Bill Condie,
21 May 2007
Oil and gas major BP could be stripped of its rights to two trillion cubic metres of gas in eastern Siberia – 25 years’ worth of Russian exports – following an audit of the vast field this week.
The country’s most senior environmental regulator begins an audit of TNK-BP, a joint venture between the British oil giant and private Russian investors on Wednesday. The investigation is to focus on whether TNK-BP is meeting contractual output targets at its Kovykta field.
‘If they have not fulfilled their targets it will be the end of the licence,’ Oleg Mitvol, deputy head of the inspectorate, told Bloomberg news agency.
The move, a further headache for new chief executive Tony Hayward, is being seen as another land grab by Russian President Vladimir Putin as he tightens state control over the country’s energy resources.
Mitvol last year led the charge against Royal Dutch Shell, alleging environmental irregularities by Shell in the construction of Russia’s first liquefied natural gas plant at Sakhalin in eastern Siberia. Shell was virtually forced to sell a majority stake to Russian monopoly Gazprom.
Rusia Petroleum, 62%-owned by TNK-BP, produced 1.5bn cubic metres from Kovykta last year, compared with a target of nine billion cubic metres. There are already talks between BP and Gazprom over Kovykta’s future, with lawyers for BP’s Rusia Petroleum saying Moscow is to blame for missed targets-because it has failed to complete a planned export pipeline to China.
On Wednesday, the day of the audit, a judge in Irkutsk will review a Rusia Petroleum request for a ‘clarification of the company’s licence obligations’.
‘It will be up to the courts to decide whether Rusia is in breach or not,’ a spokeswoman for Rusia said. But Mitvol argues that the court had no jurisdiction over the issue.
Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev earlier this year made clear that if TNK-BP loses the Kovykta licence, no foreign-controlled companies would be allowed to bid for it.
The threat to BP’s Siberian licence comes amid claims by a former BP worker that he threw champagne fuelled sex parties to help secure lucrative international oil contracts.
Les Abrahams, who was involved with BP’s successful bid for a multimillion-pound deal in Azerbaijan, says that he witnessed an ‘anything goes’ drive for business that cost BP £45m in four months of negotiations with Azerbaijan’s state oil company – claims BP said were ‘utter rubbish’.
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.
