A Shell spokeswoman confirmed the purchase while declining to detail its size but the Middle East Economic Survey (MEES) reported earlier that Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund (QIA) was looking at a 3-5 percent stake.

If Qatar did buy 5 percent, it would be just ahead of Blackrock, which is currently Shell’s biggest investor with 4.97 percent, according to Reuters data.

But British stock market rules require any party to disclose a holding of over 3 percent in a listed company so the absence of a statement from Qatar suggests its interest is below this level.

The Gulf nation’s massive gas supplies have made it rich, allowing it to create a sovereign wealth fund that has been buying up assets, including stakes in listed companies, around the world.

“We are delighted to welcome the Qatar Investment Authority as a long term and major shareholder in Shell, and particularly given our excellent strategic relationship with the Qatari state,” the spokeswoman said in an emailed statement.

Shell operates multi-billion dollar natural gas projects in Qatar.

Shell’s London-listed “A” shares rose 1.1 percent to trade at 20.74 euros by 14:26 p.m. British time, against a 0.4 percent rise in the STOXX Europe 600 Oil and Gas index .SXEP.

Eni, whose shares traded up 1.9 percent at 16.89 euros, had no comment on the MEES report that Qatar was negotiating a stake in it.

Two analysts said the Qatar fund might be interested in buying the ENI stake of around 3.4 percent that state-controlled finance company CDP could sell to help fund its acquisition of a stake in transmission operator Snam (SRG.MI) from Eni.

The CDP and the Italian treasury own just over 30 percent of Eni and annulment of the group’s treasury shares would increase their stakes.

A source close to the matter said a series of sovereign funds had met with CDP to discuss a possible stake in Eni.

“The plan to separate Eni from Snam involving Eni’s annulling treasury shares and the CDP selling the excess stake it would get is in pole position among the options on the government’s agenda,” the source said.

Prime Minister Mario Monti had a meeting with the Emir of Qatar in Rome in April. Monti told reporters at the end of that meeting that Qatari institutions had shown interest in long-term investments in Italy.

In Italy, investors must inform the market regulator Consob when they buy stakes of more than 2 percent in a listed company.

ATTRACTIVE COMMODITIES

A senior executive of the Qatari fund said in April that the financial crisis had restricted investment in commodities and that he expected a supply-demand gap to emerge by 2016 or 2017.

“We like commodities, we like to invest in commodities. Since 2002, the commodity price trend keeps going up,” Qatar Investment Authority Executive Board Member Hussain al-Abdulla told reporters.

Qatar Holding, a unit of QIA, said last month that it had increased its stake in French oil group Total (TOTF.PA) to 3 percent and is undecided on buying more shares.

Qatar signed a deal in April to co-invest $250 million (155.6 million pounds) with Barclays’ (BARC.L) natural resources private equity investment unit.

QIA has been the most active of the region’s sovereign wealth funds in recent years, deploying profit from its natural gas riches into assets ranging from German sports car maker Porsche (PSHG_p.DE) to British bank Barclays (BARC.L).

The fund has also been slowly buying into London-listed miner Xstrata (XTA.L) recently. Its current holding in Xstrata, which is planning to merge with commodities trader Glencore (GLEN.L), is about 7.2 percent.

On Friday, the Financial Times reported Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund planned to increase its Xstrata stake to at least 10 percent as part of a long-held strategy to invest in Glencore, suggesting the Gulf state could provide crucial support to the pair’s $90 billion merger deal.

Qatar surprised many observers by passing on the Glencore initial public offering last year as rival Abu Dhabi fund Aabar bought into the flotation.

Source: www.uk.reuters.com

We stand at the early dawn of a new energy future. It will be powered by alternative energy and cleaner fossil fuels. If governments adopt the right rules and incentives, by the middle of this century renewable sources will provide nearly 30 per cent of the world’s energy. Society will be on the road toward sustainable mobility. The world’s highways will rumble and whir with vehicles powered by all manner of energy: petrol, diesel (yes, still there), electricity, biofuels, natural gas and hydrogen.

In the years ahead, conventional diesel and petrol cars will go increasingly far on every litre of fuel. Biofuels will account for up to 10 per cent of liquid transport fuel in the next few decades. Our Shell scenario-makers think that by 2020 up to 15 per cent of new cars worldwide could be hybrid electrics, such as Toyota’s Prius, some of them capable of plugging in to recharge their batteries. After 2030, fuel cell vehicles powered by hydrogen will be a small but growing part of the fleet. By 2050, more than a billion extra vehicles are expected on the world’s roads, more than double today’s total.

Greater variety of fuel choices will be a boon for consumers. Different fuels will be stronger in different regions. In South America, biofuels will likely predominate. In Brazil, ethanol from sugar cane already supplies more than 40 per cent of demand for petrol. China, meanwhile, plans to expand production and use of hybrid and electric vehicles, tapping its vast coal deposits to generate power.

As more vehicles go electric, the environmental footprint of the world’s power generators will become even more important. Wind, solar and hydropower will account for 30 per cent of electricity generation by 2030, up from about 18 per cent today. Many new coal-fired power plants are expected to capture CO2 emissions and store it safely underground, rather than pump it into the atmosphere. Plants increasingly will turn coal into a gas, rather than burn it. They will then burn the gas to generate power, or use it as raw material for a variety of chemical products, while CO2 will be captured and stored. Such integrated plants will begin to resemble refineries. Likewise, refineries can gasify heavy oils – and use the gas to produce hydrogen – and generate heat and electricity – while capturing and storing the CO2.

Indeed, fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas, will continue to provide more than half the world’s energy in 2050, building a long bridge to an era when alternatives can take over. A growing population and higher standards of living for billions of people in the developing world will mean that we need all available sources of energy to keep the world’s economies humming. So, while the world races to build up alternative fuels, it must also find new sources of fossil fuels, including unconventional ones, such as oil sands. And we must accelerate efforts to make fossil fuels cleaner, by reducing the CO2 emitted in their production and use.

None of this will be easy, or cheap. Industry and government regulations must change on a huge scale and at an unprecedented pace. According to the International Energy Agency, by 2030 we will need to invest $5.5 trillion merely in renewable energy. That’s like buying more than 18,000 Boeing 747 jumbo jets at $300 million apiece (only about 14,000 have been built since its introduction in 1970). Billions more must go into upgrading electricity transmission networks to handle increased demand and the on-and-off power generated by wind and solar.

Much of this money will come from private companies, but governments will need to continue using tax credits and other incentives to encourage the growth of renewables. They are still small relative to the world’s overall energy needs. Including hydropower, renewables account for about 7 per cent of global energy. Wind today supplies about 1 per cent, with approximately 70,000 turbines. Biofuels, thanks partly to billions of dollars in government subsidies, now also supply about 1 per cent.

To judge from society’s experience with nuclear power and other technologies, new energy sources take at least 25 years to reach significant scale. To illustrate the challenge, in the case of wind the world will need another 1-1.5 million turbines covering an area nearly the size of France in order to reach 10 per cent of the electricity generated by 2030. That means expanding today’s worldwide turbine production of about 15,000 a year to just under 100,000 a year by 2030.

Energy companies are already preparing for the future, increasing production of natural gas, the cleanest fossil fuel, investing in renewables, such as sustainable biofuels, and researching ways to capture CO2 and store it safely underground. But the enormity of the challenge means that government should do its part to encourage society’s shift to a new energy system. For instance, new technologies with great promise to reduce CO2 emissions will require initial government support to achieve quickly the scale necessary to have real impact.

One critical step is to put a price on greenhouse gas emissions – doing so in all leading countries, not merely a few. I prefer a system that caps emissions and allows companies to trade emission allowances, as Europe’s already does. Cap-and-trade systems should encourage a relatively steady CO2 price, which will have the strongest influence on energy consumers’ behaviour and on the efficiency designed into factories, homes and offices. It will also harness the ingenuity of industry and channel investment to the most efficient emission reductions.

While energy policy can drive technology, it may ultimately raise costs and be politically unpopular. As society and political leaders face difficult choices, they should remember that failure to act now could force us into more painful choices down the road.

Influencing consumer behaviour may prove toughest of all. While technology will give society greater energy choices, it remains unclear whether people are willing to become better users of energy.

Despite the massive hurdles, the push to create a new energy system will benefit us all. It will reverse the rapid rise in the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming. It will provide new business opportunities for companies and entrepreneurs. It will create well-paid jobs in a thriving new industry. Competition among energy sources will drive innovation, keep energy affordable and increase global energy security. The race is on.

Las dos grandes petroleras británicas limitan sus inversiones en el negocio eólico y solar, para centrarse en el posible desarrollo de biocombustibles y en la captura de CO2.

BP y Shell han acometido en los últimos meses un replanteamiento de su presencia en el sector de las energías renovables, alimentando el debate sobre si las grandes petroleras tienen interés real en invertir en ese negocio.

Los dos grupos británicos, que desde hace años promocionan su imagen como abanderados de la energía limpia, han limitado drásticamente su inversión en activos eólicos y solares, para enfocarse al desarrollo de biocombustibles y de técnicas para reducir las emisiones de dióxido de carbono (CO2) en instalaciones industriales.

Paso atrás

Una de las consecuencias más visibles en España de ese cambio de estrategia es el anunciado cierre de la fábrica de paneles solares de BP en Madrid. En Reino Unido, las petroleras han renunciado a invertir en parques eólicos, y especialmente sonado ha sido el abandono por parte de Shell del consorcio que quiere desarrollar el mayor parque eólico marino del mundo, en el estuario del río Támesis.

Grupos ecologistas han aprovechado esas maniobras para acusar a las petroleras de utilizar su supuesto compromiso con las energías renovables como un simple mensaje propagandístico. “Estamos acostumbrados a que las grandes petroleras utilicen pequeñas inversiones en renovables para tapar que su gran negocio sigue siendo la extracción de crudo”, indican en Greenpeace.

Las compañías replican que su compromiso con el fomento de la energía limpia sigue vivo, y que sus últimas decisiones responden a una adaptación a los cambios en el entorno económico y regulatorio. “Nuestra estrategia en energía alternativa consiste en invertir de una manera selectiva y disciplinada en áreas donde podemos alcanzar una buena ventaja competitiva”, asegura Tony Hayward, consejero delegado de BP. Esta empresa ha decidido concentrar su producción de paneles solares en regiones de bajo coste como Asia, sólo va a promover parques eólicos en Estados Unidos, y su principal proyecto en biocombustibles está localizado en Brasil. En 2009, BP invertirá entre 500 millones y 1.000 millones de dólares en energías alternativas, frente a los 1.400 millones de 2008.

Shell ha descartado casi totalmente nuevas inversiones en los negocios solar y eólico. Linda Cook, responsable de la división de gas y electricidad del grupo, indicó el mes pasado que la empresa tiene “otras opciones más interesantes de inversión”. Entre 2004 y 2008, el grupo ha invertido 1.500 millones de dólares en energía alternativa, pero en palabras del consejero delegado de Shell, Jeroen van der Veer, “la empresa está cambiando el foco de su portfolio alternativo”. El principal objetivo de Shell es el desarrollo de técnicas para capturar el CO2 que emiten instalaciones industriales y centrales eléctricas, para su posterior almacenamiento en depósitos bajo tierra o bajo el subsuelo marino.

Razones de estrategia

Fuentes del sector energético creen que el reposicionamiento de BP y Shell tiene lógica por su expectativa de que petróleo, gas y carbón sigan siendo la principal fuente de energía a medio plazo. Shell prevé que esos combustibles fósiles todavía sigan aportando entre el 58% y el 63% de la demanda de energía global en 2050, frente al 80% actual. Curiosamente, Shell cree que el carbón será la mayor fuente de energía a mitad de siglo, lo que explica su trabajo en la captura de CO2, que reduciría las emisiones de centrales que queman esa materia prima.

El segundo motivo para el giro de estrategia es que las petroleras esperan más rentabilidad en sus inversiones en extraer crudo que en un negocio renovable que sigue dependiendo de ayudas públicas. Según Tony Hayward, el sector deberá invertir 26 billones de dólares hasta 2030 para atender la demanda de crudo y gas, que seguirá creciendo y elevando los precios del barril.

La última razón para la marcha atrás es que energías renovables como la solar y eólica sirven para producir electricidad, negocio alejado de la cadena de actividades del sector, que comienza con la exploración y producción de crudo y gas, y sigue con su refino para crear carburantes y su posterior distribución.