By Fred Pals
Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company by market value, urged U.S. regulators to ease rules on how petroleum reserves are counted to allow the inclusion of Canada’s oil sands.
“The current exclusion of reserves not reported for crude oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids that may be recovered from tar sands, oil shale, and other in-place hydrocarbons should be removed,” The Hague-based Shell said in a letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission dated Feb. 19.
The SEC is considering rule changes that would permit companies to count reserves that their engineers haven’t yet figured out how to tap, as well as oil from Canada’s tar sands, now classified as mining operations. Easing reporting rules may spur acquisitions by giving suitors more details about a target company’s growth potential.
Shell four years ago said 41 percent of the reserves on its books had been improperly recorded. The issue triggered regulatory probes in the U.S. and U.K., $151.5 million in fines, shareholder lawsuits and the ouster of three senior executives. Shell wants to revive production growth through projects such as Canadian oil-sands and a gas-to-liquids venture in Qatar.
“The inclusion of all in-place hydrocarbons or mineral resources that can produce hydrocarbons would improve completeness in company disclosures,” Shell said in the letter. “Technological advances have been made in recent years to develop and produce unconventional resources to deliver to the market traditional petroleum products, and this trend is likely to continue in the future,” Shell said.
The company will publish last year’s reserve replacement ratio, which states the percentage of production replaced by new discoveries, in its annual report. The company is also due to give a strategy update on March 17.
To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Pals in Amsterdam at [email protected]
Last Updated: February 22, 2008 07:55 EST
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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.
