We are used to talking about the oil majors like Shell being in the spotlight over African oil exploration. But a smaller player is making the headlines, with a soaring share price and two African discoveries in a week: one in Uganda and another off Sierrra Leone. It is the Irish independent company Tullow that … Read More
Timed with perfection to undermine the meeting between Canada’s Premier Stephen Harper and Barack Obama, Greenpeace has issued a new report labelling Canada as a “climate change bully” that is doing everything in its power to undermine a new agreement at Copenhagen. Tomorrow will be the second meeting between the two leaders, who are expected … Read More
When Peter Voser takes control at Shell next week from his predecessor Jeroen van der Veer, he will have a bursting in-tray that includes one persistent problem for Shell: Nigeria. Here the oil giant faces a myriad of problems including continuing community unrest, militant attacks and what to do about gas flaring.
The following article ran in the Guardian (UK) and was written by Jeremy Leggett. It is based on the publication of this report (large pdf). If eight companies across a broad spectrum of UK industry had warned, five years ago, that a ruinous credit crunch would hit the global economy this year, might the government … Read More
In what is a truly symbolic victory for the people of the Niger Delta, the oil giant Shell has been ordered to hand over the huge Bonny oil terminal to the local population. Although details are only now becoming public, a high court in Rivers State ruled in July that the site of the Bonny … Read More
No let up in the chaos of Nigeria. Rebels from the Niger Delta blew up a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline yesterday, forcing the firm to cut production, helping keep world oil prices near record highs as a consequence. It was carried out while Shell was trying to repair damage caused by a series of similar … Read More
You can see why Alaska is so attractive for Shell. Its only got a few polar bears in its way, rather than thousands of locals who oppose its operations. The company’s Nigerian arm said that 130,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude output was halted because of leaks on the Nembe Creek pipeline in the … Read More
Eni SpA, Italy’s largest oil company, plans to jointly invest $28 billion with Libya to expand crude and natural-gas production in the North African country. The 10-year spending program will be evenly split between Eni and Libya’s state-run National Oil Corp. Rome-based Eni said it also agreed to extend existing supply contracts to receive oil … Read More
And so the debate about Iraq’s oil wrangles on. The New York Times reports that a senior US State Department official in Baghdad has said the first American oil contract in Iraq – that of the Hunt Oil Company of Dallas with the Kurdistan Regional Government, was at “cross purposes” with the stated United States … Read More
As oil prices continue to rise, Iran has warned that OPEC would not allow itself to be pressured by consumers in the face of rising oil prices, saying current record crude highs were good for oil exporting countries. ‘The talk that OPEC is a provider and a regulator of prices and therefore can be pressured … Read More
