FORBES/AFX News Limited: Shell declines comment on reported asset swap with BG
Monday 22 August 2005
LONDON (AFX) – The Royal Dutch Shell PLC has declined to comment on a weekend report claiming it is considering a North Sea asset swap arrangement with BG Group PLC.
‘We have no comment on that,’ said a Shell spokeswoman.
According to an unsourced article carried by the Business newspaper, Shell and BG are in advanced discussions to exchange certain gas producing fields in the North Sea.
BG is looking at handing Shell some of its 22 pct stake in the giant Buzzard field, the largest UK gas find in a decade, in exchange for a share of Shell’s interest in the Ormen Lange field.
The news came weeks after Shell’s asset swap deal with Russian gas monopoly Gazprom.
Under a preliminary arrangement, Gazprom will take a 25 pct stake in Shell’s Sakhalin II project in Russia. Shell, in return, will get a 50 pct interest in Gazprom’s Zapolyarnoye field in Siberia.
Shell has earlier admitted that Sakhalin II has been 10 bln usd overbudget, doubling the cost of the project to 20 bln usd and delaying its start up by nearly a year to the summer of 2008.
Separately, Shell also said the sale of its liquefied petroleum gas business is progressing as planned.
‘The process is underway,’ said the company spokeswoman, declining to name interested buyers.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that separate teams made up of CVC Capital Partners and Spain’s Repsol, US-based Blackstone and UK’s Permira, and Bain Capital and PAI Capital were bidding for the business, which is estimated to be worth around 3 bln usd.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the US leveraged buyout fund, and Goldman Sachs Private Equity have teamed up to launch a joint bid, while Carlyle Group, the US private equity house, is bidding on its own, the newspaper said, without citing sources.
mbe/cml
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: 
MORE DETAILS:
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
