similar charges, State Police said.

Vietnam war-era shell explodes, killing 6 people and injuring 4 others who had been trying to saw it open in Vietnam (Reuters)

According to Kerry's peers, two of his wounds which earned purple hearts were both superficial and self-inflicted. In one case, he apparently got hit with dry rice! The questions surrounding the details of John Kerry's purple hearts reminded me of a M*A*S*H episode. Major Frank Burns, the sniveling idiot who had no respect from his peers or his subordinates, got an egg shell in his eye. He tried to get a purple heart citing "shell fragment in eye"! Since Kerry also has little respect from his "Band of Brothers" and apparently got medals under exaggerated claims, I am now referring...

The issue of gay marriage brings to a head, like few other issues of our time, a central conflict between two moral positions that interact like seismic plates beneath the surface of contemporary American political life. It is commonly thought that the issue of gay marriage pits secular liberals against religious conservatives. While this understanding is accurate up to a point, it is also seriously misleading. The most stubborn and intransigent opponents in the conflict are both in their way sectarian.

The head of one of the world's biggest oil companies has admitted that the threat of climate change makes him "really very worried for the planet". .... Lord Oxburgh's words will also fuel arguments over sequestration. Supporters say it will allow a smoother transition to reduced emissions by allowing us to burn coal, oil and gas for longer. Critics argue that the idea is an expensive and probably unworkable smokescreen for continued reliance on fossil fuels. ....According to a 3,000m (about 10,000ft) ice core from Antarctica revealing the Earth's climate history, carbon dioxide levels are the highest for at least...

The discovery of an Iraqi artillery shell armed with nerve gas has the liberal community and mass media in a panic. The 155mm nerve gas shell was rigged to kill U.S. troops but it failed. U.S. Brig. General Mark Kimmitt confirmed the discovery during a news conference in Baghdad. Yet, the discovery of nerve gas was followed by a second revelation. A second shell, equipped with mustard gas was found two weeks ago. The mustard gas shell identified by the special WMD inspection team in Iraq appears to be one of 550 declared by Saddam to U.N. inspectors during the...

A gasoline industry analyst, Tim Hamilton of AUTO-an organiztion serving independent gas stations-is predicting the high gas prices of today will be the bargains of tomorrow.The problem, Hamilton says, is Shell's plan to close its refinery in Bakersfield, California, and ship Washington refinery gas to California.Shell says the problem is a shortage of crude oil.The claim is disputed by some California state officials and by two refinery workers who spoke on condition of anonymity.The two say supervisors have told them that if retail prices are $2.00 per gallon or more they can make more importing gas from other areas.Hamilton's prediction:...

Oil is making headlines again. Never far from newsworthy, such is its over-riding economic and political importance, the spotlight has returned as harsh as ever. The price of benchmark US light sweet crude recently reached its highest level for 13 years, and the cartel of petroleum exporting nations, OPEC, maintained its decision to cut production - potentially fuelling yet more rises. Add increasing violence in Iraq delaying its return to full oil production, and it is understandable that oil analysts have been getting the jitters. Not to forget President George W. Bush, who in an election year really does not...