News and information on Shell PLC
Saturday 25 June 2005
By Clay Harris
The next chairman of Royal Dutch Shell, the unified group due to be created next week, does not have to agree to live in The Hague. Mudlark now hears that it’s not an absolute necessity, perhaps indicating how the search is going.
25 June 2004
MADRID — The Spanish oil company Repsol-YPF has reached a deal with the Anglo-Dutch multinational Shell to buy the majority of Shell’s assets in Portugal, the Spanish group said Friday.
Financial details were not disclosed.
Repsol said the deal would give it control of 303 Shell service stations in Portugal, along with fuel-selling and storgage operations.
The transaction will also enable Repsol to become third largest oil sector operator in Portugal, with 417 service stations and a 19 percent share of that market.
Fri 25 June, 2004
LONDON (Reuters) – Royal Dutch/Shell’s pay-off agreement for sacked former chairman Phil Watts does not indicate that it has ruled out legal action against him, a spokesman says.
Asked if the announcement earlier in the day of a one million pound settlement meant the company SHELL had decided not to sue its disgraced boss, a spokesman said on Friday, “We cannot speculate on the outcome and implications of external investigations.”
He was referring to investigations that are under way by a number of national regulators, including the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice. They are probing the company’s overoptimistic reserves bookings which came to light this year. Watts’ was fired in March for his part in the affair.
By Gordon Smith and Sundeep Tucker in London
Published: June 25 2004 12:08 | Last Updated: June 25 2004 12:55
Sir Philip Watts, the former chairman of Royal Dutch/Shell who resigned earlier this year after it was revealed the oil group misbooked 20 per cent of its reserves, will receive a £1m ($1.8m) severance payment, Europe’s largest oil group said on Friday.
The £1,057,971 lump sum pay-out is based on the salary the former chairman would have received up to his retirement date of June 2005.
25 June 04
Former Shell chairman Sir Philip Watts who stood down after the firm’s oil reserves estimates were dramatically cut has received a £1m ($1.8m) pay-off. Shareholders were highly critical of Sir Philip who headed exploration and production at the time when most of the reserves in question were booked.
Sir Philip was not awarded a performance-related annual bonus for 2003 or 2004, Shell said.
The sum was based on his wage until his June 2005 retirement date.
‘Loss of confidence’
The Associated Press
LONDON June 25, 2004 — Royal Dutch/Shell has paid former chairman Philip Watts, who resigned in the wake of the company’s embarrassing overstatement of its proven oil and gas reserves, a lump sum severance payment of nearly $2 million, the company said Friday.
Watts resigned in March 2004, and his payment was based on his salary as an employee until his normal retirement date in June 2005.
When Watts resigned, the company said he did so in response to the board’s wish for “a change of leadership due to a loss of confidence.”
James Rossiter,
25 June 2004
OUSTED Shell chairman Sir Philip Watts has secured a pay-off worth more than £1m in cash plus stock options potentially worth £6m more at current share values.
The huge pay-off, just months after he admitted the oil and gas giant had vastly overstated its levels of proven reserves going back five years, has already sparked anger among shareholder and corporate governance activists.
Watts resigned on 3 March but takes home £1,057,971 in cash, equivalent to 15 months’ pay up to his planned retirement date of June 2005, and is still sitting on more than 2.8m stock options. He has the right to cash in £114,237 of those options now and is in the money on more than half of the rest – worth some £6m at the current share price – which he is allowed to cash in at various points until March 2009.
By Ingrid Mansell
June 25, 2004
SHELL plugged the final hole in its top management yesterday by appointing a 20-year company veteran to replace its ousted finance director.
Peter Voser, who worked for Shell from 1982 to 2002, will rejoin the oil major in October, following a two and a half year stint as chief financial officer of ABB. He is widely credited with turning round the Swiss engineering group.
Analysts said Mr Voser’s most pressing task at Shell would be a “City charm offensive” to restore investor confidence in the company’s management. The boardroom was cleared out after it emerged that the group had massively overstated its oil and gas reserves.
By David Litterick (Filed: 25/06/2004)
Shell brought back a veteran executive of 20 years’ experience yesterday to replace ousted finance director Judy Boynton and help it recover from recent scandals.
The oil giant appointed Peter Voser to the finance role, more than two years after he left the company to help turn around ABB as the engineers’ finance director.
The 45-year-old Swiss will join on October 4 and help to rebuild confidence in the group, which is still reeling from the news that it over-booked its oil and gas reserves.
25 June 04
The appointment of Peter Voser to succeed the ousted Judy Boynton as Shell’s new finance chief drew a predictable howl of derision from all the usual suspects yesterday. This is because Mr Voser was a Shell lifer before his brief two years with ABB in Switzerland, making Shell vulnerable to the claim that it sill hasn’t taken on board the need for root and branch change despite the disasters of the last six months.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr Voser only left Shell after being passed over for the top finance job in favour of Ms Boynton, who was an acolyte of Sir Philip Watts. Indeed, it is possible to imagine that had the cool headed and accessible Mr Voser got the job, the reserving débâcle may never have happened, or rather it would have been gripped at a much earlier stage.
By Michael Harrison, Business Editor
25 June 2004
Shell moved yesterday to fill the gap at finance director level caused by the scandal over its mis-reporting of oil reserves by appointing a senior executive from the Swiss engineering giant ABB to the post.
Peter Voser, chief financial officer at ABB, will take up his job at Shell in October and will also join the oil company’s committee of managing directors – in effect its executive board. Mr Voser, 45, spent 20 years with Shell, leaving in 2002 after he was beaten to the job of finance director by Judy Boynton who was brought in from the US film and camera company Polaroid. Mr Voser is now replacing Ms Boynton who was forced to step down two months ago because of the lax internal controls within Shell, which resulted in it overstating its proven oil and gas reserves by 4.5 billion barrels or 25 per cent.
Mark Milner
Friday June 25, 2004
Shell has brought back one of its old boys as it rebuilds a top management team devastated by scandal over oil reserves.
The Anglo-Dutch group has recruited Peter Voser, a Shell veteran of 20 years, who has spent the last two years helping engineering group ABB to rebuild its balance sheet.
He will take over as chief financial officer of Royal Dutch-Shell and will be a member of its committee of managing directors in early October. He will also become a director of Shell Transport and Trading, the British arm of the Anglo-Dutch group.
Jun 25, 2004
Jürgen Dormann wasted no time reaching for the phone yesterday to quash rumours that Peter Voser was quitting ABB because of being passed over for the chief executive’s job earlier this year.
The slot relinquished by Dormann, who remains chairman of the Swiss- Swedish engineering group, went in February to Sulzer’s Fred Kindle. Dormann said Voser, an affable 45-year-old Swiss returning to Royal Dutch/Shell after two years, had not put his name forward for the ABB post.
Linking the two events “makes no sense”, said Dormann – although Observer’s man behind the cuckoo clock hears Voser wouldn’t have minded being asked.
By Martin Dickson
Jun 25, 2004
How do you make a reluctant schoolboy stop dragging his feet? In the old days, a slap round the head was deemed an effective stimulus. Political correctness now demands more subtle forms of encouragement.
Institutional investors seem to be combining old and new in their attempts to get Royal Dutch/Shell to embrace genuine corporate governance reforms. The large UK institutions prefer to talk quietly behind the scenes. Calpers and Knight Vinke Asset Management, two powerful US funds, are not averse to more full-frontal aggression.
By Martin Dickson
Jun 25, 2004
Yesterday’s appointment of Peter Voser as Royal Dutch/Shell’s finance director, in place of the ousted Judith Boynton, might be seen as encouraging on the reform front, or not, depending on your mood.
Mr Voser, who spent 20 years at Royal Dutch/Shell before moving to ABB two years ago, is an insider – not exactly an example of the fresh blood at the top that some would like to see. On the plus side, he is well respected in the City for the job he has done turning around ABB. His experience there should have given him some external perspective on Royal Dutch/ Shell’s problems, while knowing the company of old will help him hit the ground running. All in all, it looks a positive appointment.
By Haig Simonian
Jun 25, 2004
Peter Voser seems such an obvious choice as Shell’s new chief financial officer it was surprising that no one had mentioned him earlier.
Mr Voser, a 45 year old Swiss citizen, spent virtually all his career at the Anglo/ Dutch oil group before breaking off in 2002 to join ABB, the Swiss/Swedish engineering company.
In two-and-a-half years at ABB, Mr Voser – who studied business administration at Zurich’s University of Applied Sciences – has earned a glittering reputation as a finance chief. He was instrumental in restoring ABB’s credibility among bankers, analysts and investors.
By Sundeep Tucker and James Boxell in London
Jun 25, 2004
Two powerful shareholders in Royal Dutch/Shell have raised the temperature ahead of Monday’s annual meetings by calling on the company to include investor representatives on the committee that is reviewing its governance and structure.
The demand is contained in a letter, seen by the Financial Times, sent to Shell this week detailing fresh concerns about the review process.
It comes as the oil giant yesterday announced the appointment of Peter Voser, a former Shell accountant, as its chief financial officer. He joins from ABB, the Swiss engineering group, where he is finance director. Mr Voser replaces Judy Boynton, who was dismissed in April.
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
June 25, 2004 11:08 a.m.
NEW DELHI — India’s Gujarat State Petroleum Corp., or GSPC, is in talks with Shell India Ltd. to buy liquefied natural gas from Shell ‘s 5 million metric ton a year new LNG import terminal at Hazira in the western state of Gujarat.
A senior official with the oil and natural gas exploration and production company said late Friday that price talks were underway. “Hopefully, we will be able to finalize a deal soon,” he said.
The official declined to say how much LNG GSPC wants from Shell India and at what price.
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
June 25, 2004 11:33 a.m.
Posted 26 June 04
ROME — Italian oil and gas company Eni SpA (E) won’t bid for Royal Dutch/Shell Group’s (RD, SC) petrol stations in the Iberian peninsula, a person familiar with the situation said Friday.
The decision was made after the company was informed by press agencies that its Anglo-Dutch rival had clinched a separate deal to sell its Portuguese petrol stations to Spain’s Repsol YPF (REP), the person said.
“We’ve learned from press reports that part of Shell’s assets in the Iberian peninsula were sold. Therefore, we are not interested in a deal any more,” the person said.
Fri 25 June, 2004
By Joseph A. Giannone
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The army of lawyers swarming around Royal Dutch/Shell Group, which touched off a collapse in its stock price after it admitted inflating proved reserves, has been joined by a new, veteran member.
Securities lawyer William Lerach, famed for playing a lead role in many of the biggest shareholder class action suits of the past two decades, on Friday filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit against Shell and its top executives in a New Jersey state court.
James Rossiter,
25 June 2004
Reposted 26 June 04
EMBATTLED oil giant Shell has been dealt another blow with the filing of a new multi-billion dollar US class action against dozens of directors.
The action accuses the company of falsifying its reserves for almost 10 years and demands that ‘insiders’ who benefited must be brought to book.
Today’s filing is also the first lawsuit in the Shell saga to accuse auditors KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers of negligence and malpractice.
The firm has admitted four times since January that it overstated the amount of oil and gas on its books, That has resulted in it reducing its proven reserves by 4.5bn barrels, or 22% of the total.
This is not a Shell website. That fact should be abundantly plain from the overall content of this home page and our sister Shell-focussed websites, including shellnazihistory.com. Click on the Disclaimer link at top of this page for more information. You Can Be Sure Shell does not endorse or approve of this website. There are no subscription charges nor do we solicit or accept donations. It is an entirely free to use website drawing attention to the negative side of Shell while also publishing positive news about the company. The Shell logo image with the white text used on this website, as per the above example, is in the public domain because its copyright has expired and its author is anonymous. It can be found on WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. Our shellenergy.website publishes Shell Energy customer complaints posted on Trustpilot where there is an ample supply. Use this link for Shell’s own website.
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
MORE DETAILS:
MORE DETAILS: After a solicitor acting for Shell threatened to make the litigation "drawn out and difficult" with the intention of draining the resources of a financially weaker opponent, my late father (Alfred Donovan) and I decided to mount a wide-ranging campaign as a counter-measure. We jointly founded the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group, which nearly 15% of Shell UK retailers joined. We regularly conducted ethical surveys involving up to 1500 Shell petrol stations. All responses were opened and authenticated by an independent solicitor who supplied Affidavits confirming the results. In whole page announcements in trade magazines (examples above) we challenged Shell to commission and publish the resuits of independent research asking the same questions and offering respondents GUARANTEED anonymity. Shell never took up the invitation. Instead it asked the UK Advertising Standards Authority to investigate our Shell surveys. No problems were found. The head-cut image of Alfred Donovan appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. 
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our websites and/or our activities.
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
