Shell Canada spending will grow 60pc
CALGARY: Shell Canada Ltd will boost spending 60 per cent to C$2.7 billion ($2.3 billion) in a 2006 budget that its chief executive said represents the start a multiyear expansion for the country’s number two oil producer and refiner.

Shell Canada's oil sands are a big target for development and the company is putting together plans to spend C$17 billion over the next five years to boost overall oil and gas production by 50 per cent, CEO Clive Mather said.
“It represents confidence in our current operation, it represents confidence in the economic outlook and it represents confidence in the quality of our opportunities,” Mather said. “It’s a quite different trajectory.”
High oil prices have sparked a boom in energy spending in Canada, the top energy supplier to the US, and Alberta’s vast oil sands have been the big attraction.
In announcing its plans, Shell Canada, 78 per cent owned by oil major Royal Dutch Shell Plc, follows such players as Canadian Natural Resources Ltd and EnCana Corp, which have put forward multibillion-dollar spending plans in recent weeks.

Norway seismic firm PGS plans split
OSLO: Norwegian oilfield service company PGS said it aimed to split into two companies in 2006, one concentrating on gathering seismic data and the other on oil production.
PGS also said it would buy back expensive debt by the end of the year and issue fresh debt, seen as paving the way for a split.
“The objective is to achieve a separation in 2006,” Petroleum Geo-Services ASA said. “PGS believes that the two entities may be more effectively developed and grown as separate companies.”
A split would boost the combined value of the companies, and the restructured debt would reduce interest costs, analysts said.
PGS’s core business is gathering seismic data from the seabed for oil companies, and it says it has a 30 per cent share of the offshore market. It also collates seismic data on land.

LUKoil aims to invest $1bn in Bulgaria
SOFIA: Top Russian oil producer LUKoil plans to invest around $1 billion in its Bulgarian operations over the next six years as it boosts its business in southeast Europe, its chief executive said.
LUKoil, in which ConocoPhillips has a stake of more than 10 per cent, plans to double its current production of 1.8 million bpd day by 2015 and is aggressively pushing into the markets of Russia’s former Soviet-era allies.
“We plan to invest around $1 billion to develop our business in Bulgaria through 2011,” Vagit Alekperov said in Sofia.