Expatica News: Shell: 85pc of written off reserves exist
30 June 2004
AMSTERDAM — Shell chairman Jeroen van der Veer expects that 85 percent of the oil reserves the Anglo-Dutch energy company wrote off earlier this year will later be restored to the multinational’s accounts.
The Dutchman said at a shareholders meeting in Scheveningen this week that the oil reserves exist, but are not listed in order to comply with US accountancy regulations.
Despite this, 40 percent of the shareholders refused to back the management board’s policy. Large investors such as the pension fund ABP and US and British institutes came out and opposed Shell policy direction.
Shell has reduced its overstated oil and gas reserves four times since the start of 2004, accounting for a 23 percent loss of proven reserves. This sparked a fall in stock prices and business bank CSFB urged client investors to dump Shell shares in exchange for BP, newspaper Het Parool reported
The scandal cost the jobs of chairman Sir Philip Watts and two other top executives, Exploration and Production division director Walter van der Vijver and chief financial officer Judy Boynton.
The energy company held on Monday its first public shareholders meeting since the reserves scandal surfaced in January. The meeting centred on a routine resolution — which some investors claimed was an attempt to let management off the hook — only won on a 60-40 vote.
The resolution stated that managing directors “be discharged of responsibility in respect of their management for the year 2003”. But some investors felt it could effectively clear managers of responsibility for this year’s multiple downgrades, BBC reported.
Van der Veer said at the meeting — which took place simultaneously in The Hague and London, reflecting the Anglo-Dutch company’s dual board structure — that he was not in favour of wholesale sackings of top executives and ruled out a “witch hunt”.
The Shell chief thinks he can again make the company reliable and restore its integrity by forcing through an internal cultural change. He said arrogance should be exchanged for modesty and personal interest in the company.
Van der Veer also said he planned to meet investor demands to end the dual board system, in which Shell has headquarters in The Hague and London.
[Copyright Expatica News 2004]
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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: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
