The Times: US watchdog under fire over oil reserves scandal
“House Committee on Financial Services convened a hearing on the Shell reserves scandal.”
By Carl Mortished, International Business Editor
July 22, 2004
AMERICA’S stock market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, has come under fire from US congressional leaders over its handling of the oil reserves reporting scandal.
John Dingell, a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, has attacked the SEC’s inaction over reserves writedowns at Shell and El Paso Energy. In a terse letter to William Donaldson, the SEC chairman, he expresses concern over the weak response by SEC staff in a memorandum written following the Congressman’s questions on oil reserves reporting. Mr Dingell writes: “I am underwhelmed, if not outright troubled by the staff resources and level of review that the memorandum indicates is given to these critical matters.”
The row was set to intensify yesterday as the House Committee on Financial Services convened a hearing on the Shell reserves scandal. The row may soon spill into the laps of accountants as the SEC is considering an increase in the role of auditors in reporting oil and gas reserves. Referring to the Shell scandal, the SEC states: “Internal controls over the preparation of reserve estimates may have been inadequate . . . we will review these concerns with the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board and evaluate with them whether auditors should be required to perform additional work.”
Accountants responded with alarm at the prospect of being burdened with oil reserves reporting. “We don’t have the resources or skills to do it,” said Hywell Ball, a partner in Ernst & Young. “To do a reserves audit you would need geophysicists, geologists, petrophysicists, reservoir and petroleum engineers and economists.”
The SEC has come under widespread criticism in the oil industry for its failure to update reserves reporting rules.
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.
