Houston Chronicle: Shell unveils reserves rules for SEC compliance
9 June 2005
Dow Jones / AP
LONDON — Today Royal Dutch/Shell Group published new internal rules on booking oil reserves that were revised to meet U.S. regulatory guidelines and help put behind it a scandal that unfolded last year.
The Anglo-Dutch oil major, which cut its estimate of reserves by over a third since last January, aims to address criticism of former accounting practices, such as booking reserves on projects in which investment plans hadn’t been approved.
Under its new rules, Shell said that for a major field of 50 million barrels of oil equivalent or more, the final investment approval must be received before a project is booked in its reserves.
For smaller fields, Shell must also have evidence that similar projects have come to fruition.
It said all proved reserves must be monitored at every year-end, to make sure prior bookings are still valid. Documentation of changes at the reservoir level must be carried out each year.
The disclosure follows a $150 million settlement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and Britain’s Financial Services Authority in July. Shell had made a string of restatements after it allegedly boosted its numbers artificially.
The payments didn’t imply a recognition of guilt but the company is still the target of related class-action lawsuits in the United States.
Unlike other oil majors who recently sponsored a study criticizing the SEC’s reserves-accounting standards as obsolete, Shell appears to consider the guidelines as pertinent.
“The SEC requirement of ‘reasonable certainty’ represents the rationally high standard of evidence/confidence consistent with the meaning of the word ‘Proved'”, it said in the report.
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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.
