Investors ‘owed 14 times as much’
By KRIS HALL – The Dominion Post | Monday, 19 May 2008
Former Southern Petroleum investors, who are seeking tens of millions of dollars from oil giant Shell in New Zealand’s longest running insider trading case, have been told the price paid for their shares could have been up to 14 times greater.
The hearing resumes today in the High Court at Auckland, with the plaintiffs eager to learn if former Southern Petroleum and Fletcher Challenge Energy director James Patek was at a deep gas study presentation in New Plymouth in November 1995.
It is alleged that revelations by a team of experts at the presentation, of undeveloped proven reserves in the Taranaki basin’s Mangahewa gasfield, prompted Mr Patek to push through the compulsory purchase by Fletcher Challenge of Southern minorities in December 1995.
The takeover was completed by January 1996. Fletcher Energy was bought by Shell in 2001.
Giving evidence last week, consultant petroleum geologist Tom Haskell said that had he been aware of the extent and results of the Mangahewa structure study, he would have recommended [to Southern investor John Oakley] that he negotiate with Southern Petroleum on the basis of $11.22 per share”. Instead, a share price of 63 cents was offered to the 700 investors.
Earlier, Mr Haskell told the court that sections of the Taranaki basin deep gas and oil structures were connected by the porous nature of the seabed sediment.
If that had been known at the time, it would have had huge consequences for companies vying for the oil and gas.
The Taranaki petroleum prospecting licence in which Southern had a stake came up with the news of the reserves during the 1995 study which concluded the Mangahewa structure was potentially bigger than New Zealand’s biggest offshore gasfield, Maui”.
The field has since been estimated to be capable of delivering more than seven trillion cubic feet of gas and oil.
The Maui field was about four trillion cubic feet.
Mr Patek and Shell dispute claims that Mr Patek was present at the gas study presentation in New Plymouth and maintain he was unaware of the discovery.
Evidence given by former Petrocorp exploration manager Steven O’Connor, however, placed Mr Patek in New Plymouth the following day, accompanied by people who had attended the presentation.
Mr Patek has not yet given his evidence to the hearing.
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.
