Thomko Petro Chemical Blog

Nigeria and Big Oil are engaged in a power struggle over profits.

The country is withholding nearly $1 billion from Shell, in a bid to re-negotiate existing profit-sharing agreements.

Shell states that 95% of profits from its joint venture go to the Nigerian federal government - but Nigeria believes that it has been shortchanged by the oil majors.

Shell also claims that the government is failing to come up with cash to deal with gas flaring from oil facilities.

Anger in local communities at the pollution caused by the gas flaring - along with the inability of local and national governments, as well as oil firms, to provide basic infrastructure in the Delta has prompted protesting youths to regularly invade and occupy vital facilities.

The latest invasion took place on Friday and disrupted production, which is running at well below capacity.

Source: Guardian UK - Shell's future in Nigeria in doubt

BP is in talks with the Iraqi Government about a plan to boost oil production at the huge Rumaila field on the border with Kuwait.

Among other potential projects in Iraq, BP's interest is understood to include the Rumaila field, one of Iraq's largest, which is believed to contain about 18 billion barrels of oil.

BP undertook a study of the field for the Iraqi Government about two years ago. It already has a small Iraq team based in the Middle East and is one of a number of big oil companies discussing agreements designed to increase rapidly the country's output to 2.6 million barrels per day by the end of this year.
    
These effectively would be service contracts to provide training, expertise and equipment, for which the companies would be paid in oil. A BP spokesman said that it was too early to consider putting in expatriate staff because of the security situation.

BP,Total, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips attended talks with the Iraqi Government in Amman, Jordan, last month to help to fix the terms of the contracts. Shell is interested in a gasfield in western Iraq.

BP was involved in Iraq until 1975, when the country's oil industry was nationalized.

Source: Business Times Online

Iraq will pay with oil instead of cash to oil majors that sign special technical service agreements aimed at short-term increases in oil production, according to a UPI report.

ExxonMobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell are firms targeted for the deals, The Times of London reports. In exchange for the oil, the companies would direct training of Iraqi workers and equipment to Iraq’s largest oil and gas fields. The decision, which is politically highly charged in Iraq, would involve the oil majors taking on the role of special contractors to the Government.

The agreements would cover a variety of oil and gasfields in western, southern, central and northern Iraq.

Shell, for example, is interested in the Akkas gasfield in Anbar and another gasfield in the south of the country.

The new Iraqi Sharing Oil Law is expected to pass next month - under lots of pressure from the U.S. government.

The world oil giants have been waiting for this day. All the major players - and a NEW CARTEL are lined up to attend next month's conference in Dubai. The purpose of the conference is to develop the framework for investing in, and dividing up Iraq's oil sector business.

BP, Shell, Exxon Mobile and Chevron are all geared up to do business in the one place in the world where there is a chance for large oil discoveries.  115 billion barrels of oil have been discovered in Iraq, however only 40 billion have been developed - and there are many unexplored parts that could hold more billions.

Russia has made a bold move in setting up an energy cartel to rival OPEC, and the cartel includes the country that is becoming the biggest consumer of oil - no guess as to who that is - China! And Iran has also made it clear they will have a place at the table in Dubai.  

September is the big month. The General's war progress report is due in Washington, the oil law is expected to pass, and all the major players are set to make a fortune.

The backdrop to all this is our American soldiers who are bravely fighting to stay alive and return home, the soldiers who have returned home badly injured, and the weekly death toll of Iraqi citizens. I heard somewhere that over a million Iraqi's have been killed - but no one seems to know the exact number - and it appears few even care.

Oil rose more than 1% in New York, the biggest gain in two weeks, on concern a tropical storm and a separate weather disturbance may damage oil platforms and pipelines in the Gulf of Mexico.

The NOAA hurricane hunter plane has located tropical storm Erin in the Gulf of Mexico. A tropical storm warning has been issued for the Texas coast, and tropical storm conditions are expected within the next 24 hours.

The center of the storm is forecasted to be near the lower or middle Texas coast on Thursday.

The U.S. Gulf Coast, where a large part of U.S. oil and gas production takes place, was put under a tropical storm warning from Freeport, Texas southward, alerting residents to expect storm conditions within 24 hours.

Shell announced on Tuesday it was shutting a small natural gas platform off North Padre Island in Texas and had evacuated 188 nonessential workers. The company has shuttered daily natural-gas production of 5 million cubic feet a day from the North Padre Island 975 field.

The U.S. Energy Department will release a report tomorrow that will show oil supplies fell 2.5 million barrels in the week ended Aug. 10 from 340.4 million barrels. Gasoline inventories are expected to fall 750,000 barrels from 203 million barrels the week before.

Today Erin was located about 250 miles east of Brownsville, Texas, and headed west-northwest at about 14 miles per hour, the hurricane center said. Its top sustained winds had reached 40 mph. On its current track, the storm is expected to move move ashore on the Texas coast by Thursday afternoon.  

And adding to the insecurity - oil traders are also worried about tropical storm Dean which is bearing down on the Caribbean, and may also damage oil and gas infrastructure in the Gulf, and cutting supplies. Energy futures surged today on concerns that Dean may turn into a hurricane and strike oil and gas installations in the Gulf of Mexico.

The island of Barbados is gearing up to sell offshore drilling rights, and Shell Oil is one of the companies set to cash in despite an unsettled lawsuit from 13 years ago.

What's interesting about this story in 2007 is that Shell Oil has not cleaned up the damage from the pipeline spill that occurred back in 1994. From this spill approximately 300,000 gallons of jet fuel leaked into the ground water

Shell's own testing has shown high grade fuel in the farmland's irrigation water, and more danger is forecasted that the oil will reach the water table, coastline and the offshore coral reefs.

As news of the new Shell Oil deal hit the papers, the island farmers have protested that the oil giant is, and has been stalling them on a monetary settlement.

In a response, officials at Shell say they are committed to the protection of the islands environment, but at the same tine dismissed reports that the remaining spill is a threat to the coastlines.

Will oil revenue dollars trump the environment, health of the local population and eventually tourism? From all reports, it appears that there are also no laws in place to keep public officials from benefiting financially from these offshore leases.

I hate to hear this because Barbados is one of my favorite spots to vacation. CT

Source: Barbados Free Press 
 

Weather experts are predicting a very busy hurricane season, with forecasts of 13 to 17 tropical storms, and 10 could have the potential to become hurricanes.

Since the terrible hurricane season of 2005, the petroleum industry has been attempting to repair the damage to platforms, pipelines and refineries.

And when the first hurricane comes even close to the Gulf, look for gasoline prices to go through the roof.

The hurricanes of 2005 destroyed 113 of the Gulf’s 4,000 oil and gas platforms and caused damage to 52 others - in fact more than 20 rigs had actually disappeared from the Gulf. 

Shell's Mars Platform took the biggest hit during Katrina. The rig is now stronger with clamps that Shell says are four times stronger than the ones previously used. The Mars platform resumed operation last year, and currently produces 190,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day - 20% more prior to hurricane Katrina levels.

Katrina brought attention about the need for stronger mooring systems. These systems anchor rigs to the sea floor. Major rig owners like Transocean Inc. and Noble Drilling Inc. have increased the number of rig anchor lines from eight or nine to 12 in some cases.

The World Meteorological Organization uses six lists of names in its rotation. A name is retired if a hurricane is very deadly or very costly. Katrina, Rita and Wilma are permanently off the list.

The world's largest oil companies are talking more than ever about taking action on global warming, but their actual investments in alternative energy still pale alongside their multi-billion dollar budgets for conventional energy. 

At the Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference, executives at the world's largest oil companies acknowledged that global warming is a problem but insisted that their main - and in some cases only - business would continue to be the production of hydrocarbons. 

The appearance Tuesday by Exxon Mobil Chief Executive Rex Tillerson made it clear that while the company is talking more than ever about the importance of cutting greenhouse gases, it continues to view alternative energy as a bad investment choice. Tillerson didn't preclude future alternative energy investments, but he said ExxonMobil would be "very selective" about its choices. 

"We are a petroleum and petrochemical company. We have been for more than 100 years," Tillerson said. "That's what we know how to do." 

Wait a minute, I just posted an interview Exxon Mobile Execs did with an European media outlet, and Exxon says in the interview that its position on climate change is "misunderstood" - Perhaps the European's are more open to climate change than the Houston oil audience - CT 

Chevron Corp also believes that its main business will be oil production and refining, despite the rise of ethanol and other biofuels. "The world is going to need every molecule of energy it can find," said Mike Wirth, Chevron's executive vice president for refining and marketing. 

Jeers From Some Quarters 

ExxonMobil and Chevron have a higher profile at this year's conference than peers like BP and Royal Dutch Shell. While the two European giants have been more aggressive with alternative energy investments, the vast majority of their spending also remains in conventional oil and gas. 

Big Oil's embrace of the environmental debate has drawn jeers from some quarters. "Big Oil CEO's are meeting in Houston this week to develop a message on making their energy look better - greener and more committed to energy efficiency," said the California-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, headlined "Big Oil's Hot Air in Houston." "But their underlying business strategy hasn't changed a bit." 

Industry experts say part of the problem for the oil companies is commercial technologies to cut oil-based greenhouse gas emissions don't exist. The other option is cars that would consume much less gasoline or run solely on electricity - a step that would leave the oil industry out in the cold. 

Beyond technological hurdles, the companies say they also face regulatory difficulties. Without an overarching federal policy controlling the development of ethanol and other biofuels, each state will develop its own regulations, making it difficult for businesses with a nation-wide presence to comply.

Lobbying For Access 

That's left the industry continuing to lobby for greater access to U.S. domestic oil and gas resources as a means of bolstering energy security and reducing U.S. dependence on Middle East oil. Senior executives in the industry have pointed to long-term investment in boosting production capacity elsewhere around the world, a point Big Oil elite like Exxon and Chevron are raising in high-profile advertisements that in some cases also highlight their work on global warming. 

Source: Matthew Dalton; Dow Jones Newswires

Taking economic notes from Venezuela, Evo Morales plays his hand with the Dutch . . . CT

Over the weekend, Bolivian President Evo Morales traveled to the Netherlands to meet with senior government officials and executives from Shell to discuss his recent legislation to nationalize the country's oil and gas industry.

Morales nationalized the South American country's oil and gas industry May 1, giving foreign companies 180 days to sign new deals which gave majority control of their oil operations in Bolivia, or they could just leave the country with nothing.  

On Oct. 28, foreign oil companies were forced to cave in to Morales' nationalization decree, and signed contracts giving the government a majority of their Bolivian oil revenues. That reversed Morales' sinking poll numbers as even his rivals acknowledged the contracts were a boon for South America's poorest country.

Bolivia's natural gas reserves are South America's largest after Venezuela's.

Last Friday Venezuela's tax authority has issued Royal Dutch Shell a bill for ($17.7 million) for 2005 income taxes.

As of last year, the Venezuelan tax authority began auditing all foreign and domestic oil companies which operate 32 oil contracts that were granted during Venezuela's oil opening in the mid 1990's. 

These oil fields were converted into joint ventures with the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA back in January 2006. Back in September 2005, Venezuela threatened to close the oil fields owned by foreign oil companies unless they paid up. 

Shell was one of the first foreign oil companies to pay their $13 million back debt with the tax authority for the period from 2001 to 2004. Venezuela is now focusing on back taxes for 2005, and is a move to regain control over the oil resources operated by foreign oil companies, as well as gaining millions in additional revenue.

You'd think it was Texas. Dusty roads course the scrubland toward oil tanks and warehouses. Beefy men talk oil over burritos at lunch. Like grazing herds, oil wells dip non-stop amid the tumbleweed, or even into the asphalt of a parking lot.

That's why the rumor sounded so wrong here in California's lower San Joaquin Valley, where petroleum has gushed up more riches than the whole Gold Rush. Why would Shell Oil Company simply close its Bakersfield refinery? Why scrap a profitmaker?

The rumor seemed to make no sense. Yet it was true.

Read this article at the Chicago Tribune

Emma Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, took a trip to Africa and this is her report on how the major oil companies have reaped riches, and produced negative social, economical and environment costs to the continent. I've done many posts on the state of the African oil industry, and violence towards the major oil companies. Woods personal observations provide many answers . . . CT 

It is almost impossible to imagine, as we sit in a well lit, fully functioning gas station on Main Street, USA, that a community blessed with oil riches under its soil could look as impoverished as Yenagoa in the Nigerian state of Bayelsa.

Yenagoa is the site of one of Nigeria 's first oil wells, built in pre-independence 1956. Yet as in many communities in Nigeria’s oil rich Delta region, most people of Yenagoa live in mud huts. Some reside only a few feet away from the oil wells. But they lack electricity and indoor toilets. They have no hospitals, no running water, no schools. And there is unemployment too. Oil companies like Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Chevron, and Exxon Mobil bring in foreign workers for even the most menial jobs.

I recently took a trip to Yenagoa as part of a tour of three African countries--Nigeria, Chad, and Liberia - that may well fuel future U.S. energy needs.

Historically, the United States has gotten two-thirds of its oil from other countries. Most U.S. oil imports come from Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Mexico, and Canada.

Increasingly, as the United States, China, and other nations expand their thirst for oil, and instability deepens in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa is becoming a more attractive source for crude. The U.S. National Intelligence Council estimates that Africa could supply 25% of U.S. oil by 2015.

The three countries I visited could well play a role in meeting that goal. Each is at different stages of oil production. In Nigeria, oil exploration dates back to 1956. In Chad, extraction started just three years ago. In Liberia, where I spent much of my childhood, the potential of oil off its expansive coastline holds hope for the future.

In each of these countries, a complex web of geo-political actors, from oil company executives and government officials to military agents, makes decisions that impact the lives in the communities that produce the oil that flows straight to consumers in the United States.

Nigerian Injustice

The residents of Yenagoa lack jobs and basic social services. What they do have in abundance is environmental damage from decades of oil spills, compounded by the constant burning of gas flares necessary to extract the crude. Farmland is rendered useless while rivers and waterways, once well populated with marine life, are now barren.

One local chief explained that he received from Shell oil 150 Naira ($1.15) for each acre of land used by the company. I was astonished when he went on to say, “150 Naira, once every four years.” With oil prices at historic highs, how could the compensation to communities long suffering the health impacts of oil spills and gas flares be such a pittance?

Military and security personnel blanket the area around Yenagoa to protect oil interests. The communities are under siege.

In Odi, a community adjacent to a well built in 1958, villagers are demanding basic services like clean running water, electricity, and schools. The response from security agents has been severe. Our delegation watched in horror as one young man after another came forward to show fresh wounds from five days earlier. They told us that uniformed military men had grabbed 15 youths as they walked home from an adjacent village in the middle of the afternoon. The young men were beaten, tortured, and imprisoned, as a warning to others in the village. For almost a week, the youths languished in a prison miles away. Their crime? Clamoring for basic rights.

As oil companies celebrate record profits and the price of oil hovers close to $65 per barrel, African communities ostensibly blessed with the curse of oil languish in squalor. In fact, with no useable farmland or waterways, many in Nigeria say that they are worse off than their grandparents were before the discovery of oil.

Hope in Chad?

Recognizing the plight of their neighbors in Nigeria, communities in Chad’s oil producing areas worked hard, even before the onset of oil production in 2003, to minimize environmental damage and maximize the benefits to communities from which the oil flows.

The 650-mile Chad-Cameroon pipeline (Africa’s biggest investment project) links landlocked Chad to world export markets through Cameroon’s port city of Douala. It was funded through loans and other support from the World Bank. Heroic measures initiated by activist, civil society, human rights, and religious community leaders led to a forward-looking revenue management law to manage the flow of oil revenues in a transparent way, ensuring resources for future generations.

However, the Chadian government has subverted its own revenue management law. It has diverted spending away from the original priorities of agriculture, health, and education and toward “security.” As a result, money that only now is beginning to flow from oil production is spent on weapons and other military equipment, instead of poverty reduction and the interests of future generations.

The oil wells in Chad are newer, so its oil-producing areas haven’t yet experienced the damage caused by decades of oil spills. However, gas flaring, with its related health and environmental damage, is an integral part of the production cycle. When the wind blows, the smell of the burning gas blankets villages miles away.

In a community near Doba, with gas flares as a backdrop, villagers told us about increased death and dying in the past few years from respiratory ailments and contaminated water supplies.

Meanwhile, in Chad’s fertile agricultural zone, mangoes, cotton, gum Arabic and cattle are abundant. Yet there is not one factory transforming the raw produce into goods for domestic or international markets.

In spite of these challenges, Chadians maintain that their vigilance will minimize negative social and environmental impacts of oil and secure poverty reduction. Chad could easily feed itself and its neighbors if productive capacity were built in the agricultural sector. Oil revenue directed at building an education system, providing healthcare, as well as basic electricity, running water, and roads, could go a long way toward improving the condition of people’s lives.

Throughout the country, in spite of a recent coup attempt and the elections in April that the majority of people boycotted, Chadians remain hopeful. From the capital city to the Southern oil fields, everyone seemed confident that future generations will experience a better life.

Liberian Alternatives

Liberia, the third country I visited, has recently emerged from 25 years of war. People there are hopeful too, despite the 85% unemployment rate and the complete lack of functioning schools or healthcare.

Liberians hope that concessions now being granted for off-shore oil exploration will lead down the road to a new source of revenue. Liberia’s National Oil Company negotiated two contracts with the Nigeria-based Oranto Petroleum Limited and British-based Broadway Consolidated PLC. With exploration already underway, few in Liberia think that leaving the resource untouched is a viable option.

The key question is, whether and how Liberia can escape the oil curse that so clearly has hurt Nigeria, Angola, and other countries in Africa’s richly endowed Gulf of Guinea region.

One possibility is for countries like Liberia to consider alternative models for oil development. What, for example, can Liberia learn from Venezuela’s example of 61% national control of oil revenue and management? Or from Norway’s use of oil revenue to diversify the economy while advancing social services?

Like many Africans, I fear that oil companies look to Africa for its resource wealth without seeing the people. Resource-rich communities are dehumanized and the color-line is ever present as the greatest profits flow steadily to wealthy white men who already control enormous wealth and power.

The price of oil nearly tripled since President George W. Bush took office in 2001, yet the majority of the people who live in the countries from which the fuel flows still experience grinding poverty. Taken together, the $10 billion quarterly profits of Exxon Mobil, Chevron, BP, or Shell and the $1.15 per acre compensation paid (every four years) to some farmers in oil producing zones, show just how unfair the global oil industry has become.

The next time you pull up to the pump, stop a moment and remember that the thick black crude is extracted from the earth’s crust at great social, political, and environmental cost. Then do whatever it is in your power to demand dignity and proper compensation for those whose land or sea may be cursed with the blessing of this natural resource.

New America Media, News Feature, Emira Woods, Oct 08, 2006 - Emira Woods is co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Royal Dutch Shell unit Shell Exploration & Production Company has announced that the Mars Tension Leg Platform, which was heavily damaged during Katrina, is currently producing 190,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day - a 20% increase over pre-Katrina rates.

During Katrina, the Mars platform absorbed 80 foot waves and winds of over 200 mph. While the Mars floating structure and wells survived, the platform drilling rig, and other major elements were heavily damaged.

Lifting the toppled drilling rig structure was an industry first.

It took three months of preparation, over 500 people, and more than one million man hoursI to successfully lift and remove the damaged Mars platform rig in two pieces. It takes a major engineering feat to lift 670 tons of mangled stell from a web of knotted equipment and facilities.

Another first was repairing the oil and gas pipelines 3,000 feet below the water’s surface, utilizing the Shell Deepwater Repair Kit. Being able to repair the pipelines on the seafloor meant repairs were finished much earlier than using a traditional method.

Source: Web Wire

Venezuela revealed its latest step to take more control of its oil sector by raising tax and royalty rates for firms like ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips and Chevron.

The Venezuelan government will implement an extraction tax, effectively raising royalty rates to 33.3% from 16.6%, and will raise income taxes to 50% from 34% on heavy oil upgrading projects in the resource-rich Orinoco belt (shown at left).

With oil hitting $75 (U.S.) a barrel in late April, Venezuela is annulling low tax rates previous governments granted companies as compensation for their multibillion dollar investments in costly heavy oil projects of the 1990s, when oil prices mostly hovered below $20 a barrel.

Venezuela will make some $2 billion a year extra from the new rates, part of which Chavez has earmarked for social development programs under his "Bolivarian Revolution."

ExxonMobil said yesterday it had not been notified of any changes to the contractual terms of its Cerro Negro heavy oil project. It complained publicly two years ago when Venezuela raised heavy oil royalties to 16.6 from 1 per cent. Chevron had no comment.

The four heavy oil projects in the Orinoco belt, which include participation from BP, France's Total and Norway's Statoil, produce about 600,000 barrels a day, roughly a fifth of the fifth-largest oil producer's total output.

Big Oil is itching for a bigger piece of the Orinoco heavy oil belt; its estimated 275 billion barrels could boost Venezuela's projected reserves to the largest in the world, even ahead of Saudi Arabia.

Chevron, proposing a new Orinoco project, has called heavy oil "the future of Venezuela." Shell is offering to bring technology it uses in Alberta's tar sands to Orinoco.

The Chavez government's drive to take a larger chunk of company revenues contrasts with the approach in Alberta, site of the hemisphere's other great long-term oil supply, where free-enterprise policy and political calm has sparked an investment bonanza.

Venezuela forced 16 firms, including Chevron and Shell, to agree to new contract terms last month that gave state oil company PDVSA a majority stake in its conventional oil fields.

Chavez's undoing of an era in the 1990s when previous governments opened Venezuela's oil to foreign firms is spear heading a wider regional movement toward more state control.

Venezuela has demonstrated firms must comply with the changes to operate in the country. Last month, it kept its promise to seize assets from those that refused new contract terms when it took over fields run by Europe's oil giants Total and Eni after they shunned the changes.

Chavez also took advantage of his radio-TV show to lambast Washington for conducting military maneuvers in the Caribbean intended to "terrify" Caracas, and he warned that "the Bolivarian Revolution is not afraid of the empire," using his habitual term for the United States.

"There are 6,000 Marines in the Caribbean and I don't know how many aircraft carriers and submarines -  They're not going to threaten us".

Just as things seemed to be calming down in the delta region of Nigeria after a spate of kidnappings and insurgent attacks, the militant group calling itself the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND - announced last week to all who would listen that it was planning new violence against oil facilities in the region.

MEND even gave a date for the start of its new campaign: April 25. The guerrillas could not have hoped for a better reaction.

Crude oil prices immediately jumped on the news, hitting $70 a barrel, as new fears about a supply squeeze hit the global oil market.

Ever since Royal Dutch Shell discovered oil in the Niger Delta back in 1956, revenue from oil wells has gone to line the pockets of Nigeria's elite: military dictators and corrupt federal and local government officials.

Very little has gone to help the impoverished communities in the delta, which remain among the poorest in the world. Environment degradation, caused by oil slicks and gas flares, has gone untreated.

Under Nigerian law, oil revenues go to the federal government, which then passes on a percentage to the states.

In 2004, for instance, the 36 Nigerian states received $6.2 billion. Supposedly, about one-third of that went to the four major oil-producing states.

But thanks to theft, corruption and mismanagement, on both the federal and state levels, very little of that money reached the local communities.

Update on Nigeria

Oil prices nudged back above $67 on Monday with 23% of Nigerian output still shut by rebel attacks and no sign of Royal Dutch Shell restarting exports from its vast Forcados oilfield and terminal.

The removal of 550,000 barrels per day of Nigerian oil has coincided with growing demand from refiners in the US, consumer of 40% of the world’s gasoline.

Nigerian minister of state for petroleum Edmund Daukoru told reporters on Monday the biggest foreign operator Shell would restart its offshore 115,000 bpd EA field in days.

However, oil industry officials in Nigeria have stated that Royal Dutch Shell is reluctant to send its staff back into the delta region despite more naval patrols there.

Oil prices hit a $70.9 record high last September after hurricanes knocked out a big chunk of Gulf of Mexico refining and oil and gas production.

Analysts say another active US hurricane this year could strain the oil market still further.

Shell has been active in the conversion of sunlight into electricity and the provision of solar power solutions for over 30 years.

The Caribbean island of Barbados is already preparing to meet this demand and these local solar shuttles, developed by scientist William Hinds, are the Caribbean's first solar-powered, environmentally friendly tour vehicles.

Students of the Pine Primary School in Barbados were treated to a solar shuttle tour recently, when Shell announced its sponsorship of the Solar Transport Project at the Sci-Tech/Green Expo exhibition on the island.

Shell has a global commitment to the development of renewable energy and this project is an example of how the company seeks to demonstrate this commitment via support for local entrepreneurial initiatives.

Through the Solar Shuttle tours, Barbadians and visitors alike will have the opportunity to experience the noise-free, pollution-free technology while having a relaxing, educational guided tour of the historical sights of the capital city, Bridgetown.

Shell is convinced that solar energy will play an increasingly significant role in the future energy mix, as the demand for clean energy continues to grow.

Shell Solar is in the process of redirecting its solar energy business efforts into the development of the next generation of solar energy technology thin film CIS (Copper Indium Diselenide).

In this application, a thin-film photo-voltaic module is created by applying a fine film of CIS (copper indium diselenide) to a glass backing, producing a semi-conductor.

When the semi-conductor is exposed to sunlight, it actively converts sunlight into electricity, at a cost of up to ten times less than the crystalline silicon based cells now on the market.

Source: The Nassau Guardian

Globally, while other countries are putting in place strategies that would enable their citizens have access to cheaper fuel or increase their output, Nigerians are busy fighting on how to share the little that comes their way, sites a Nigerian news article.   

Nigeria has a host of social-economic problems, and needs every cent it can earn for developmental purposes. 

However oil workers are living in fear of being taken hostage, and the government is losing money as a result of the curtailment of export of crude arising from attacks on oil installations by militants.

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) has stated the African government may have lost a whopping $819 million in revenue from non- export of crude. 

Shell pumps over 40% of Nigeria's oil, and has shut in over 455,000 barrels a day as a precaution after militants bombed a terminal, sabotaged two pipelines and kidnapped nine foreign oil workers.

After the militants released the four hostages they held in January, the Nigerian government assured the international community that it would not happen again, but nearly five weeks later another set of hostages were taken by the rampaging youths.

The governments response has been to order bombing of the target areas believed to be occupied by the militants, however now due the fear that oil giants, such as Shell, might consider pulling out of the Niger Delta completely, the government ordered a halt to the the bombing campaign.

The militants allowed one of the American hostages from Texas to speak with journalists. Macon Hawkins, 68, of Kosciusko, Texas, appeared to be in good spirits, and stated he and the other hostages were safe.

Hawkins urged President Bush and the United Nations to help resolve the increasingly violent standoff between the Nigerian government and the people of the Delta. "They get nothing out of the oil, and they produce all of the oil, They're tired of it, so they're going to fight, and they're going to fight until death."

Photos of the hostages are on the Washington Post website