Jun 20, 2006
HOUSTON (MarketWatch) — A House subcommittee has subpoenaed Royal Dutch Shell Plc. (RDSA) after the company balked at participating in a hearing this week on the government’s troubled royalty program for the Gulf of Mexico.
The hearing, scheduled for Wednesday morning, features executives from Chevron Corp. (CVX), ConocoPhillips (COP) Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) and Kerr-McGee Corp. (KMG). But Shell’s appearance was an open question after the company indicated it was unwilling to appear, a House committee aide said Tuesday. The subpoena went to John Hofmeister, the head of Shell’s U.S. division, the aide said. “We assume they’re going to show up tomorrow,” said the aide. “They’ve been issued a subpoena to show up.”
A Shell spokeswoman did not immediately return a phone call Tuesday morning.
The hearing, which also features officials from the Department of Interior, focuses on a loophole in a royalty relief program that is expected to allow the oil companies to keep upwards of $10 billion in royalties instead of having to pay them to the Interior Department for production in the Gulf of Mexico.
The 1995 royalty relief program was designed to encourage costly developments in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico. But the Interior Department neglected to include price thresholds for leases from two years, 1998 and 1999. That omission allows energy producers to keep the royalties, even in the current high-price climate.
The story behind the omission “is a trail of irresponsibility and gross mismanagement,” the House committee said in a hearing announcement. “The purpose of this hearing is to ascertain how these egregious errors occurred and who is responsible for them.”
-By John M. Biers, Dow Jones Newswires; 713-547-9214;
-Contact: 201-938-5400
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.
