Shell Oil

It sounded too good to be true: gas for sale to motorists at distributor prices. And it was. Investigators from the district attorney's office discovered more than a dozen Shell stations across Ventura County that advertised gas at dealer prices but actually charged up to a nickel a gallon over wholesale. On Thursday, prosecutors filed and settled a lawsuit against Shell Oil Co., the Houston-based corporation that organized the so-called Crazy Days discounts.

Shell Oil's proposal to drill three exploratory wells in the Beaufort Sea off Alaska's North Slope received a conditional go-ahead last week from the Obama administration even though the Interior Department has not yet approved the company's plan for responding to a catastrophic oil spill. That plan fails to adequately address many of the harsh realities of drilling in Arctic seas. It's too early for any approval, conditional or otherwise. Exploratory offshore drilling in the Arctic doesn't present the same potential for danger as, say, BP's offshore rig in the Gulf of Mexico.

Dissident Shell Oil shareholders Monday asked a Delaware court to set aside a $5.67-billion buy-out plan, alleging that new information about Shell reserves in the Gulf of Mexico makes the shares more valuable. A spokesman for the dissidents said the group believes that Shell's Green Canyon reserves may approach 1 billion barrels, making it roughly equivalent to Alaska's enormous Prudhoe Bay reserves. Royal Dutch-Shell, Shell Oil's majority owner, says the reserves aren't that great.

A major explosion and fire at a Shell oil refinery Thursday killed at least one worker, injured another and caused millions of dollars in damage, a fire brigade spokesman said. Firefighters battled the blaze at the Shell refinery in an industrial port section of Hamburg for more than eight hours. At times, the flames were more than 300 feet high, the firefighters said.

Royal Dutch-Shell Group violated disclosure rules in its $5.7-billion buyout of minority shareholders in the former Shell Oil Co. five years ago, a court held. The Court of Chancery in New Castle County, Del., ruled in favor of a group of minority shareholders who sued over the terms of the buyout. Tuesday's ruling did not determine how much the former owners of 15 million shares of Shell should be awarded, said Houston attorney Ken McNeil, who represented the plaintiffs.

A major obstacle to plans for the oil giant's $5.7-billion acquisition of Shell Oil was removed Friday when a Delaware judge approved a $190-million settlement to a class-action lawsuit by Shell shareholders who had challenged the fairness of the Royal Dutch offer.

In a move to strengthen its chemical division, Occidental Petroleum Corp. said it will acquire some Texas vinyl chloride operations of Houston-based Shell Oil Co. for an undisclosed price. Occidental will buy Shell's vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) operations in Deer Park, Tex., and some related assets, the company said. VCM is the chief raw material in production of polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is used to make plastic pipe and other materials.