Opinion: Shell leaves Arctic for now
The news of Shell’s departure from its Arctic offshore project has been greeted by a mixture of nodding heads, wrinkled brows, and, in some quarters, elated arm-waving.
The news of Shell’s departure from its Arctic offshore project has been greeted by a mixture of nodding heads, wrinkled brows, and, in some quarters, elated arm-waving.
Last week, I was in a small tent on the vast Greenland ice sheet with a leading British glaciologist investigating and documenting the alarming rate of ice flow and melt as a result of climate change.
As oil major Shell pulls out of its Arctic campaign off the coast of Alaska, Energy Voice looks back over the past year. The company said it would cease exploration activity in the region for the “foreseeable future”, amid high costs and a “challenging and unpredictable” regulatory environment. Take a look at our gallery below.
The Shadow climate change minister of the Labour Party said the board of oil giant Shell should be calling for its chief executives resignation.
Shell has pulled out of offshore drilling in the Arctic, in a decision labelled an “unmitigated defeat” for oil companies by environmentalists opposed to the exploration. The company is abandoning exploration off the coast of Alaska after failing to find sufficient signs of oil and gas to make further exploration worthwhile. The company said it would cease exploration activity in the region “for the foreseeable future”, blaming high costs associated with the project and a “challenging and unpredictable regulatory environment”.
Shell’s decision to pull out of drilling in the Arctic should be a turning point in the fight against climate change, green campaigners have said. Environmentalists also called on the company, which recently left the high-profile Prince of Wales’ Corporate Leaders’ Group on climate change amid the Arctic drilling controversy, to set out how it was going to move its business model to one that was compatible with curbing global temperature rises. Campaigners fear an oil spill from Arctic offshore drilling could be very damaging to the environment and exploiting the region for fossil fuels would undermine efforts to tackle climate change.
A new initiative to develop an orderly shift to a low carbon economy - backed by energy giants including Shell and BHP Billiton - was officially launched today.
Shell has pulled out of controversial drilling off the coast of Alaska after failing to find sufficient signs of oil and gas to make further exploration worthwhile.
Representatives from energy companies including Shell and Statoil have joined forces to advise on making cleaner energy decisions. Shell Chairman Chad Holliday, Statoil Vice-President Bjorn Otto Sverdrup and RWE Chief Executive Peter Terium are among a list of commissioners acting in a personal capacity to advise governments on how to change their energy markets without damaging the environment.
UK councils have invested £14billion of pension funds in fossil fuels, an average of £218 per resident across the country, analysis suggests.
This timelapse shows a major milestone just completed on Shell’s Malikai deepwater project in Malaysia. The topside weighs an estimated 13,800 tonnes which is equivalent to weight of 14,000 average family cars.
Shell’s $70billion deal to buy BG Group has been queried by Australia's competition regulator who has delayed approval after fears it could reduce the supply of natural gas to local customers and raise prices.
Exxon Mobil has started oil production ahead of schedule at the Erha North Phase 2 project offshore Nigeria, the company said.
The topside for oil major Shell’s Malikai tension leg platform have been placed together with the hull at Malaysia Marine & Heavy Engineering’s (MMHE) yard in Malaysia. ALE was awarded the contracts for the Malikai project on behalf of TMJV. The company said it was given the scope of weighing and transporting four unit hull blocks, living quarters and mega beams for the ‘superlift’ activities. In addition ALE was also awarded with the weighing of the topside as well as the mating of the topside and hull.
DeepOcean has been awarded a call-off contract for provision of ROV-based survey services by Shell in The North Sea.
Concern by investors that Shell will not complete its planned acquisition of BG Group has been exaggerated, according to the oil major’s chief executive. According to reports in the Financial Time, Ben Van Beurden told the paper that the two companies’ share prices had been “knocked about” by recent upheaval in stock markets. Van Beurden said both companies’ valuations were driven by “risk aversion at the moment, rather than careful considered pricing.”
Oil major Shell has sought to transform the perception of the oil and gas industry after receiving no applications from female students for their engineering programme six years ago. The company and Aberdeen's North East College sought to understand why the only submissions had been from male applicants. Shell said three key reasons were found - poor perception of the industry, lack of female role models and poor experience of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects.
It’s the cheapest opportunity in six years to be a shareholder in Europe’s largest oil and gas company.
Shell has lodged an application to develop a new hydrocarbon play in the North Sea.
The £47billion mega-merger between oil giants Shell and BG Group faces regulatory delay after authorities in Australia deferred a decision to let the deal go ahead. Shell said it was “working closely" with the Australian competition regulator after the watchdog delayed a critical decision on clearance for the deal, signalling it has reservations about the potential impact on gas supply. The deferral of the decision until September 17 leaves the clearance from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission as one of three key approvals still outstanding, alongside China and the UK.
Oil and gas firms are among the worst offenders for unnecessarily long annual reports, according to PwC. The global professional services giant said yesterday businesses of all kinds risked putting off investors by burying gems of information in lengthy reports. Documents from oil and gas companies weigh in at a hefty 172 pages on average, the fifth longest out of 18 sectors covered by a PwC’s Searching for Buried Treasure study.
Energetica faces a challenge to attract new overseas investment into north east Scotland whilst avoiding robbing 'Peter to pay Paul'.
Should Shell push ahead with its $70 billion bid for BG in the face of cheaper oil? The tumbling oil price – down by a fifth since the merger was announced in April - has raised fears that Shell shareholders might balk at the 50 percent premium the Anglo-Dutch energy group agreed to pay for its smaller rival. But while the price tag may look bigger today on some metrics, so should the cost savings.
Semi-submersible provider Prosafe has signed a $24million contract with Shell for its Regalia accommodation vessel at the Brent C platform in the UK sector of the North Sea.
Singer Charlotte Church performed outside Shell's London headquarter as part of a protest against Arctic drilling.