Houston Chronicle: Royal Dutch-Shell fuels doubts
June 29, 2004,
THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS – For the first time since it became engulfed in an oil reserve scandal, the Royal Dutch-Shell Group of Companies on Monday tried to contain the fury of shareholders at its annual meeting, but the company may have made things worse after an executive raised doubts about when he was first informed of the reserve discrepancy.
Shareholders demanding to know how the company could have overbooked about 4.5 billion barrels of oil and gas reserves and also when company officials first knew about it appeared surprised when Aad Jacobs, supervisory board chairman of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., said he was told of “an issue with reserves” last November. Shell’s overstatement of its reserve estimates did not become public knowledge until early January.
Jacobs said he was having lunch last November with Walter van de Vijver, then head of exploration and production, when a problem with reserves was mentioned. Jacobs said he advised van de Vijver to “go talk to your colleagues and the chairman,” referring to Philip B. Watts, then chairman of Royal Dutch-Shell. Watts and van de Vijver resigned earlier this year.
During the shareholders’ meeting in the Netherlands on Monday, Jacobs said he first learned in early January that Shell was making the first of what were eventually four revisions of its proven reserves.
The Shell Transport & Trading Co., the other half of Royal Dutch-Shell, held a simultaneous shareholders meeting in London. A Shell Transport spokesman said that the phrase “an issue with reserves” could have referred to just about anything because oil and gas companies routinely struggle with reserves.
Shell’s reserve scandal is the subject of several regulatory investigations in both the United States and Europe.
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: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
