The Herald
GRAEME SMITH
June 14 2006
THE deaths of two workers on a North Sea oil platform could have been avoided, according to claims to be made in a TV documentary tonight.
An engineering professor said that if the company had implemented the recommendations of a senior manager’s safety review, Keith Moncrieff and Sean McCue might not have lost their lives.
Mr Moncrieff, 45, of Invergowrie, near Dundee, and Mr McCue, 22, of Kennoway in Fife, died after being overcome by a massive release of hydrocarbon gas in September 2003.
Shell was later fined £900,000 after admitting health and safety breaches, including failing to carry out a risk assessment on the platform. There have been two gas escapes on the platform in the past fortnight, although no casualties.
In an interview to be shown on the BBC’s Frontline Scotland programme this evening, former Shell manager Bill Campbell claimed the company failed to implement vital recommendations he made in a 1999 safety review.
Mr Campbell says he carried out a review of seven Shell-operated installations which exposed violations of operating procedures, a backlog of temporary repairs and vital maintenance being ignored, and lies told to conceal it.
Mr Campbell, from Fife, who spent 25 years in the industry, says he was left with a sense of impending doom following his scrutiny of safety regimes on the platforms.
“If you operate offshore installations at dangerously high levels of risk, the implication of that is that a major accident event will happen,” he said. “It is a surprise to me that it took as long as until 2003 before that happened.”
Mr Campbell’s review re-ported that on Brent Bravo some emergency shutdown valves were not closing but, it is claimed, the historic data showed no faults were found. Mr Campbell alleges the data was purposefully falsified to avoid interruption to production while repairs were carried out.
Colin MacFarlane, professor of subsea engineering at Strathclyde University, suggests that if Shell had implemented the recommendations in the safety review, the Brent Bravo fatalities could have been avoided. He said: “If Shell in 1999 had listened to what he said and taken action then, then the two guys would not have died.”
Following the Brent Bravo tragedy, Shell conducted another safety review of all its North Sea platforms. Mr Campbell, who has seen this report, says it paints a more worrying picture of safety levels at Shell installations. He says: “The situation on Brent Bravo had, if anything, worsened, and that situation was now common on 15 offshore installations operated by Shell.”
Mr Campbell claims to have uncovered inaccurate test results, operating equipment in a dangerous condition and neglected maintenance.
A Shell spokeswoman said the company strongly refuted any suggestion it would compromise safety offshore. “Safety is, and will remain, our first priority at all times.
She said the allegations were the opinion of one individual and were examined in an independent investigation in 2005, which found “no evidence that these claims were true”.
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.
