ADVFN Logo

We could not find any results for:
Make sure your spelling is correct or try broadening your search.

Trending Now

Toplists

It looks like you aren't logged in.
Click the button below to log in and view your recent history.

Registration Strip Icon for discussion Register to chat with like-minded investors on our interactive forums.

RDSA Shell Plc

1,895.20
0.00 (0.00%)
18 Mar 2024 - Closed
Delayed by 15 minutes
Share Name Share Symbol Market Type Share ISIN Share Description
Shell Plc LSE:RDSA London Ordinary Share GB00B03MLX29 'A' ORD EUR0.07
  Price Change % Change Share Price Bid Price Offer Price High Price Low Price Open Price Shares Traded Last Trade
  0.00 0.00% 1,895.20 1,900.20 1,900.80 - 0.00 00:00:00
Industry Sector Turnover Profit EPS - Basic PE Ratio Market Cap
0 0 N/A 0

Shell Share Discussion Threads

Showing 476 to 490 of 3150 messages
Chat Pages: Latest  30  29  28  27  26  25  24  23  22  21  20  19  Older
DateSubjectAuthorDiscuss
06/7/2016
05:28
Shell urged to clear up North Sea waste
July 6th, 2016 - 12:28 am James Hamilton
No comments

ROYAL Dutch Shell wants to leave behind steel and concrete structures as large as the Empire State Building when it abandons one of the biggest oil and gas fields in the North Sea.

The decommissioning plan for the Brent field, 115 miles north-east of the Shetland Islands, will require exemptions from international regulations, which demand that all traces of oil and gas production are removed after offshore operations end.

Shell said on Monday it had concluded that the safety and environmental risks involved in removing much of the Brent infrastructure would far outweigh the benefits. It plans to submit its proposals for approval from the UK’s department for energy and climate change by the end of this year.

The case marks an important test of rules on what should happen to abandoned oil and gas fields in the North Sea as energy groups decommission operations in the coming decades as reserves run down.

Countries in the north-east Atlantic are bound by the Ospar regulations, agreed after the furore in the 1990s over Shell’s abortive plan to dump its Brent Spar oil storage facility in deep waters off the Scottish coast. However, exemptions from the “leave no trace” rules are allowed if companies can demonstrate that full removal of infrastructure would be too difficult or risky.

Shell said this was the case for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of concrete and steel subsea structures beneath its four Brent platforms.

North Sea decommissioning has climbed the industry agenda as the sharp fall in oil prices of the past two years has weakened the viability of a declining basin that was already among the most expensive places in the world to drill offshore.

Shell said it had consulted widely, including with environmental groups and the fishing industry, while drawing up its Brent plans and that a 60-day consultation would start once they were formally submitted.

Responding to the news, the WWF Scotland director, Lang Banks, said: “While removing these structures is not without environmental risk, neither is leaving them lying on the seabed to slowly break down over hundreds of years. Given the potential impact on the marine environment, we will be carefully examining the final proposals that go out for consultation.

“The industry pushed the boundaries of science and engineering to access North Sea oil and gas. Having made massive profits over the last few decades, it’s only right that it should push those limits once again to clean up their potentially hazardous legacy and protect the marine environment.

“Given the enormous size of the rigs and the iconic nature of the Brent field, this decommissioning is being watched closely and should therefore be aiming to set the highest possible benchmarks for the rest of the industry to follow. If done right, it could open the door for Scotland to lead a new multi-billion pound, global decommissioning industry.

“In the interests of tackling climate change, science tells us we cannot burn all the oil and gas that remains under the North Sea. Instead, we need to see a sensible transition away from fossil fuels toward clean energy, harnessing the skills of those currently employed in the sector.

“If politicians are prepared to grasp the nettle, then the decommissioning of the Brent field has the opportunity to mark a new and positive chapter in the history of oil and gas in the UK.”

la forge
05/7/2016
17:17
The breakup of Royal Dutch Shell's and Saudi Aramco's giant U.S. refining joint venture draws a line under an often rocky relationship and allows Aramco to accelerate an ambitious public offering and Shell to push ahead with a large asset sale.

The two energy giants' plan to dissolve Motiva Enterprises after a near 20-year partnership leaves both with fully-owned refineries and gas stations in the United States.

Refineries have recently enjoyed a boom time as a near 70 percent plunge in oil prices since mid-2014 spurred demand for gasoline from around the world, helping many oil companies recover revenue lost from oil production.
PUBLICITÉ
inRead invented by Teads

"The deal gives both companies a lot of flexibility," said Jason Gammel, an analyst at Jefferies.

Saudi Arabia's oil champion Aramco, which will own the largest U.S. refinery in Port Arthur, Texas and retain 26 distribution terminals, could fold the assets into one global refining subsidiary in which it is considering selling a stake, industry sources said.

The giant refining group would most likely comprise of Aramaco's domestic refineries, including its joint refinery with Shell in Jubail known as SASREF, as well as its overseas plants in China and South Korea, the sources said.

Aramco, the world's largest oil company, has said it was considering options including a stock market listing, and possibly including downstream assets.

The Motiva breakup will also give Aramco full control over which feedstock to use at the Port Arthur refinery, which has been a sticking point in recent years as rising U.S. shale oil production displaced imported Saudi crude to the detriment of Aramco's strategy of increasing overseas market share.

Sadad al Husseini, a former senior Aramco executive, said the move is in line with its plans to maintain market share and raise its refining capacity to 8-10 million barrels per day.

ASSET SALE

For Shell, being the sole owner of the Convent and Norco refineries in Louisiana as well as marketing operations in Florida, Louisiana and the Northeastern region offers an opportunity to sell assets as part of a $30 billion (£21 billion) sale programme over the next three years to pay for its $50 billion acquisition of BG Group last month.

Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden has said Shell's disposals would initially focus on the refining, storage and retail divisions, known as downstream, whose value has held up during the current downturn.

Aramco is expected to pay Shell an as yet undisclosed sum on the completion of the deal, a Shell spokesman said.

Although an outright sale of the refineries is less profitable, Shell will be able to offer for sale much of the infrastructure linked to the operations, including pipelines, storage tanks and distribution facilities, to other companies including Shell Midstream Partners, a master limited partnership (MLP) formed and listed by Shell in 2014.

"For Shell, a lot of assets are suitable for drop downs into the MLP and now that they have 100 percent ownership of the assets they can do it more easily," Jefferies' Gammel said.

He said the transaction also gave Shell higher production of gasoline, in particular high-value gasoline blendstock, which was the main driver in the global jump in fuel demand last year.

The Norco refinery's close integration with Shell's nearby petrochemical plant offers the Anglo-Dutch company further benefits, Gammel said.

(Additional reporting by Jessica Resnick-Ault in New York and Reem Shamseddine in Khobar, editing by David Evans)

waldron
03/7/2016
21:12
Oil rig
$10 a Barrel Oil Coming Soon? Market Expert Warns the Worst is Yet to Come
Pixabay
Opinion
22:00 03.07.2016(updated 23:52 03.07.2016) Get short URL
41658131

A top oil industry analyst issued an editorial this week suggesting that the recovery of the oil market will be short lived, but is he right? Probably not.

In an editorial this week, acclaimed oil market expert Gary Shilling stood by a prediction he made in August 2015 that oil prices would collapse to $10 per barrel citing higher than expected North American fracking outputs and OPEC’s refusal to limit production.


This February, the oil market analyst’s prediction seemed prescient as the world’s energy industry faced the single greatest market collapse in history with oil prices coming off a 2008 high of $147.27 down to a measly $26 per barrel. At the time, Saudi Arabia moved to increased oil production by 1 million barrels of oil per day to 10.5 million barrels with the Crown Prince demanding that the country’s output increase to 12.5 million barrels daily by 2017.

The world currently produces just shy of 100 million barrels of oil per day and market analysts calculate that for every 1%, or 1 million barrels per oil, that supply exceeds demand oil prices fall by 25%.

At the time of the market collapse, it was estimated that the market was over saturated by several million barrels per oil and continues to be pounded by Saudi overproduction.

Shilling’s argument is a harbinger of danger to come for oil dependent economies such as Venezuela, Libya, and Algeria who lack the access to capital markets necessary to weather a collapse in their oil sector with policy experts fretting that these countries could fall into permanent disarray if the analyst’s argument holds true.


The raw mathematics of Shilling’s argument are most perturbing as he points to the wildfires in the oil-sands in Canada, output cuts due to political unrest in Nigeria and Venezuela, and speculation that the non-state sponsored American hydraulic fracturing industry would go belly up before the market rebounds.

Accounting for the excess supply slack once geopolitical chasms quell and as Canada recovers from the massive Fort McMurray fire that scorched Alberta’s energy industry, easily an extra 4 million barrels of oil could come on line within the next few months savaging the industry.

This also comes at a time when Iran has moved to increase their oil output in a market share arms race with their regional adversary Saudi Arabia who increased production with reckless abandon despite driving prices well below their own breakeven price in a bid to bankrupt oil companies and entire energy dependent countries.


Fortunately, there is a major flaw in Shilling’s assessment which assumes that geopolitical factors that influence production remain constant despite a rout on oil prices. Notably, the instability of smaller, less diversified oil producing countries like Venezuela and Algeria would come to an immediate halt as would, presumably, their entire governing apparatus bereft of the necessary funds to administer the state.

Oil investors know that in addition to breakeven points, all of which have been clearly trounced in the energy market collapse, there is a breakdown point – an oil price level that causes so much economic destruction that the shock itself implies that the market valuation of the natural resource would immediately rebound.

Oil Prices Rebound After Saudi Arabia Crashed the Market, But Will it Last?

Knowing that a $10 oil price would mean the creation of an immediate oil shortage of over 10% per day that would send the market skyrocketing on bounce back over $100 per barrel, investors price the middle point between the two extremes.

No, a collapse to $10 per barrel is not likely or even particularly possible regardless of how much Gary Shilling decides to short the market and put out opinion pieces to try to recoup some of the losses on his foolish market bet.

waldron
01/7/2016
19:00
what a market

certainly the trend is your friend

crept into the 2075 to 2175 BOX

SHORTING CERTAINLY RISK

BUT I TEND TO BELIEVE A BIG DIP IN OFFING

MONTY MIGHT STILL BE RIGHT

Shorting this market should have a WEALTH WARNING

TAKING SOME PROFITS SEEMS SENSIBLE TO ME

GOOD LUCK NEXT WEEK

ENJOY THE LONG WEEKEND

waldron
01/7/2016
11:03
so the odds are a top of 2075 thereabouts even 2175

then a sell off down to 1675

buying back in just before next ex dividend date

INTERESTING PLOY


we will see how it plays out

NOTED

grupo
27/6/2016
21:33
2nd quarter 2016
Announcement date July 28, 2016
Ex-dividend date RDS A ADSs and RDS B ADSs August 10, 2016
Ex-dividend date RDS A and RDS B shares August 11, 2016
Record date August 12, 2016
Scrip reference share price announcement date August 18, 2016
Closing of scrip election and currency election (See Note) August 26, 2016
Pounds sterling and euro equivalents announcement date September 5, 2016
Payment date September 19, 2016

sarkasm
27/6/2016
21:31
MoneyBeat

Meet Two Brexit Winners: BP and Royal Dutch Shell
ENLARGE
Photo: Zuma Press
By Ryan Dezember
and Tim Puko
Jun 24, 2016 11:44 am ET
0 COMMENTS

A pair of unlikely winners have emerged from Brexit: British energy giants BP PLC and Royal Dutch Shell PLC — or at least their shareholders.

After plunging more than 8% in the immediate aftermath of the British voters’ decision to leave the European Union, the oil majors’ shares have rebounded and are now essentially alone as gainers in the energy. BP shares are up 2.6% on a dollar basis, while Shell’s Class B stock is up 1.4% on a dollar basis.

U.S. majors Exxon Mobil and Chevron are off 2.2% and 1.9%, respectively. The S&P 500’s energy stocks are down 3%.

The reason for the U.K. majors’ ascent is that many of the London-based companies’ costs are billed in the plummeting pound, while their revenues are largely paid in dollars, analysts with Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. said. The currency gyrations have also bolstered the dividend yield at BP to 7.6% and Shell to 7.5% “with no change at all in their abilities to fund the dividends,” the Houston investment bank said.

“Clearly there will be short term volatility but for those taking a long term view we see this as an attractive buying opportunity,” Tudor Pickering said when the shares will still down slightly.

The early sell-off was “probably an unfair reaction” given both companies operate globally, says Tudor Pickering’s Dan Pickering, who said more important long term for BP and Shell is how oil demand might change after Brexit.

Deutsche Bank estimates Brexit will slow global economic growth by 0.2% in 2017, which translates to 100,000 fewer barrels of oil demand a day. By comparison, outages in Nigeria are taking 400,000 barrels a day off the market, and many lowest-cost can’t grow output much more, said Michael Hsueh, the bank’s commodity analyst. Oil prices have already pared about a third of their losses from overnight.

“It’s quite possibly we’ve already seen the worst of it here,” he said.

sarkasm
24/6/2016
20:04
2nd quarter 2016
Announcement date July 28, 2016
Ex-dividend date RDS A ADSs and RDS B ADSs August 10, 2016
Ex-dividend date RDS A and RDS B shares August 11, 2016
Record date August 12, 2016
Scrip reference share price announcement date August 18, 2016
Closing of scrip election and currency election (See Note) August 26, 2016
Pounds sterling and euro equivalents announcement date September 5, 2016
Payment date September 19, 2016

Note

A different scrip election date may apply to registered and non-registered ADS holders.

Registered ADS holders can contact The Bank of New York Mellon for the election deadline that applies. Non registered ADS holders can contact their broker, financial intermediary, bank or financial institution for the election deadline that applies.

Both a different scrip and currency election date may apply to shareholders holding shares in a securities account with a bank or financial institution ultimately holding through Euroclear Nederland. This may also apply to other shareholders who do not hold their shares either directly on the Register of Members or in the corporate sponsored nominee arrangement. Shareholders can contact their broker, financial intermediary, bank or financial institution for the election deadline that applies.

The 2016 interim dividend timetable is also available on www.shell.com/dividend

waldron
24/6/2016
19:48
28 Jul 2016
Second quarter 2016 results

waldron
17/6/2016
20:38
Friday, June 17, 2016

Oil prices fell to a five week low on Thursday as a more bearish sentiment took hold of crude markets, but Friday’s trading saw oil rally to close out the week. During the week, a less than expected drawdown in U.S. crude inventories caused a brief spike in oil prices, but traders continued to see signs of Canadian production coming online again after the EIA reported a 525,000 barrel build at the Cushing crude delivery hub. Oversupply concerns have taken a turn for the worse in recent weeks due to the willingness of North-American shale oil companies to pick up drilling after prices surpassed the $50 mark. In addition to this, markets were shaken as the possibility of a Brexit and a looming interest rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank continued to drive investors to safe havens such as the U.S. dollar and gold. Friday’s turnaround however, suggests that these fears are waning and markets are looking for further upside coming from increasing outages in Nigeria and Latin-America.

Rising U.S. rig count. All eyes are on the U.S. rig count this week after Baker Hughes (BHI) reported two consecutive weeks of increases in the rig count. Tight oil operators added 12 rigs over the last two weeks, most of them being deployed in the prolific Permian basin. The concerns about the rising rig count should not be overstated as the U.S. rig count still hovers near all-time lows and U.S. legacy production continues its downward trend.

North Dakota oil output faces steepest decline in history. North Dakota’s oil production has declined more than 70,000 barrels in April, resulting in the largest drop in production the oil province has ever seen. The Bakken/Three Forks formation is now producing less than 1 million barrels per day as a result of cold weather and persistently low oil prices. North Dakotan oil statistics indicate an average decline of over 250 barrels per well on a total of 12,739 producing wells. Operators active in the Bakken are likely to remain cautious and are not expected to ramp up well completions and add new drilling rigs until WTI prices surpass $60.

Oil bust turns into trillion dollar retrenchment. According to energy researchers from Wood Mackenzie, a whopping $1 trillion will have been cut from total investment in oil and gas development through the end of this decade. Although nearly every oil producing country has adjusted capital investment downward, the biggest capex cuts this year and in 2017 ($125+ billion) will be made made in the U.S. oil patch. The Canadian and Russian oil sector are expected to cut between $25 and $40 billion. The effects of expiring hedges, lower revenues and ongoing oil price uncertainty continue to weigh on capex budgets

Oil majors to trim lower margin assets. Oil majors Chevron (CVX) and Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A) are reportedly shedding some lower margin refining assets now crude prices are improving. High profit margins stemming from downstream activities made up a big part of total revenues for most major integrated oil companies during the lows of the oil price slump back in 2015. However, refiners now find themselves between a rock and a hard place as crude feedstock costs go up while gasoline prices see a much more gradual growth. According to IHS Energy’ Lysle Brinker, Shell and Chevron are most motivated to sell assets soon as these oil majors are facing serious cash flow deficits.

All new cars in Germany to be emission free in 2030. In order to achieve an 80-95 percent carbon emission reduction in 2050, Germany aims to completely phase out fossil fuel based transportation as soon as 2030. Germany’s Deputy Economy Minister Rainer Baake notes that Germany hasn’t seen any reduction in CO2 emissions stemming from the transportation sector since 1990 and thus has to take serious measures to meet these ambitious goals. German adoption of electric cars has been lagging behind that of European countries such as Norway and the Netherlands. Germany’s 45.5 million fossil fuel powered vehicles continue to consume over 2.3 million barrels of petroleum products per day in the meantime.

Value Norwegian oil and gas fields drops $50 billion. A declining natural gas price as a result of increased competition in the European marketplace and tanking oil prices worldwide have led to a significant reduction in value of Norwegian state owned oil and gas fields. Rystad Energy expects the grim outlook for European natural gas prices to continue to weigh on revenues derived from the large state owned stakes in Norway’s giant Troll, Oseberg and Johan Sverdrup fields. The energy consultancy expects Norwegian oil and gas production ‘’to remain largely flat’’ until 2024.

Rosneft CEO sees competition increase. Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin, Russia’s most influential oil executive, expects the battle for market share in the key markets of Asia and Europe to further heat up as Russia doubles down on exploitation of oil and gas reserves from East Siberia, giving the country an edge in the world’s fastest growing markets. The question remains whether Saudi Arabia will respond by discounting its crude as it did last year in order to protect its most valuable market share in Asia.

BP not interested in Aramco IPO. Bob Dudley, BP’s (BP) Chief Executive told reporters at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum that his company is unlikely to participate in the privatization of Saudi Arabia’s Aramco. BP is not the first oil major that has signaled disinterest in investing in the Saudi oil giant, earlier this month, Russian oil major Lukoil also mentioned that it is not planning to take part in Aramco’s IPO.

Venezuela: PDVSA won’t default with oil at $50. Venezuela’s oil minister Eulogio del Pino said in an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday that he reckons that oil prices around $50 are high enough to prevent state owned oil company PDVSA from defaulting on debts coming due later this year. He further commented that Venezuela will continue to operate the U.S. refineries which the company is not planning to sell in order to improve liquidity.

In our Numbers Report, we take a look at some of the most important metrics and indicators in the world of energy from the past week. Find out more by clicking here.

Thanks for reading and we’ll see you next week.

Best Regards,

Evan Kelly
Editor, Oilprice.com

ariane
14/6/2016
05:51
Macroscope
by
Neal Kimberley
Forget about peak oil; Here’s the real reason Saudi Arabia is selling its oilfields

New technologies are poised to displace oil as our dominant fuel source
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 14 June, 2016, 11:15am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 14 June, 2016, 1:39pm

Comment: 1
Neal Kimberley
Neal Kimberley
7Share

1
PrintEmail
Related topics
Macroscope
Related Articles
Global investors beating a retreat out of risk assets seems a rational course of action
Business
The smart money is doing something that can only be read one way
13 Jun 2016
A man looks at a crossword puzzle as he sits on bench in Syntagma Square in Athens on May 22, 2016. Greece on May 22 was set to adopt fresh cuts and tax hikes ahead of a Eurogroup meeting that is expected to unlock desperately-needed bailout funds for the debt-ridden nation. Photo: AFP
Business
Economists are struggling with this classic problem that lies at the heart of IMF policy
8 Jun 2016
The logo of the European currency Euro is pictured in front of the European Central Bank, ECB in Frankfurt am Main, western Germany. Phot AFP, Daniel Roland.
Global Economy
ECB’s Vienna meeting holds key to fragile European economy
2 Jun 2016

“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil,”

Sheikh Zaki Yamani, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister in the 1970s

This sentiment arguably still chimes with Riyadh’s outlook in 2016 particularly with countries such as China exploring long-term alternative sources of clean energy.

Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, announced in April by Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the first phase of which, the National Transformation Plan, was approved last week by the cabinet in Riyadh, envisages a huge diversification of the Saudi economy away from its dependency on oil production over the coming decades.

In the near term, Saudi Arabia continues to target oil market share, pumping at near record highs, although, as current Saudi energy minister Khalid al-Falih said on June 2 at a meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries “there is no reason to expect that Saudi Arabia is going to go on a flooding campaign”.

Undoubtedly Saudi Arabia’s pumping strategy continues to reflect, at least partly, Riyadh’s desire not to hand market share to its regional rival Iran as the latter seeks to ramp up oil production following the easing of Western sanctions related to Tehran’s nuclear programme.

But it likely also includes a calculation that targeting price over market share is no longer a viable policy.

The higher the price of a barrel of oil, the easier it is to justify the production of energy where the extraction costs are significantly greater than those of Saudi Arabia, especially when low interest rates allow projects to secure cheap financing.

Equally, newly-developed extraction technologies do not disappear.

Saudi Arabia may have hoped to bear down, through increased production, on the ability of the US shale oil industry’s ability to compete but those US producers have, so far, proved tenacious.

Shale oil potentially becomes stranded in the ground if the global oil price is too low to justify its extraction but as the price ticks up, the production comes back on-stream while technological advances may even lower the extractive costs.

But as Riyadh looks out to 2030 it also has to factor into its calculations that major energy-consuming economies, including China, are ploughing money into efforts to develop dependable sources of clean energy.

On the consumer side, Hong Kong itself is already championing the use of electric vehicles but that electricity is still largely sourced from carbon-energy.

The ultimate prize is to create that electricity from a carbon-free energy source.

And one way to do that is by exploring the feasibility of nuclear fusion technology to re-create on planet Earth the conditions that generate the energy that powers the sun and the stars. The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) Project, after the Latin word iter meaning the way, is a collaboration of 35 nations including China.

The aim, as ITER explains it, is to create “the tokamak… an experimental machine designed to harness the energy of fusion”.

“Inside a tokamak, the energy produced through the fusion of atoms is absorbed as heat in the walls of the vessel. Just like a conventional power plant, a fusion power plant will use this heat to produce steam and then electricity by way of turbines and generators,” ITER says.

Science fiction? Yet in February Chinese scientists in Hefei, the capital of Jiangsu province, managed in their own Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) to heat, as the POST reported, “a hydrogen gas - a hot ionised gas called a plasma - to about 50 million Kelvins (49.999 million degrees Celsius). The interior of our sun is calculated to be around 15 million Kelvins.”

Previous experiments by European and Japanese physicists could only hit that temperature for periods of less than a minute. The EAST team maintained that temperature for 102 seconds which was a breakthrough.

Energy produced from fusion technology is many decades away even if it is shown to be achievable but Riyadh understands it is just another example of how the world is seeking alternatives to carbon energy.

Saudi Arabia may not have been looking EAST when it mapped out its 2030 Vision but the Hefei success, and indeed technological advances in shale oil extraction, surely underscore why Riyadh is targeting oil market share, not price, and help explain its determination to diversify the Saudi economy over the next few decades.

As a major energy consumer, China can surely only benefit from this as Saudi Arabia has apparently realised that Sheikh Yamani had a point.

ariane
13/6/2016
18:31
Iran expects to award new oil deals by Oct.
Mon Jun 13, 2016 5:15PM

HomeIranEnergy

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh says the first deals of the new generation of Iran’s oil sector contracts will be awarded before October.
Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh says the first deals of the new generation of Iran’s oil sector contracts will be awarded before October.

Iran’s Oil Minister Bijan Zangeneh says the first deals of the new generation of Iran’s oil sector contracts still need revisions but will be nonetheless awarded within the next few months.

Zangeneh has been quoted by the media as saying that the government is yet to approve the new contracts, adding that the first deal is expected to be signed before October.

He further emphasized that Iran expects the upcoming awards to help increase its crude production by 600,000 to 700,000 barrels a day over five years.

The bulk of the surge will come from fields in an area west of the Karoun River along the Iraqi border, Bloomberg has quoted Zangeneh as telling Iran’s Persian-language weekly Seda.

Iran’s new format of oil contracts - generally known as Iran Petroleum Contract (IPC) – is replacing buyback deals. Under a buyback deal, the host government agrees to pay the contractor an agreed price for all volumes of hydrocarbons the contractor produces.

But under the IPC, NIOC will set up joint ventures for crude oil and gas production with international companies which will be paid with a share of the output.

Under the IPC, different stages of exploration, development and production will be offered to contractors as an integrated package, with the emphasis laid on enhanced and improved recovery.

Architects of the new contract say foreign companies can no longer dash out of their contractual obligations if sanctions are ever re-imposed on Iran. But critics cite numerous shortcomings which seriously plague the new formula.

The IPC is still a source of criticism for certain technical flaws. Iran’s First Vice President Ehsaq Jahangiri on 31 May called on Zangeneh to make some amendments to the new format of oil contracts.

"Thank you for your efforts to take critical views into account: please present the government with your proposals for amendments for adoption as soon as possible," Jahangiri was quoted as writing to the oil minister on the government website at the time.

Zangeneh has told Seda that a key amendment that has been made in the IPC includes removing a clause that would let NIOC offer an alternative, similar field for exploration if a foreign company failed to make a discovery in its initial site.

The text was revised after regulators sought to make clear domestic reserves belonged to the state, Bloomberg has quoted him as saying. Changes also were made to reflect demands that major decisions by the managerial committee of any joint venture be approved by the national oil company.

ariane
13/6/2016
18:06
THE HAGUE, June 13, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --

The Board of Royal Dutch Shell plc ("RDS")(NYSE: RDS.A)(NYSE: RDS.B) today announced the pounds sterling and euro equivalent dividend payments in respect of the first quarter 2016 interim dividend, which was announced on May 4, 2016 at US$0.47 per A ordinary share ("A Share") and B ordinary share ("B Share").

Dividends on A Shares will be paid, by default, in euro at the rate of €0.4172 per A Share. Holders of A Shares who have validly submitted pounds sterling currency elections by June 6, 2016 will be entitled to a dividend of 32.98.p per A Share.

Dividends on B Shares will be paid, by default, in pounds sterling at the rate of 32.98p per B Share. Holders of B Shares who have validly submitted euro currency elections by June 6, 2016 will be entitled to a dividend of €0.4172 per B Share.

This dividend will be payable on June 27, 2016 to those members whose names were on the Register of Members on May 20, 2016.

Taxation - cash dividend

Cash dividends on A Shares will be subject to the deduction of Dutch dividend withholding tax at the rate of 15%, which may be reduced in certain circumstances. Based on a policy statement issued by the Dutch Ministry of Finance on April 29, 2016, and depending on their particular circumstances, non-Dutch individual shareholders may be entitled to a full or partial refund of Dutch dividend withholding tax.

Furthermore, in April 2016, there were changes to the UK taxation of dividends. The dividend tax credit has been abolished, and a new tax free dividend allowance of £5,000 introduced. Dividend income in excess of the allowance will be taxable at the following rates: 7.5% within the basic rate band; 32.5% within the higher rate band; and 38.1% on dividend income taxable at the additional rate.

If you are uncertain as to the tax treatment of any dividends you should consult your own tax advisor.

ariane
13/6/2016
09:07
Scotland business
Call for urgent changes in oil and gas industry
By Douglas Fraser Business/economy editor, Scotland

9 hours ago
From the section Scotland business

Image copyright Shell

Senior figures in offshore oil and gas have called for more radical and urgent changes to avoid rapid decline.

They say there are only two years in which to secure the industry's future.

A report by PwC includes a proposal for a "super joint venture" between offshore operators.

It would share risk as well as return, and secure co-ordination of activities for smaller fields and fragmented assets, as some equipment nears the end of its working life.

It could also cut out as much as 15% of cost that results from duplication of effort.

The joint approach could also be applied to funding, with the survey of senior figures finding that a lack of capital was their biggest problem.
Lack of leadership

The report, "A Sea Change", found that fewer than three in five senior executives interviewed were positive about the industry's future, while a fifth were pessimistic.

Suggestions in the report were that infrastructure, including the pipeline network, could be handed over to a third party company to ensure co-operation, or it could be nationalised.

Interviewed anonymously, the industry leaders were critical of the lack of leadership.

They suggested in the PwC report that the industry needed a dominant leading figure. This person may have to come from a different sector, to shake up inefficient, older-thinking of the existing regime.

Analysis by Douglas Fraser, Scotland business/economy editor
Image copyright Thinkstock

You know something's really badly wrong with North Sea oil and gas, when the people who control it are calling for their own overthrow.

The leaders are looking for leadership. Though fiercely competitive, they are asking someone to arrange for their collaboration.

These are business people asking for government to take over their assets.

This follows months of bad news in which we risk becoming inured to the job losses, pay cuts, slashed investment budgets, and the sale or transfer of distressed assets.

Read more from Douglas

The new regulator, the Oil and Gas Authority, based in Aberdeen, is welcomed, but the report voiced doubts about its willingness to assert its authority, to change competitive behaviour between offshore operators.

There was also a call for the UK government to align the approach by different departments, and to consider the needs of smaller operators and oilfield service companies as well as the big operators.

Alison Baker, an oil and gas specialist with PwC, said: "During our interviews we picked up a real sense of urgency to create one last cycle of success that will retain and generate jobs, stimulate growth and ensure security of energy supply.

"But this was matched by a level of frustration at the fundamental issues that need tackling to avert the risk of rapid and premature decline."

She added: "The majority of respondents also want the government to take a lesson from Norway and Saudi Arabia and be bold in setting out their blueprint for the future.

"This must incorporate onshore activity as well as defining how the North Sea basin will evolve in the short to medium term and, crucially, how the end game - and subsequent transition to a low carbon landscape - will be managed."

waldron
12/6/2016
08:42
nice post pvb
the grumpy old men
Chat Pages: Latest  30  29  28  27  26  25  24  23  22  21  20  19  Older

Your Recent History

Delayed Upgrade Clock

By accessing the services available at ADVFN you are agreeing to be bound by ADVFN's Terms & Conditions

Support: +44 (0) 203 8794 460 | support@advfn.com