Total to face trial over fuel depot explosion
By Michael Peel and Megan Murphy
Published: December 2 2008 02:00 | Last updated: December 2 2008 02:00
Total, the French oil multinational, will be prosecuted along with four other companies over a giant Hertfordshire fuel depot blast that has already landed it with a compensation bill of up to £700m.
The five businesses – whose owners include Chevron of the US, BP and Royal Dutch Shell – faced health and safety charges carrying the threat of unlimited fines, the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive said yesterday.
Lawyers say the companies could pay penalties totalling many millions if they are convicted over the explosion at the Buncefield depot, which triggered Europe’s biggest peace-time blaze.
The businesses – Total UK, Hertfordshire Oil Storage, British Pipeline Agency, TAV Engineering and Motherwell Control Systems 2003 – will appear in court in January.
Hertfordshire Oil, which is 60 per cent owned by Total and 40 per cent by Chevron, ran the Buncefield terminal, while the three other companies supplied equipment or services to the facility. British Pipeline Agency is a joint venture between BP and Shell.
Total and Chevron are embroiled in a separate civil lawsuit over who is to blame for the December 2005 explosion, which injured 43 people and caused damage worth hundreds of millions of pounds. Total claims the Hertfordshire Oil joint venture is responsible for compensating businesses and residents, meaning Chevron should pay as much as 40 per cent of the final bill.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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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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