By James Harding
BUSINESS EDITOR’S COMMENTARY
The Times October 26, 2006
UNFORTUNATELY for Lord Browne, his final two years at BP — assuming he stays that long — look set to be haunted by a classic species of story: you know that thing you never heard of, well, it’s not happening.
During the wrangle over Lord Browne’s retirement this summer, it emerged that the BP chief executive had explored the idea of one last mega-deal, namely a merger with Royal Dutch Shell. It was never clear whether it was a possibility that Lord Browne diligently explored or simply mulled for the duration of one cigar. Either way, his chairman, Peter Sutherland, was said to have quashed it.
BP is bedevilled by political problems, inside the company and out. But the Shell issue is a diversion. Lord Browne is being wilfully misconstrued in the light of the deal that never was.
Referring to the prospects for industry consolidation, Lord Browne, who runs a business worth £120 billion, said: “Looking at it from 50,000 feet, you’d have to say there’s an awful lot of players dealing with very small pieces of an industry.” This is true — and it has nothing to do with Shell.
BP and Shell look increasingly defined by their differences, rather than how they could complement each other. Shell, which reports its third-quarter results this morning, is investing ever more in the kind of unconventional energy assets such as oilsands in Canada and elephantine engineering projects such as Sakhalin-2 that BP has been shunning. Lord Browne is making a point of spurning the oilsands opportunity, demonstrating BP’s more cautious view of oil prices. (Independent analysts calculate that extracting crude from oilsands is viable only if the price of oil stays above about $35 a barrel. By steering clear of the oilsands, BP is styling itself as the prudent major.)
It is true that a falling oil price could create pressure for consolidation, but the opportunity for BP and Shell will come from snapping up over-ambitious explorers and producers who are banking on long-term prices over $45 to $50 a barrel.
And it is true that BP and Shell are “players dealing with very small pieces” of the industry: the real energy giants are, as they have been for years, the national oil companies (the NOCs), owned and controlled by national governments. Saudi Aramco, for example, has roughly ten times the reserves of Shell and BP combined.
Neither BP nor Shell — nor both combined — will do as much as the NOCs to determine the future of world energy.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8210-2422404,00.html
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.
