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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...