Shell undergoing massive sell off to fix its balance sheet
Extracts from an article poublished Monday 24 March 2014 by MarketWatch under the headline: Ghana’s Jubilee Points to Best Offshore Acreage in the World
LONDON / ACCESSWIRE / March 24, 2014 / The oil industry hasn’t started off 2014 with a bang. The oil majors – ExxonMobil, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, BP – all posted disappointing fourth quarter numbers. Shell in particular is undergoing a massive sell off to fix its balance sheet. Why are these companies struggling, and why all the gloom in the oil sector? Higher costs are the major reason. The oil majors are not looking all that great in terms of an investment opportunity.
BP and Shell peril on the Russian front
“While BP is the biggest of Britain’s oil giants exposed to Russia, it is not alone. Royal Dutch Shell has a stake in the huge Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas (LNG) project off the Pacific coast of Russia, and is also working with gas giant Gazprom to drill for oil in the Russian Arctic shelf. The ultimate fear is that Russia will repatriate western companies’ assets…”
By John Donovan
The Sunday Times published an article yesterday by John Collingridge under the headline: “BP’s peril on the Russian front”
The article is focused on BP and warns of the risk to its Russian investments arising from Putin’s annexation of Crimea – principally BP’s tie-up with Rosneft.
However, the article points out that Royal Dutch Shell also has grounds for concern – in Shell’s case over its reduced stake in the Sakhalin 2 project and its joint plans with Gazprom oil exploration in the Russian Arctic shelf.
Extract
“While BP is the biggest of Britain’s oil giants exposed to Russia, it is not alone. Royal Dutch Shell has a stake in the huge Sakhalin-2 liquefied natural gas (LNG) project off the Psacific coast of Russia, and is also working with gas giant Gazprom to drill for oil in the Russian Arctic shelf. The ultimate fear is that Russia will repatriate western companies’ assets – although few believe this is likely.”
Extract from article published by The Sunday Times, 23 March 2014, page 6 of Business Section.
Exxon’s ‘Bromance’ With The Kremlin
Extracts from a Forbes article by Christopher Helman published on 20 March 2014 under the headline:Will Exxon’s ‘Bromance’ With The Kremlin Help Keep Putin In Check?
ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson has a good relationship with Vladimir Putin. If you do a Google image search for the two men, you’ll see a dozen shots of them together, looking in each others’ eyes, smiling, laughing, shaking hands. They have a lot in common. Both men run autocratic, secretive, oil-based, global operations. And they like each other enough that they’ve joined forces in perhaps the biggest joint venture in the global oil industry. Exxon’s landmark 2011 joint venture with Kremlin-controlled Rosneft calls for upwards of $500 billion in investment over the coming decades. The companies are planning an offshore drilling campaign in Russia’s frozen Chukchi Sea…
No other international oil company has anywhere close to this kind of relationship with the Kremlin. On the contrary, some oil giants have been bruised and battered by the Kremlin: In 2006 an irate Putin cut Royal Dutch Shell’s stake in the Sakhalin-2 project cut in half and handed control to Gazprom after costs doubled to $22 billion. Shell did sign a tentative “strategic alliance” with Rosneft in 2007, but it proved to be all show and no go. Shell does have a modest exploratory drilling program with Gazprom.
Shell’s disastrous tax dodge
Photo Courtesy Mark Meyer / Greenpeace
Extracts from an article by Jim Paulin, Dutch Harbor Fisherman, published 23 March 2014 by AlaskaDispatch under the headline: Southwest Alaska municipalities want bigger share of oil royalties
Impacts are already being felt from the arrival of Royal Dutch Shell in Alaska. The arctic-class oil rig Kulluk grounded in the Kodiak archipelago New Year’s Eve, as the rig left on a schedule designed to avoid a potential tax bill of $6 million in Unalaska, raising serious concerns of damage to the environment. None of those fears were realized in that incident, though it clearly showed the potential for harm. The cost to Shell in responding to the near-disaster makes $6 million seem small by comparison. In addition, Alaska’s government says the rig is exempt from local taxes because it wasn’t drilling in state waters, which extend up to three miles from shore. Shell has suspended exploration this year, to give it time to fix its drill rigs.
Shell sees ‘minor’ impact in higher U.S. gas exports to Europe
Extract from a Reuters article by Meeyoung Cho published Monday 24 March 2014
GOYANG, South Korea (Reuters) – Growing interest in sending more U.S. natural gas to Europe does not hold a big threat for Asian gas markets, although such exports would help improve spot market liquidity for the super-chilled form of the fuel, a Shell executive said on Monday. Tension over the future of Ukraine is prompting the European Union and United States to look at deepening their economic ties. Europe is hoping to tap the abundant energy resources of its key ally to reduce dependence on Russia, which feeds a bulk of the region’s gas demand.
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