28 July 2006
Doing well: The oil giant’s rising fortunes have been prompted by the soaring price of crude
By Brian O’Connor
ROYAL Dutch Shell put a £270m price on settling a US legal action over the reserves scandal two years ago.
This is just an accounting provision, but signals its readiness to sort out the last remaining big lawsuit.
The provision is just a week’s profits for the oil giant, which made a record £3.4bn in the quarter to June, up 36pc, though its oil and gas production tumbled 13pc.
Chief executive Jeroen van der Veer has revised down forecast output for 2006 from between 3.5m and 3.6m barrels a day to 3.4m. Disruption in Nigeria cost 177,000 barrels.
With crude at $75, big oil is a giant money machine. The world leader, Exxon Mobil, made £5.6bn in the quarter, the second biggest US quarterly profit ever recorded.
Shell’s operating cash flow was £6.4bn. Debt is minimal. Dividends rose 9pc to 17.08p.
Van der Veer pressed the starting button on the huge Pearl project in Qatar, which turns gas into naphtha and kerosene. A big petrochemical plant in Singapore is also going ahead. Shell’s 2006 capital spending is £lO.1bn, with £11.3bn planned for 2007 – much higher than BP’s £8.3bn-£8.5bn.
Some fear Shell is reverting to type – splurging money on costly projects instead of improving its patchy record of finding oil. Van der Veer would only say exploration performance is ‘so far so good’.
The reserves scandal erupted because Shell manipulated figures to cover up poor performance. Van der Veer says it can boost output by bringing more of its vast resource base on stream, but some of this is expensive oil from shale and tar sands.
The Shell chief refused to comment on reports that BP had mooted a merger with Shell last year, saying: ‘Ask EP’.
After BP’s row over retirement age, he must have relished pointing out that Shell was more flexible on this issue.
Shell’s UK quoted B shares rose 41 to 1981p. Peter Hitchens at broker Teather & Greenwood expects £12bn full-year profits and says: ‘Good figures. The concern is that some future production growth comes from high-cost projects’.
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.
