Alex Brummer column
By: Alex Brummer, Daily Mail – London: KRTBN
Published: Dec 22, 2006
Big oil has a long history of having assets appropriated by hostile governments. Yet no one has been quite prepared for the land grab by Gazprom of a 50pc stake in the Sakhalin-2 project.
This will come as a nasty blow to all overseas investors in President Putin’s Russia and emphasises the vulnerability of European energy supplies to the whims of the Kremlin.
The way in which the Russian authorities slowly tightened the noose on Shell can be seen as carefully orchestrated blackmail.
It will send shivers down the spine of BP investors who are heavily exposed to Russia through the TNKBP joint venture.
Gazprom is demanding that it become a partner in the project, or BP could face sanctions for failing to comply with licence conditions.
The GBP4bn cash which Gazprom is to pay Shell for its enlarged stake will hardly compensate the Anglo-Dutch oil giant. It has already sunk GBP6.5bn into the ill-fated Sakhalin-2 project.
Just as seriously, the shrinkage of its stake to 27.5pc will be a blow to Shell’s replacement reserves which have been under serious pressure for some time.
In fact it could encourage Shell to go on a buying spree among secondline energy groups, as a short cut to acquiring new reserves.
It is not only shareholders in big oil who need to be wary of Gazprom’s rippling muscles. As we saw in the Ukraine last winter, the Kremlin is only too willing to exercise its control over pipelines to obtain what it wants.
Already it has secured advantageous supply agreements with customers in France and Italy and has suggested that Centrica, owner of British Gas, might be in its sights.
We should welcome the fact that Centrica is securing new supplies from Norway and locking up longerterm agreements for liquefied natural gas from Indonesia. The idea of Gazprom breathing down the consumer’s neck, after the Shell experience and Russian intrigues in London, is too ghastly to contemplate.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
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:
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
