Crude-oil futures rose to more than $59 a barrel, pushed higher by problems at U.S. oil refineries and after the International Energy Agency boosted its forecast for Chinese and global oil demand.
Here is Tuesday’s roundup of oil and energy news:
* * * CONFAB IN HOUSTON: Exxon Mobil and Shell executives, speaking at a seminar at the annual Cambridge Energy Research Associates conference in Houston, said educating the public about their industry is a high priority, the Houston Business Journal reports. At the weeklong conference that began Monday, dozens of the industry’s heaviest hitters were expected to discuss topics such as the tricky balance of supply and demand and initiatives to develop new sources of energy.read more
Wednesday, February 14, 2007. Issue 3596. Page 6.
Reuters
Russia should persuade U.S.-based ExxonMobil and its partners working on Sakhalin to liquefy gas at Shell’s neighboring project instead of building a pipeline to China, the governor of Sakhalin said Tuesday.
Ivan Malakhov said he believed it would make more sense for Exxon’s Sakhalin-1 to sell gas to a liquefied natural gas plant on the island’s south, which is being built by Royal Dutch Shell as part of the Sakhalin-2 project.read more
WASHINGTON: The Securities and Exchange Commission has begun to take steps on two fronts to protect corporations, executives and accounting firms from investor lawsuits that accuse them of fraud.
Last Friday, the commission filed a little-noticed brief in the Supreme Court urging the adoption of a legal standard that would make it harder for shareholders to prevail in fraud lawsuits against publicly traded companies and their executives.
At the same time, the agency’s chief accountant told a conference that it was considering ways to protect accounting firms from large damage awards in cases brought by investors and companies.read more
Posted on Feb 13th, 2007 with stocks: RDS.A, REP, TOT, USO
Despite sitting on 11% of the world’s oil reserves, second only to Saudi Arabia, Iran’s current output is only 3.9 million barrels a day (of which 2.5m are exported), versus over 6m barrels in the ’70s. It recently reduced its 2010 production target from 5m b/d to 4.5m. Iran is facing a natural output decline of 8-10% per year, equal to 200-500,000 barrels a day, and lack of investment.
It has signed no firm oil or natural gas contracts with foreign investors since June 2005. Oil sales of $47 billion in 2006 generated half its government’s revenue, but lack of refining capacity means that Iran imports 40% of its gasoline. It spends $20b per year — 15% of its economic output — on gasoline subsidies to appease its population, resulting in a pump price of $0.35/gallon.read more
They huddle privately with Cabinet ministers, doing a poor-us whimper at the daunting challenge of being Canada’s greenhouse gas megaproducers amid the odd sniffle at the government’s hurtful income trust flip-flop.
And then Big Oil rolls out record profits and wonders why, amid the frantic greening of public consciousness, they’re wearing the black hat in Ottawa these days.
It’s subtle, except for the occasional swipe at capping the oil sands from the likes of Liberal MP Mark Holland, but the blue-eyed sheik’s reputation is taking a turn for the worse that goes beyond the usual angst of empty-tank motorists at a premium-priced gas pump.read more
In Shell Canada Ltd. directors’ circular, you can smell the desperation of Royal Dutch Shell PLC in its bid to win the 22% of the Canadian company’s shares it doesn’t already own.
The telltale sign: The reserves-challenged parent kept increasing its bid price — from $40 a share to $43.50, to $44.50, to $44.75 and ultimately to $45,while warning repeatedly it wouldn’t pay a penny more, according to an account of a special committee of Shell Canada’s board headed by Derek Burney.read more
(Bloomberg) — BP Plc, ConocoPhillips and other major oil companies will increasingly dominate energy trading because they have better access to information that affects commodities prices, said Vince Kaminski, former risk-management director at Enron Corp.
Hedge funds and investment banks, which filled the trading void created by Enron’s 2001 collapse, are at a disadvantage to integrated energy companies that have real-time information about such things as oil production and gas shipments, Kaminski said today in an interview in Houston.read more
Russia’s gas monopoly Gazprom has mandated two banks, including ABN AMRO, to arrange a $2 billion dual-tranche syndicated loan, which will be used for general corporate purposes including acquisitions, a banking source said today.
The transaction includes a three-year and a five-year tranche. Syndication is expected to launch within the next week.
The new deal is the company’s first since it was upgraded to A3 by Moody’s in December, and as such is expected to set a new pricing benchmark.read more
East Timor’s parliament is due to ratify a deal with Australia next week that will pave the way for development of resources in the Greater Sunrise area, Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta said today.
Oil and gas producers are waiting for the deal to be ratified before committing to develop Greater Sunrise area, estimated to hold 8 trillion cubic feet of gas and up to 300 million barrels of condensate.
“I’m confident the parliament will ratify them,” Ramos-Horta said of the Treaty on Certain Maritime Arrangements in the Timor Sea and the International Unitisation Agreement, adding that they are due to be voted on by Dili on 19 February.read more
This material was prepared as part of the project The World Around Russia: 2017. The project is being implemented by a group of experts, headed by Sergei Karaganov, from the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, the Department of International Economics and International Politics of the Higher School of Economics, the Institute of Strategic Studies and Analysis (ISSA), the Institute of Europe and other organizations, with the support of Rio-Center. The main authors of this material are Vagif Guseinov, ISSA Director; Alexei Denisov, ISSA Deputy Director; and Alexander Goncharenko, expert with the Socio-Economic Information Bureau.
The global energy market is going through large-scale changes, some of which may reach their final phase by 2017. There are increasing signs that the traditional code of relations between energy producers and consumers, established in the last quarter of the 20th century, is becoming a thing of history. Mechanisms for regulating the global energy market no longer work. Competition between consumers, fueled by the emergence of new powerful players, like China and India, is obviously increasing.
Oil fields that are situated close to the developed countries, where oil price-hikes in the 1970s-1980s prompted oil production, are now near exhaustion. Today, large-scale investment is required in new oil-bearing areas in West Africa, Central Asia, the Caspian region and Russia in order to replace depleting oil fields. A new energy reality is taking shape in the world.
GENERAL SITUATION
The world’s key energy players include:
The United States – the world’s largest oil consumer (24.6%). It imports more than one half of the oil that it consumes. The United States is also the world’s leading importer of natural gas (16% of global imports);
The Middle East accounts for 61% of global oil and 40.1% of natural gas reserves, which makes it a crucial regional factor in the energy strategies of the world’s largest consumers;
The largest oil producers in the Middle East are Saudi Arabia (22% of global proven oil reserves, 13.5% of global oil output), Iran (14.9% of proven natural gas reserves, 11.5 of proven oil reserves), Iraq (9.6% of proven oil reserves), and Qatar (14.3% of proven natural gas reserves);
Russia possesses 26.6% of global natural gas reserves, 6.2% to 13% (according to different estimates) of global proven oil reserves, and about 20% of known coal reserves. The country is the world’s leading pipeline gas supplier and the world’s No. 1 oil exporter (together with Saudi Arabia). More than 90% of Russian energy exports today go to European countries;
China, the world’s fastest growing energy consumer, accounts for 31% of global oil consumption growth in 2004. In the past 40 years, oil consumption in China has grown more than 25 times over and is now at 8.55% of global consumption;
The EU, which accounts for only 3.5% of global proven gas and less than 2% of proven oil reserves (mostly in Norway and the UK). At the same time, oil and gas deposits in Europe are exploited far more intensively than in other parts of the world, which leads to the rapid depletion of reserves. Western Europe consumes 22% of the world’s oil supplies, while Germany is the world’s second largest gas importer (14%). The main problem for the EU is its growing dependence on energy imports: by 2030, oil imports to the EU will grow from 76% to 90%, gas imports from 40% to 70%, and coal imports from 50% to over 70%.
Today, the situation on the global energy market is characterized by the following factors:
oil is a global source of energy, and natural gas is primarily a regional source, while coal is a local source of energy;
while consumption of hydrocarbons is growing rapidly, there will not be alternative energy sources in the foreseeable future;
a rapidly rising need for energy resources in the emerging Asian economies amidst their ongoing economic development, rapid population growth, and the extremely high energy usage of national economies;
the widening gap between the volume of hydrocarbon consumption (growth) and production (decline) in developed countries;
limited production growth opportunities increase market destabilization risks;
the global economy is experiencing a shortage of oil and natural gas;
a shortage (temporary) of oil refining and transport facilities, together with a lack of additional oil production capacities;
large industrial consumers are showing a marked interest in alternative energy sources;
the growing importance of liquefied natural gas production and delivery projects;
interest in nuclear energy is reviving in some countries;
in the past few years mergers have been occurring exclusively within the limits of one country or a common geopolitical space as assets available for mergers and acquisitions are decreasing; and growing political risks in hydrocarbons-rich regions.[1]
The global energy situation is marked by a deepening of contradictions that will remain throughout the period under review.
[1] The growth of prices for hydrocarbons has shown consistency since 2000, when a new Arab-Israeli conflict broke out. Since then, periods of high oil prices have always echoed increases in tensions in this region: the U.S. intervention of Iraq, th worsening of the situation involving Iran’s nuclear program, th thirty day war in Lebanon, etc.
The conflict potential inherent in the distribution of oil resources in the world is the primary cause of geopolitical tensions. While the main consumers of oil are highly developed countries or emerging giants, the bulk of global hydrocarbon reserves is concentrated in a relatively small group of developing countries or transitional economies. This contradiction is a basic factor in the behavior of key market players. Such large consumers as the U.S., the EU and China are concentrating both economic and political resources on expanding on the same market, which leads to competition between them. The fact that the majority of resource-rich countries are politically unstable sets the stage for future upheavals on the world energy market, while opening some opportunities for Russian expansion.read more
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) — New Zealand’s government will require the nation’s oil companies to begin selling biofuels next year to reduce emissions and cut the country’s reliance on imported fuel.
The country’s fuel retailers, including the local units of Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and BP Plc, will have to sell biofuel blends starting April 2008, Energy Minister David Parker said in a statement today. The new fuels must account for 0.5 percent of sales that year, rising to 3.4 percent by 2012.read more
Western Oil Sands Inc. shares continued to rise on Friday amid rumors the company is about to be sold. The shares, which closed at $33.09 in Toronto, briefly touched $34.60 – within striking distance of a 52-week high of $38.09.
Also fuelling conjecture was an independent evaluation of Western’s senior partner in the Athabasca Oil Sands Project (AOSP) – Shell Canada Ltd. – as Royal Dutch continued to offer $45 a share for the portion of the company it doesn’t already own. Western, along with Shell and Chevron Canada, holds 20 per cent of AOSP, which is currently producing 150,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil per day (bpd).read more
SHELL Oil is to meet officials from An Bord Pleanala to discuss its plans to build a controversial gas pipeline in north Mayo.
The planning board confirmed it had received a request for talks from Shell ahead of the energy giant applying for planning permission for its gas pipeline in north Mayo.
The company asked for the pre-application consultation last week and a spokesman for An Bord Pleanala said it would be a few weeks before a meeting could take place.
The company will engage in “pre-application discussions”, allowed under the new Strategic Infrastructure Act, and will ask the board about the procedures it must follow before it lodges a planning application later this year.read more
EXTRACT: Shell and Repsol announced last month a preliminary deal for South Pars, the world’s largest natural gas field. But the project, estimated at $10 billion, has been delayed for more than a year. A final investment decision is not due until at least the end of 2007. Asked about the project at a news conference this month, Jeroen van der Veer, the chief executive of Shell, expressed some embarrassment, saying, “We have a dilemma.” Iran’s oil and gas reserves are too big to ignore, he said, but “we have all the short-term political concerns, as you can see.” read more
EXTRACT: Perhaps you define the words “market principles,” “transparent” and “blackmail” differently in Russia than we do in the West. In December, the Russian government offered transparently phony environmental reasons — “unauthorized tree felling” — to force Royal Dutch Shell to relinquish control of its $20 billion Sakhalin-2 oil-and-gas project.
THE ARTICLE
GLOBAL VIEW
By BRET STEPHENS
February 13, 2007; Page A24
The nearest equivalent the Russian language has for the word chutzpah is naglost. In you, Vladimir Putin, the Russian nation has found the embodiment of naglost.read more
Crude-oil futures tumbled more than $2 a barrel Monday as frigid Northeast temperatures started to moderate and as Saudi Arabia’s oil minister said OPEC might not cut output at a meeting next month.
Here is Monday’s roundup of oil and energy news:
* * *
WHITE OIL AND RED OIL IN CHINA: These are the names given to illegal or unregistered oil products smuggled into and out of China every day. Analysts and traders believe they amount to only a tiny part of China’s huge consumption of oil. Still, such contraband sales, combined with a lack of data on domestic oil stock levels, which the Chinese government keeps secret, mean analysts don’t have a clear picture of China’s overall oil use. That can have a clear impact on world oil prices.read more
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.websitepublishes Shell Energy customer complaints posted on Trustpilot where there is an ample supply. Use this link for Shell’s own website.
SHELL’S ROLE IN NIGERIAN OPL 245 BRIBERY SCANDAL
Whatever fig leaves they might be trying to use to hide the truth, Shell and Eni paid over $1bn to a company called Malabu for the OPL 245 licence. Even though the payment was channelled through the Nigerian government, it was clear that Shell knew that the ultimate beneficiary was Dan Etete, the former minister of petroleum. Etete is the owner of Malabu, to whom he awarded the licence when he was Nigerian Minister of Petroleum.
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.
MORE INFORMATION
Shell appeased and collaborated with the Nazis. The oil giant instructed its employees in the Netherlands to complete a form giving particulars about their descent, which for some, amounted to a self-declared death warrant. Shell used slave labor and was a close business partner in Germany of I.G. Farben, the notorious Nazi run chemical giant that also used slave labor and supplied the Zyklon-B gas used during the Holocaust to exterminate millions of people, including children. Shell continued the partnership with the Nazis in the years after the retirement of Sir Henri and even after his death. It was money generated on Shell forecourts around the world, profiteering from cartel oil prices, that funded the Nazi party and saved it from financial collapse. Evidence about Shell's Nazi connections can be found in extracts from "A History of Royal Dutch Shell" Volumes 1 and 2 authored by historians paid by Shell, who had unrestricted access to Shell archives. There are 67 pages in total, so takes some time to download.
Photograph (full size here) shows a Swastika flag flying at the head office of Royal Dutch Petroleum, 30 Carel van Bylandtlaan, The Hague, during the Nazi occupation of the in World War II (From Image Database Hague Municipal)
Sir Henri Deterding, the founder of the Royal Dutch Shell Group - known as "The Most Powerful Man in the World" - who became an ardent Nazi and financial supporter of Hitler and the Nazi party.
Reading between the lines in various legal documents, it seems that the allegations are that after the technology in question had been disclosed to a Shell company in the USA, the information was passed to Shell in the Netherlands in breach of confidentiality. And Royal Dutch Shell subsequently exploited the technology without payment or credit to the company holding the rights; Newton Research Partners. The inference seems to be that Twister B.V. was founded by Shell partly on trade secrets stolen from Bloom/Newton.
DISCLAIMER: This is not a Shell website nor is it officially endorsed by or affiliated with Royal Dutch Shell Plc. Originally co-founded by the late Alfred Donovan and his son John, it is now operated by John, Shell's "No.1 Enemy", aided by an expert team, with invaluable support from retired Shell senior executives and officials as guest contributors and leaked information from Shell insiders.
(JOHN DONOVAN, WEBSITE OWNER) For nearly a decade, we have operated globally under the Royal Dutch Shell Plc top level domain name, dealing on Shell’s reluctant behalf with job applications, business proposals, Shell pension enquiries, shareholder enquiries, complaints, invitations to speak at conferences, an approach from the Dutch Defence Ministry and even terrorist threats. All meant for Shell. Prospect magazine has aptly described this website as being:"An open wound for Shell": WIPO proceedings by Shell to seize the domain name failed. NO SUBSCRIPTION CHARGES: All of our watchdog activities monitoring Royal Dutch Shell, including operating this website, are carried out on a non-profit basis. Any advertising revenues generated are used to recover and/or defray operational costs. We are a news aggregator and original content website. All information is available free for educational and research purposes. SHELL TACIT ENDORSEMENT: WHAT A WELL INFORMED SHELL OFFICIAL SAID ABOUT US:
"John and Alfred Donovan well known in UK/Hague. They perceive Shell played them and so have made it their mission to embarrass,belittle and criticize Shell, which they do quite well. Their website, royaldutchshellplc.com is an excellent source of group news and comment and I recommend it far above what our own group internal comms puts out."
WARNING TO SHELL EMPLOYEES: Shell Global Affairs Security "CAS") is spying on Shell employees globally trying to trace who is visiting, posting, or leaking information to this website from Shell premises. Threats, including death threats, have allegedly been made against conscience driven Shell whistleblowers supplying us with information. The worlds biggest leak of employee details as part of a claimed corporate revolution by 116 Shell employees, suggest the espionage operation, threats and draconian litigation have not been entirely successful in cutting off the supply of information to this website. The insider leaks had already cost Shell billions on the Sakhalin Energy project and the loss of SEIC Deputy Chairman, David Greer. We publish our own carefully researched articles about Shell e.g. "How Royal Dutch Shell saved Hitler and the Nazi Party". MEDIA COVERAGE: Prospect Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Guardian, have all published major articles about us: "Rise of the Gripe Site";"Two men and a website mount vendetta against Shell' and "92-year-old's website leaves oil giant Shell-shocked”. SHELL PETROL STATION images displayed in the website header panel are licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Information on copyright issues here.
John Donovan can be contacted at [email protected]
SHELL’S $500,000 WEDDING GIFT TO CORRUPT BRUNEI ROYAL FAMILY
EXTRACT FROM ASIAN JOURNAL ARTICLE IN LIST OF LINKS BELOW: "Fireworks will light up the sky for three nights. The local unit of oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has donated 500,000 Brunei dollars (US$292,400; euro 243,700) for the display, and for cultural events to be hosted by popular performers from Malaysia."
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:
THIS IS WHAT IT SAID:
Subject: This could be the most important whistleblower email you have ever received.
Some unfortunate Royal Dutch Shell workers have already lost their lives. More lives are at stake.
My name is Bill Campbell. I am a former Group Auditor of Shell International. I am writing to you on a matter of conscience in an effort to avert the inevitability of another major accident in the North Sea. The consequences could potentially impact on families in many constituencies, including your own.
As Royal Dutch Shell and the Health & Safety Executive would acknowledge, I am an expert on safety matters relating to offshore oil and gas platforms. In 1999, I was appointed by Shell to lead a safety audit on the Brent Bravo platform. The audit revealed a platform management culture that basically gave a higher priority to production than the safety of Shell employees. To our astonishment we discovered that a "Touch F*** All" policy was in place. Worse still, safety records were routinely falsified and repairs bodged.
I personally brought the shocking situation to the attention of senior management including Malcolm Brinded, the then Managing Director of Shell Exploration & Production. I revealed that ESDV leak-off tests were purposely falsified, not once but many times and that Brent Bravo platform management had admitted responsibility for the dangerous practices being followed. In response to my team ringing alarm bells, management pledged to rectify the serious problems which had been uncovered.
When I later complained that the pledges were not being kept, I was removed from my oversight function.
Four years later, a massive gas leak occurred on the platform. Two workers lost their lives. I have no doubt at all that the inaction of the relevant Asset Manager, the General Manager, the Oil Director and Malcolm Brinded, contributed in some part to the unlawful killing of two persons on Brent Bravo in September 2003.
Shell subsequently pleaded guilty to breaches of the HSE regulations and a record-breaking £900,000 fine was imposed. I thought this would bring about a real change in policy to put the emphasis on safety.
Unfortunately I was wrong. Although I supplied the evidence related to 1999, and the fact that there had been a collapse in controls of integrity from 1999 to 2003 on all 16 of Shell's North Sea offshore installations covered in a post fatality integrity review to the HSE for review by the Procurator Fiscal, none of this evidence was presented before the Sheriff at the subsequent Inquiry. The situation is explained in a letter to the Procurator Fiscal and the Sheriff (on 24th February 2007).
Shell management has engaged in spin to try to pretend that it is getting to grips with its safety problem. However, its atrocious safety record - the worst in the North Sea in terms of accidental deaths and absolute number of enforcement actions – tells a different story. This fact has resulted in a number of newspaper articles.
I have had meetings with senior Shell people including its CEO Mr. Jeroen van der Veer. I regret to say that I have found him to be economical with the truth. He prefers to support cover-up and deceit rather than confronting the underlying problems. Brinded is now Executive Director of Shell Exploration & Production. He believes in burying evidence.
My family and friends would probably prefer me to give up on this matter and enjoy my retirement after so many years working for Shell.
However, by writing to every MP in the UK, no one can ever say that I did not do my best to avert an inevitable further major accident event in the North Sea. When it happens (I pray that I am wrong) I will make this warning communication available to the media together with the vast amount of evidence in my possession.
At least my conscience is clear. I have done everything possible to ring the alarm bells about Shell management and its unscrupulous attitude to the safety of its employees.
Yours sincerely
Bill Campbell
ENDS
(Malcolm Brinded and Jeroen van der Veer are no longer with Shell. The Oil Director referred to in the email is Chris Finlayson, who left Shell to become Chief Executive of British Gas before being fired - his photo immediately below)
SIR PHILIP WATTS, THE GROUP CHAIRMAN OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL GROUP, FORCED TO RESIGN IN 2004
Shell’s reputation was destroyed in 2004 after FIVE consecutive cuts to its hydrocarbon reserves covering 55% of its total reserves. US and UK financial regulators imposed $150 million in fines on Shell for securities fraud. Shell was also rocked by class action lawsuits. Sir Philip Watts
and Walter van de Vijver (whose headcut images appear courtesy of The Wall Street Journal) were among the Shell executives forced to resign. More details at the foot of this column.
MORE DETAILS: The Shell reserves scandal brought about
the end of the Royal Dutch Shell Group in its original form as an Anglo-Dutch partnership.
Shell Transport & Trading Co and Royal Dutch Petroleum were unified into a single Dutch owned company - Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Sir Philip turned to religion and is now a very wealthy priest after receiving a payoff/pension package from Shell reportedly worth $18.5 million. Walter van de Vijver in contrast was the victim of a sadistic sacking by his Shell senior management backstabbing colleagues.
Displayed below are some of the spectacular promotional campaigns my company Don Marketing created for Shell in the 1980s and 1990s. This was before the series of SIX high court actions we brought against Shell for stealing ideas (4) and for defamation (2) - all settled by Shell. This website is a permanent response by me to the malicious underhand tactics, including treachery, espionage and intimidation, used by Shell during and after the bouts of litigation. More information is printed at the foot of this column.
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.
SHELL CONTROVERSIES
selection of memorable warnings/articles/images associated with the controversial track record of Royal Dutch Shell.
WARNING: DO NOT DISCLOSE YOUR IDEAS TO SHELL GameChanger OR SHELL Ideas360 WITHOUT TAKING EVERY POSSIBLE PRECAUTION. Shell management has ample funds to pay for intellectual property but prefers to steal it from small businesses and in our experience, gives its full backing to dishonest managers willing to do its bidding. We have sued Shell repeatedly in the High Court for the theft of our Intellectual Property. It is doubtful if anyone can match our dire experience in dealing with this ruthless unscrupulous serial poacher of other parties ideas. Expect threats, legal machinations and sinister action from Shell and its spooks if you object to having your ideas stolen.
Some years ago extensive documentary evidence was brought to the attention of Malcolm Brinded above, when he was Chairman of Shell UK, proving beyond any doubt that Shell executives had conspired to rig a tender for a major contract. A number of innocent firms were deliberately lured into signing confidentiality agreements and disclosing Intellectual Property to Shell under false pretences, in a carefully contrived plot. The firm which was awarded the contract never took part in the tender. One objective of the Machiavellian plan was to stop/delay IP trade secrets owned by the participants in the tender from being disclosed to Shell's rivals. This was achieved by outright deception, without paying a cent to the firms involved, who wrongly believed they were participating in an honest tender. Instead of sacking the ring leader, AJL - who had a personal relationship with the firm which miraculously won the race in which it never ran - Shell senior directors, including Brinded, gave AJL their full backing. Some of the Shell executives involved, including for example, Tim Hannagan, still hold high positions inside Shell - in his case, Global Brand and Visual Identity Manager. If Shell does not accept that this is a true, provable account of what happened, then it should sue for libel. How on earth is such predatory conduct compatible with Shell's claimed business principles?
OVER 500 EXTERNAL PUBLICATIONS CITING OUR SHELL WEBSITES
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 websiteetc. 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.
John Donovan, the website owner
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
JOHN DONOVAN, THE OWNER OF THIS AND SEVERAL OTHER SHELL FOCUSSED WEBSITES
SHELL PRELUDE TO DISASTER
The links below are to a series of articles, many triggered by a well-placed whistleblower directly involved in the pioneering Royal Dutch Shell Prelude project. Includes articles by Mr Bill Campbell above, the retired distinguished HSE Group Auditor of Shell International and another retired Shell guru with a track record of spotting potential pitfalls in major Shell projects.
The campaign waged on this website by John Donovan to persuade Edward Heerema to rename the worlds biggest ship, The Pieter Schelte - which he named after his late father, Pieter Schelte Heerema, a former Officer in the German Waffen-SS - has been successful. On Friday 6 February 2015, Allseas announced that it was changing the ships name, and on 9 February announced the new name - Pioneering Spirit.
GLOBAL NEWS COVERAGE: FEBRUARY 2010
MORE INFORMATION: Contact details for over 176,000 employees and contractors of Royal Dutch Shell reached John Donovan and some environmental and human rights groups, ostensibly from disaffected Shell staff calling for a “peaceful corporate revolution” at the company. The database, from Shell’s internal directory, contained names and telephone numbers for all the company’s work force worldwide, including some home numbers. It was supplied with a 170 page covering note, explaining that it was being circulated by “116 concerned employees of Shell dispersed throughout the USA, the UK, and the Netherlands”, to highlight the harm done by the company’s operations in Nigeria. John Donovan brought the leak to the attention of Shell. Tests proved that the data was authentic and he destroyed the database after being informed by Mr. Richard Wiseman, the then Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc, that the confidential information if publicly disclosed, could put Shell employees and contractors in real danger.