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Breaking news at calgaryherald.com Tuesday, June 28, 2011 D5Calgary Business
Monday’s showing followed a turbulent Friday, when in-vestors knocked $2.07 off the share price for a close of $62.85.
Sampson said that he had heard of the investigation by the law firms but had no detail.
“We know nothing about this. They’ve neither con-tacted the company or our counsel,” he said.
BMO Capital Markets re-search analyst Christopher Brown downgraded his price target for Niko from $110 to $65 Monday, calling it a “red flag” raised to investors until BMO learns more about Niko’s ethi-cal and legal practices.
Brown said his institutional clients are worried good news from the company might be overshadowed on the mar-kets by Niko’s bruised repu-tation.
“I think it’s very serious when a public company finds itself guilty of criminal activ-ity internationally,” Brown said.
FirstEnergy Capital Corp. analyst Martin Molyneaux called the court ruling a “speed bump” for Niko, which he expects will rebound thanks to an ambitious exploration program this year of 25-30 targets which were largely in Indonesia, Trinidad and Tobago and Pakistan.
Molyneaux believes Niko’s share price will reach $150 over
the next 12 months.“They are due to catch a
break,” he said. “I can’t em-phasize enough how robust this exploration is.”
Niko also has operations in Kurdistan, Madagascar and India.
The firm’s shares have been hit in recent months by un-certainty over its operating partner’s plans for an offshore Indian gas field that provides most of its production.
Niko, which postponed issuing fourth quarter and year-end results last week, plans to put out a release by Wednesday — its deadline under regulatory require-ments.
NIKO: Investors concernedFrOm D1
Giasson is involved in every-thing from reclamation plan-ning to working with Shell on its liquefied natural gas project in the context of co-ordinating the environmental impact study and being involved in the regulatory process.
The (internship program) was very important in his professional development, says Giasson, “because it gave me the opportunity to apply the skills gained by studying forestry at the University of Victoria to environmental issues.”
Brittany Dewar and Eve DesMarais, two young women from opposite sides of the country, are intend-ing to follow in Giasson’s footsteps after completing the Shell program.
“I think people from our background can integrate these concepts into the business world and find a common ground,” said DesMarais, who hails from the Gatineau region and is a graduate of the University of Ottawa.
Asked if she was sur-prised by Shell, which is subject to its share of criti-cism from non-governmen-tal organizations because of the company’s involvement in the oilsands, Dewar said that was the case initially before she realized the approach Shell is taking means there is a better like-lihood of overcoming the “us versus them” mentality that exists on both sides.
“It’s important for both sides to talk,” said Dewar, who hails from Cochrane.
But both young women are not holding Shell en-tirely responsible for con-servation and environmen-tal issues. They also are of the view that government needs to be involved in es-tablishing more aggressive programs regarding land protection.
In case anyone thinks Shell’s approach is window
dressing, the company was recently one of two recog-nized by Tree Canada for its contribution of $1 million toward tree stewardship in the country.
Since 1998, Shell has planted more than one mil-lion trees that have contrib-uted to the elimination of 650,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Now, admittedly, $1 mil-lion is not a lot for a com-pany that makes billions of dollars, but what’s im-portant in all of this is that what Shell is doing, is not mandated by government.
In 1992, notes Larry Simp-son, director of strategic philanthropy and conser-vation for the NCC, Shell made the largest corporate land gift in Canadian his-tory, donating almost 9,000 hectares in the Elk Valley near Fernie, B.C., and has acted as an anchor for the NCC to negotiate other conservation agreements
and thus broaden the pro-tected area.
All this is linked to com-ments made by U.S. Ambas-sador David Jacobson when he was here earlier this month: “If companies are to be real stewards of the envi-ronment, they can’t just do what the government wants them to do,” he said.
Shell’s vice-president of communications, Tyra Henschel, says getting there means effecting change from within an organization that is part of an industry constantly under fire.
The internship grads are part of that process.
“Traditional public rela-tions don’t work in this space,” she said. “You have to get the performance right, and then the commu-nication will follow. There is no substitute for not get-ting the performance right.
“You can’t just bark from the sidelines.”
The NCC and its link to Shell — as well as other companies in the oilpatch such as Enbridge, Nexen, TransCanada — is but one example of opportunities for the energy sector to constructively partner with organizations that have environmental stewardship mandates.
It’s one more avenue for the industry to take con-trol of the environmental agenda, and begin to set it, instead of being put in the position where it has to react.
deborah yedlin is a calgary herald columnist [email protected]
YEDLIN: ‘Common ground’FrOm D1
South Korea’s agriculture ministry said the government will submit a motion to the South Korean parliament to review the bilateral deal be-fore announcing details of the import safety criteria.
“The Canadian government told us that all the procedures would be completed by Dec. 31 of this year to resume beef imports. And our govern-ment said that we would do our best to resume the imports within the period,” the min-istry statement said.
Grier wouldn’t speculate why South Korea is accepting Canadian beef now, but said a recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the coun-try, which led to the culling of cattle and hog populations, led to a “buying frenzy.”
“The world knows there are declining beef supplies, so it makes sense for them to . . . have more suppliers rather than less. Couple that with foot and mouth problems,
couple that with a WTO panel, a number of factors came into play,” Grier added.
Last year, China said it would resume imports of Ca-nadian beef from cattle under 30 months, but hasn’t started taking shipments yet. A team inspected Alberta meat pack-ing plants last December.
Exports of Canadian beef and veal have been rebound-ing strongly, with shipments to major markets such as
Japan, the rest of Asia, Mexico and Russia jumping over the first nine months of last year compared to a year earlier.
Those were led by sales to Japan, which jumped 81 per cent in the first 11 months of 2010 over 2009 to 13,277 tonnes, although the country only imports beef from cattle under 21 months.
With files from reuters [email protected]
BEEF: Exports reboundFrOm D1
Traditional public relations
don’t work in this space.Tyra HenscHel
work shouldn’t be work.
train for a career as a
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