FORMER SHELL INTERNATIONAL GROUP AUDITOR, BILL CAMPBELL, TAKES ACTION AGAINST SHELL

SELF-EXPLANATORY CORRESPONDENCE

EMAIL FROM JOHN DONOVAN TO FORMER SHELL INTERNATIONAL GROUP AUDITOR, BILL CAMPBELL, COPIED TO SHELL (KEITH RUDDOCK, MICHIEL BRANDJES, JEROEN VAN DER VEER, JORMA OLLILA & MALCOLM BRINDED): 23 JULY 2007

Hello Bill

The draft email just fits within the 4000 characters (including spaces) limit for sending email via The Houses of Parliament website to MP’s.

We will have to supply your email address, your name, home address and phone number on the standard form for sending mail (not included within the character/spaces limit). This means you will receive directly any responses by email and letter. If past experience is any guide, you will receive many replies, including some from relevant government and shadow ministers.

This initial wave of emails will be sent to over 400 MP’s commencing tomorrow, Tuesday 24 July. We have put relevant evidence and article links right at the top of the www.shellnews.net webpage. Some items still need to be added. The link displaying the communication being sent to MP’s will become active tomorrow.

After the first wave of emails is completed, we will set up a database to send your letter to the minority of MP’s who do not have email addresses listed on The Houses of Parliament website. We will also send it to every member of The House of Lords (none of whom have any listed email addresses). Preparation of the second wave of whistleblower letters will take a little time and will probably be best sent immediately after the summer recess. Your warning about Shell will reach over 1,000 members of the Houses of Parliament. The database will be useful for future communications to MP’s and Members of the House of Lords about Shell.

On Wednesday we will also issue a related press release through a U.S. newswire service. It will be distributed to a professional audience, including writers and editors for major media outlets and published across media websites and Google News. A leaflet is also being prepared for circulation at the Shell Centre and at The Hague.

I note that you have made an application to Shell under the UK Data Protection Act. I am still wading through the treasure trove of Shell internal documents generated from our own application. It is ironic that the revelation of Shell’s strategy of trying to keep us apart actually spurred us into the current collaboration. We will shortly be publishing the next instalment on information released by Shell, this time documents relating to our involvement in the unravelling of the Sakhalin-2 project.

Reading through the Shell internal communications has confirmed that Shell’s only interest is in evasion and spin. I have yet to find any examples of words such as “truth” or “fact” being used or taken into account. These seem to be entirely foreign concepts consigned to the Statement of General Business Principles for consumption by the gullible. The corporate management culture at Shell is plainly ethically bankrupt. The people responsible for the correspondence supplied to us should have been booted out on mass after the same morally flawed machinations resulted in the reserves fraud. The unification process was a hopeless enterprise without ridding the company of the executives tainted by the scandal who still put ego, expediency, ambition and personal gain before ethical considerations. As we both know, Malcolm Brinded was prepared to ruthlessly expend the lives of employees to assist his climb to the top.

The other point that came across from the released documents is Shell’s willingness to use its influence in a sinister way, as was evident by the plot to “kill” the Sunday Times story about our website. The story was indeed killed at the last minute, just before the newspaper was printed. Such influence may also have been improperly brought to bear with the authorities and other parties in respect of the Brent Bravo scandal, as you suspected.

Returning to the subject at hand, this is the agreed warning communication from you.

Subject: This could be the most important whistleblower email you have ever received.

Some unfortunate Royal Dutch Shell workers have already lost their lives. More lives are at stake.

My name is Bill Campbell. I am a former Group Auditor of Shell International. I am writing to you on a matter of conscience in an effort to avert the inevitability of another major accident in the North Sea. The consequences could potentially impact on families in many constituencies, including your own.

As Royal Dutch Shell and the Health & Safety Executive would acknowledge, I am an expert on safety matters relating to offshore oil and gas platforms.

In 1999, I was appointed by Shell to lead a safety audit on the Brent Bravo platform. The audit revealed a platform management culture that basically gave a higher priority to production than the safety of Shell employees. To our astonishment we discovered that a “Touch F*** All” policy was in place. Worse still, safety records were routinely falsified and repairs bodged.

I personally brought the shocking situation to the attention of senior management including Malcolm Brinded, the then Managing Director of Shell Exploration & Production. I revealed that ESDV leak-off tests were purposely falsified, not once but many times and that Brent Bravo platform management had admitted responsibility for the dangerous practices being followed. In response to my team ringing alarm bells, management pledged to rectify the serious problems which had been uncovered.

When I later complained that the pledges were not being kept, I was removed from my oversight function.

Four years later, a massive gas leak occurred on the platform. Two workers lost their lives. I have no doubt at all that the inaction of the relevant Asset Manager, the General Manager, the Oil Director and Malcolm Brinded, contributed in some part to the unlawful killing of two persons on Brent Bravo in September 2003.

Shell subsequently pleaded guilty to breaches of the HSE regulations and a record-breaking £900,000 fine was imposed. I thought this would bring about a real change in policy to put the emphasis on safety.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Although I supplied the evidence related to 1999, and the fact that there had been a collapse in controls of integrity from 1999 to 2003 on all 16 of Shell’s North Sea offshore installations covered in a post fatality integrity review to the HSE for review by the Procurator Fiscal, none of this evidence was presented before the Sheriff at the subsequent Inquiry. The situation is explained in a letter to the Procurator Fiscal and the Sheriff (on 24th February 2007).

Shell management has engaged in spin to try to pretend that it is getting to grips with its safety problem. However, its atrocious safety record – the worst in the North Sea in terms of accidental deaths and absolute number of enforcement actions – tells a different story. This fact has resulted in a number of newspaper articles.

I have had meetings with senior Shell people including its CEO Mr. Jeroen van der Veer. I regret to say that I have found him to be economical with the truth. He prefers to support cover-up and deceit rather than confronting the underlying problems. Brinded is now Executive Director of Shell Exploration & Production. He believes in burying evidence.

My family and friends would probably prefer me to give up on this matter and enjoy my retirement after so many years working for Shell.

However, by writing to every MP in the UK, no one can ever say that I did not do my best to avert an inevitable further major accident event in the North Sea. When it happens (I pray that I am wrong) I will make this warning communication available to the media together with the vast amount of evidence in my possession.

At least my conscience is clear. I have done everything possible to ring the alarm bells about Shell management and its unscrupulous attitude to the safety of its employees.

Yours sincerely
Bill Campbell

Link to view evidence: www.shellnews.net

Draft ends.

Please note that I have copied this email to Keith Ruddock etc so that Shell has an opportunity to take action if it disputes what is being stated by you in the email we are sending on your behalf. We share your view that this is an extremely important cause (the lives of Shell employees) and are pleased to have the opportunity to assist.

Instead of taking appropriate action to improve its horrendously bad safety record Shell has apparently preferred to direct its energy to trying to separate us, as indicated in their  strategy/containment plan. It is notable that the author stated that such separation would be in Shell’s “best interest”. Whoever authored the battle plan obviously never dreamt that the content would become public knowledge or that their gung-ho threats would be exposed as empty rhetoric (unless of course Shell management works up the courage at this late stage to institute injunctive proceedings).

If Shell has any comments for unedited publication with this article/email (which will be posted online tomorrow) no doubt they will let me know.

Kind regards

John Donovan of the website: www.royaldutchshellplc.com

EMAIL RECEIVED BY JOHN DONOVAN FROM SHELL EXPORATION & PRODUCTION GENERAL COUNSEL, KEITH RUDDOCK: 24 July 2007: 08.00

(ON A DIFFERENT SUBJECT)

From: Keith Ruddock
Sent: 24 July 2007 08:00
To: [email protected]
Cc: Michiel Brandjes

Subject: RE: Malcolm Brinded

Dear Mr Donovan,

I write to remind you that, as explained previously on a number of occasions, the lack of a rebuttal from, or comment by, Shell does not in any way constitute an acceptance on Shell’s part of the accuracy of any of the points made by you (and including, in this instance, by the individual who has been in communication with you), whether now or in the future, and whether on this or on any other matter, and we continue to reserve our position accordingly in respect of those matters.

Yours sincerely

Keith Ruddock

General Counsel Exploration and Production
Shell International B.V.
The Hague, The Netherlands – Trade Register no. 27155369
Address: c/o Kessler Park 1, 2288 GS Rijswijk, The Netherlands

EMAIL FROM JOHN DONOVAN TO KEITH RUDDOCK: 24 JULY 2007: 10.19

Dear Mr Ruddock

Does the same formula apply in regard to the information forwarded to you by Mr Brandjes, in relation to our collaboration with Bill Campbell?

We are commencing the first wave of emails to MP’s today unless you request more time to consider Shell’s response. In this regard, we are hopefully close to persuading Mr Campbell to let us also publish a revealing taped conversation with a senior Shell official. The content will shake Shell and expose the machinations of Shell senior management in regard to the safety of Shell employees. We have said for a long time that Shell is rotten at the core. This will provide more proof.

As we understand the situation, the intransigence (ego) of Mr Brinded has unfortunately thwarted your attempts to satisfy the deep concerns expressed by Mr Campbell. We know for example that Mr Brinded has already apologised (no doubt through gritted teeth) to some Shell EP employees as part of an agreed resolution package with Mr Campbell which later fell apart.

Basically, the S*** is about to hit the fan on this matter unless you can, within a matter of hours, satisfy the conscience driven legitimate concerns of Mr Campbell, or take legal action to prevent information being sent to MP’s, published on our websites and circulated outside your HQ offices. Reserving your position will not do the trick. We have been receiving threats from Shell since 1994 from the Group Chairman down and have become totally immune to Shell intimidation. It is going to take more than mere threats to silence us.

This correspondence will be published along with any response (unless it is marked as being not for publication).

Yours sincerely
John Donovan

EMAIL RECEIVED BY JOHN DONOVAN FROM KEITH RUDDOCK: 24 July 2007: 11.38

Dear Mr Donovan

I confirm that the same formula also applies to this matter.

Yours sincerely

Keith Ruddock

General Counsel Exploration and Production
Shell International B.V.
The Hague, The Netherlands – Trade Register no. 27155369
Address: c/o Kessler Park 1, 2288 GS Rijswijk, The Netherlands