THE former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, says Americans could be paying $5 for a gallon of petrol by 2012.

ANYONE who opens this book expecting to find a friendly giant is in for a disappointment. Big, physically and creatively, he may have been, but friendly might be pushing Roald Dahl beyond the limits of his personality.

A subsidiary of Shell Oil applied to drill one exploration well next year in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s north coast.

Two US congressmen reviewing contingency plans of five major oil companies in the event of another spill say they are nearly identical – and are all unprepared.

The deadly blow-out of an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was triggered by a bubble of methane gas that escaped from the well and shot up the drill column, expanding quickly as it burst through several seals and barriers before exploding, according to interviews with rig workers conducted during BP's internal investigation.

DCC is in a good position to further expand its energy and environmental divisions through acquisition, according to one analyst.

OIL prices are staying stubbornly high and governments internationally are struggling to deal with this increasingly worrying trend.

Sinn Féin's environment spokesperson for Dublin South East, Daithí Doolan has called on the Dublin city manager to explain the alleged fuel deal that Dublin City Council has with Shell Oil.

ISEQ-listed building materials company Readymix has appointed Roger Gonzalez to the position of group managing director.

Four directors of Shell Oil are due to meet with west of Ireland TD's this week, it emerged this afternoon.

Hurricane Katrina damaged or displaced an estimated 58 Gulf of Mexico oil platforms and drilling rigs, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

IT is a very sad day for Ireland when a multinational giant like Shell Oil thinks it is in a position to exercise some kind of divine right to ride roughshod over the good and decent farmers of Rossport, Co Mayo.

Residents from the Rossport area of Co Mayo are due to mount a demonstration outside the headquarters of the Shell oil company in Dublin this afternoon.

Hurricane Ivan slammed into Cuba’s sparsely populated western tip with the worst of its 160mph (257kph) eyewall, strengthened to a storm of catastrophic strength after it smashed giant waves on to Grand Cayman island and readied to attack the Gulf of Mexico and US oil interests.

Rio de Janeiro’s top law enforcement official says the murder of a Shell Oil executive has baffled police, but pledged to spare no effort to solve the crime.

THE US plans to run Iraq’s oil industry until an Iraqi interim authority can take it over, sources familiar with the evolving plan said on Friday.

THE Netherlands is set for a cliff-hanging general election today. A year ago, a dapper gay populist who railed against immigrants in general and Muslims in particular and then was shot to death in a car-park nine days before elections.

TO the outrage of environmentalists, industrialised nations and oil states at the World Summit on Sustainable Development worked yesterday to water down a timetable for rapidly expanding the use of clean, renewable energy technologies around the globe.

To the outrage of enviromentalists, industrialised nations and oil states at the World Summit on Sustainable Development worked today to water down a timetable for rapidly expanding the use of clean, renewable energy technologies around the globe.

Shell Oil has started its hostile takeover of Barret Resources in a deal that values the company at $2.2bn.