Sunday 1 April 2007
You could almost feel sorry for Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive in waiting. Before even starting the job he was catapulted into a diplomatic dilemma this month that makes Tony Blair’s efforts to negotiate with Tehran look like a walk in the desert.
The intimidating venue was the Kremlin, where Hayward was introduced to president Putin by BP’s outgoing chief executive Lord Browne. Four years ago when Browne first took BP into Russia with an audacious bid for TNK, the balance of power looked rather more even: Russia desperately needed Western industry expertise to kick-start its moribund energy sector. Political cover from Downing Street promised BP a fair crack at the whip.
But since then relations have turned sour. The violent seizure of national oil assets at Yukos was followed by the dismissal of Shell from similar joint ventures in Sakhalin. Now BP desperately needs to stay on the right side of Putin if it is to avoid being squeezed out in similarly brutal fashion.
In the circumstances, Browne and Hayward could be forgiven for wanting to be helpful, but TNK-BP’s role in the auction of some of those Yukos assets appears to have overstepped in the mark. By pulling out almost as soon as the auction started, to make way for a rival bidder backed by the Russian state, the suspicion left is that this was an exercise in legitimising the auction process rather than a serious desire to push BP even deeper up to its neck in Russia.
Given how uncomfortable many institutional shareholders felt when Yukos assets were re-sold in London during last year’s flotation of Rosneft, it is no wonder some are uncomfortable to see BP playing its own role in the distasteful affair now.
The other thing that has changed since Lord Browne first went to Russia is BP’s reputation as a paragon of corporate virtue. In the wake of the damning US safety investigations, the last thing Hayward needs is to be portrayed as a Kremlin stooge.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/04/01/ccom01.xml
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.
