THE BUSINESS: Shell scandal prompts industry call for new test of reserve auditors
“Reports into the Shell scandal by the SEC and the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) “… also drew attention to the way the job of verification rested with a single, semi-retired Shell geologist, who was not given enough resources for the task. As a result, the committee is also setting up an ethics committee to devise professional standards similar to those used in the legal and accounting professions.”
BLOOMBERG
By Richard Orange
3rd/4th October 2004
THE oil industry is planning a professional qualification for auditing companies’ oil and gas reserves, in a move designed to steer the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) away from plans to force companies to have their claims verified by independent consultants. At present there is no professional standard or methodology for reserves auditors.
Confidence in the oil industry’s claims of what it has in store beneath the ground was severely dented after Royal Dutch/Shell slashed its claimed oil and gas reserve estimates by 23%, primarily because the numbers failed to meet SEC guidelines. Shell’s revision was followed by similar cuts from US independents Forest Oil and El Paso, but did not trigger the industry-wide epidemic feared at the time.
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.
