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On May 27, 2009, Shell will stand trial for collaboration and complicity in Saro-Wiwa's murder. 14 years after his execution, Ken Saro-Wiwa's sons Ken and Owens Wiwa are the plaintiffs in Wiwa v Shell. Saro-Wiwa was convicted by a military tribunal in 1995. He was not given proper legal representation, a fair trial, or the right to appeal the court's ruling. Saro-Wiwa led the Movement for Survival of Ogoni People (MOSOP) and alerted the world to the atrocities against human rights, as well as the environment degradation being committed by big oil companies in Nigeria. The Ogoni Nine were hanged based on "trumped-up charges", in which Shell is accused of collaborating with Nigerian authorities. Shell's official statement on human rights in Nigeria is:

A joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell and Iraq's state-owned South Gas Co. could give Shell a 25-year monopoly on production and exports of natural gas in much of southern Iraq - the biggest foreign role in Iraq's oil and gas sector in four decades. The planned venture, spelled out in a 16-page document obtained by United Press International, goes well beyond descriptions provided by Iraqi and Shell officials on Sept. 22, when they held a public signing ceremony in Baghdad.

ROYAL DUTCH SHELL completed its withdrawal from the UK wind-energy sector after quietly selling out of the last project it had in this country. The oil giant recently agreed to sell its stake in the £800m Cirrus SHELL Flat Array, a 270MW project off the Blackpool coast, to partners Scottish Power and Dong Energy. Its exit, three months after it walked away from the world's largest proposed offshore wind farm, the London Array, will raise questions about the government's ambitious wind-energy targets. The decision will also anger environmentalists already critical of SHELL's push into dirty-fuel sources such as Canada's tar sands.

Victims of the Nigerian government's violent 1990s-era crackdown on residents of oil-rich lands where Royal Dutch Shell had drilling operations may finally reach their goal to challenge the deaths and injuries in a U.S. court. U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood set a Feb. 9 date for a trial stemming from two lawsuits accusing Royal Dutch Shell PLC of being complicit in decisions by Nigeria's military government to hang oil industry opponents.

The Times has an update on the efforts of western oil majors to secure Iraq's oil, noting "The big players have been shut out since nationalisation in 1972. Now they see their chance to get in" - Oil giants are itching to invade Iraq. Yet since the Iraqi government nationalised the industry in 1972, oil's main players have been shut out. Years of war and violence have kept them at bay. That may be about to change. In October the Baghdad government kicked off a round of bidding to allow international oil companies to exploit eight of the country's largest oil and gasfields. BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and Gazprom are among the 35 companies that have put concerns about security to one side and thrown their hats in the ring. The deals would pave the way for the first significant foreign investment in the country's biggest fields in more than three decades. Some side deals have already been signed - last month Shell announced a $4 billion (£2.7 billion) gas joint venture with the Iraqi government and opened a permanent office in the country.

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell today joined the profits bonanza from record prices with a 71 per cent jump in third-quarter earnings. The firm made a mammoth 10.9 billion US dollars (£6.6 billion) between July and September - a period when oil prices hit a peak above 147 dollars a barrel. The news, which is likely to spark fresh calls for a windfall tax, comes two days after rival BP posted its biggest-ever quarterly profits of £6.4 billion.

I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil - Alan Greenspan (2007) The Guardian had an interesting article recently on the auction of 40 billion barrels of Iraqi oil reserves. The biggest ever sale of oil assets will take place today, when the Iraqi government puts 40bn barrels of recoverable reserves up for offer in London. BP, Shell and ExxonMobil are all expected to attend a meeting at the Park Lane Hotel in Mayfair with the Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani. Access is being given to eight fields, representing about 40% of the Middle Eastern nation's reserves, at a time when the country remains under occupation by US and British forces. Two smaller agreements have already been signed with Shell and the China National Petroleum Corporation, but today's sale will ignite arguments over whether the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was a "war for oil" that is now to be consummated by western multinationals seizing control of strategic Iraqi reserves.

An environmentalist group and four Nigerians filed suit against Royal Dutch Shell PLC in the Netherlands on Friday, claiming the company was negligent in cleaning up oil spills in Nigeria. The civil suit filed by the four men and Friends of the Earth is unusual in that it seeks to hold Shell's parent company liable for damages allegedly caused by its Nigerian subsidiary.

Royal Dutch Shell has appealed a Nigerian court order requiring it hand over the site of a key base in the oil-rich but impoverished Niger Delta. A high court in Rivers State ruled in July that the site of the Bonny lifting terminal belonged to the local community, not the oil multinational.

The world's leading energy companies won rights to develop two major oil fields in Iraq at an auction on Friday. Royal Dutch Shell and Malaysia's Petronas were awarded the contract to exploit the Majnoon oil field in southern Iraq, one of the world's largest untapped oil fields with more than 12 billion barrels of proven reserves. They accepted a fee of 1.39 U.S. dollars per barrel.

The world's leading energy companies won rights to develop two major oil fields in Iraq at an auction on Friday. Royal Dutch Shell and Malaysia's Petronas were awarded the contract to exploit the Majnoon oil field in southern Iraq, one of the world's largest untapped oil fields with more than 12 billion barrels of proven reserves. They accepted a fee of 1.39 U.S. dollars per barrel.

Using fully stock production gasoline engine powered vehicles, with engine modifications limited only to changes in fuel mixture and ignition timing, Shell Oil Company served host to an open competition in automobile efficiency. The fruit of their forum was sweet indeed as a two-door, full-sized production car was able to drive off with the prize by achieving 376.59 miles in normal driving conditions using a single gallon of fuel. A more heavily modified vehicle was able to achieve over 1140 miles on a single gallon of fuel. Results like these are truly astounding and beg the question: Are we really getting all we can in efficiency from auto makers?

A federal appeals court on Thursday blocked Royal Dutch Shell from drilling oil wells off Alaska's North Slope after finding that the Interior Department had failed to conduct an environmental study before issuing the company's drilling permit. In a long-awaited ruling, the court said that the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency in charge of offshore leasing, had violated the 1970 National Environmental Policy Act by failing to take a "hard look" at the impact that offshore drilling would have on bowhead whales in the Beaufort Sea as well as indigenous communities on the North Slope.

One estimate has oil shale extraction needing 10 barrels of water per barrel of oil produced. And, with Colorado's proposed oil shale operations at full capacity, by mid-century, the industry could require as much as 14 times more power than currently generated by the state's largest power plant. These estimates are very imprecise, because the technology is unproven. You might wonder, "Why so much water and energy? And what do do about it?" See the illustration and answer below. A recent Los Angeles Times article, "Energy dispute over Rockies riches," reported: Shell has the most mature technology, which it has been experimenting with at its Mahogany test site, near Rifle, Colo. Tucked into a rolling landscape of empty range land, the company has sunk heaters half a mile into oil shale seams and subjected the rock to 700-degree temperatures. Over weeks or even months, a liquid known as kerogen is produced, which can be refined into diesel and jet fuel.

Energy Bulletin's Bart Anderson has an interview in, of all places, a French cyberpunk journal - The future is Amish, not Mad Max: interview with Bart Anderson of EB. Laurent Courau: Your site puts forward the concept of "peak oil." Could you begin by reviewing this essential point for the readers of La Spirale? Bart Anderson: There is a limited amount of petroleum in the earth. After the easy deposits have been exploited, we go after deposits that are more difficult and expensive to develop (e.g. tar sands, deepwater and arctic oil). At a certain point - peak oil - the amount of oil produced reaches a maximum. Afterwards, less and less oil is produced. In this way oil production follows a more-or-less bell-shaped curve, Hubbert's Curve. The curve takes its name from the Shell Oil geoscientist, M. King Hubbert, who presented the idea in 1956 and predicted the peaking of U.S. oil production, which occurred in 1970.

Yesterday, the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources held a Bipartisan Energy Summit featuring experts from MIT, Google, Shell, and others. At one point in the hearing, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) tore into the energy protest House Republicans have been holding for the past several weeks. This political stunt was meant to demand a vote on oil drilling and "attack Democrats for leaving town" in August "without doing something to lower gas prices." After listening all the problems currently facing the country, Whitehouse asked the experts whether anyone thought drilling was the "number one issue" right now. Almost nine seconds went by with complete silence:

An Iraqi plan to award six no-bid contracts to Western oil companies, which came under sharp criticism from several United States senators this summer, has been withdrawn, participants in the negotiations said on Wednesday. Iraq's oil minister, Hussain al-Shahristani, told reporters at an OPEC summit meeting in Vienna on Tuesday that talks with Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, Total, BP and several smaller companies for one-year deals, which were announced in June and subsequently delayed, had dragged on for so long that the companies could not now fulfill the work within that time frame. The companies confirmed on Wednesday that the deals had been canceled.

Environmentalists arrested at community meeting on gas flaring Journalists, community elders, woman and children were among the 25 arrested at a community forum on gas flaring at Iwherekan community, Delta state, Nigeria. The arrests were made by Nigerian soldiers this Tuesday who held the detainees for five hours before releasing them. The Iwherekan community is blighted by gas-flaring as a result of oil extraction by Shell.

The agency said personnel have been evacuated from a total of 223 production platforms, equivalent to 31.1% of the 717 manned platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the major producers, including the two largest - Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) and BP PLC (BP) have announced a total halt to offshore operations ahead of Gustav's arrival in the region. Others, including Chevron Corp. (CVX), have partially cut production linked to platforms shut down by other producers.

Under fire for high gas prices, the industry is spending record amounts on influence in Washington. Plus: How it's playing in the presidential race. Top oil lobbyists Company spending so far in 2008 Company Amount in millions 1. Exxon Mobil $8.1 2. Chevron $6.1 3. BP $5.2 4. ConocoPhillips $4.4 5. Koch $3.8 6. Marathon $3.6 7. API $2.2 8. Occidental $1.4 9. Williams $1.2 10. Shell $1.2 Source:Center for Responsive Politics Top industries Spending on lobbying so far in 2008 Industry Amount in millions 1. Drugs $113 2. Insurance $76 3. Electric utilities $65 4. Computers $60 5. Oil and gas $55 6. Education $51 7. Air transport $50 8. Health Care $48 9. Manufacturing $48 10. Entertainment $48 Source:Center for Responsive Politics NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- As angry voters spark a barrage of energy bills in Congress, the oil industry is spending record amounts of money protecting its interests. In what may be surprising to some, the most recent figures from the Center for Responsive Politics show that the oil industry gives a relatively small sum to individual political campaigns - it's 16th on a list of top 50 industries.