Shell: Joint Venture Won’t Affect Jobs
© 2006 The Associated Press
CARACAS, Venezuela — Royal Dutch Shell PLC said Tuesday that recent state-imposed contract changes that brought a Venezuelan oil field it operates under government control will likely impact its share of earnings but is not expected to lead to job cuts.
The new contract terms gave PDVSA a 60 percent stake in the Urdaneta West oil field and left Shell with the remaining 40 percent.
Sean Rooney, the head of Shell’s Venezuela operations, said the changes would not affect the overall revenues generated by the field but would impact the company’s share of profits.
“What’s the earnings going to be back to Shell? That’s going to change, that’s going to be different,” Rooney said. He did not elaborate.
“At the moment, we haven’t made any staff reduction. We expect the vast majority of our staff will go into the new (joint-venture) company,” he added.
The contract changes are part of a larger push by President Hugo Chavez’s administration to take greater control of the oil industry and increase the government’s share of profits amid high oil prices.
Aside from giving PDVSA a controlling stake in the fields, the new joint-venture model also sharply raised royalties and taxes on the companies and reduced their potential drilling acreage by almost two-thirds.
Rooney said Shell would return about 50 percent of drilling acreage at Urdaneta West to PDVSA but added that it would not affect the field’s output.
“It was an area that was not operational and we decided not to develop, so it’s appropriate that we give it back,” he said.
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.
