By Richard Orange
15/11/2006
Royal Dutch Shell is considering selling its French oil business. The Anglo-Dutch giant is reviewing these operations, which could lead to it disposing of one or all of its three refineries in France, potentially raising up to $4bn (€3.1bn, £2.1bn)
The Business understands the company has contacted potential bidders for its Reichstett and Petit Couronne plants in France to determine interest. It has hired an investment bank, believed to be JP Morgan or Citigroup, to aid it with the review.
Russia’s Lukoil and American private equity company Carlyle Group have been snapping up refineries this year and will be interested in any disposals. Carlyle recently bought ExxonMobil’s German Ingolstadt site and Lukoil agreed to pay $1bn for a refinery in Rotterdam, only for the seller, Kuwait Petroleum, to pull the sale.
Other major oil companies, including BP, Total, ExxonMobil and Shell, are considering the future of their European refineries. But first they want to judge whether the appetite from private equity and trade buyers will match price expectations. BP is selling its only remaining refinery in Britain at Coryton in Essex; Chevron is selling its stake in the BP-operated Nerefco refinery; while Exxon has sold one refinery and is looking at selling a package of petrol stations in Eastern Europe.
The reason for the sales is that although refining has been profitable recently, it is a highly cyclical, low-return business. Oil companies are questioning the logic of combining upstream and downstream operations when they could get high prices for them.
On Tuesday, Israel’s Delek Petroleum said it was in exclusive talks with Chevron to buy 750 of its petrol stations in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg . The move may also open the way for a renewed attempt by Shell to sell its $2bn liquefied petroleum gas business – much of which is based around the company’s French refining network.
Shell spent a year trying to sell the business but had to pull the sale at the start of this year because it could not get the price it wanted.
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.
