Daily Mail & This is Money
8 September 2009, 10:04am
Royal Dutch Shell managers are beginning the grim task of telling staff where job cuts will fall as new chief executive Peter Voser wields the axe.
A report on company protest site royaldutchshellplc.com said about 15% of jobs in the exploration and production unit will be lost and employees will be told early this week.
However, there is doubt over that figure as reductions have not been finalised yet. Shell declined to comment.
Voser has said thousands of positions will go as he slims down the oil leviathan in a plan called Transition 2009.
In an email to staff last month he said: ‘We continue to operate in a challenging environment. That reinforces the urgency for us to step up our cost reduction efforts.’
The ‘A’ shares rose 18p to 1,703p yesterday.
In July, Voser struck a grim tone as he unveiled a 70% crash in second-quarter profits to £1.4bn. He also announced plans to hack capital spending by 10% and push through ‘substantial’ cuts to the firm’s 102,000-strong workforce.
It follows a 17,000 reduction in headcount between 2003 and 2008 and a cull of a fifth of the firm’s top managers already this year.
‘We simply don’t know when the global economy will recover, and we have to plan on the basis that this downturn could last quite some time,’ said Voser at the time.
World oil demand will fall by over 2m barrels-a-day this year, the sharpest fall since 1980, according to Shell.
This time last year, firms were riding high on the back of oil prices that peaked at $147 a barrel. But the global recession pushed prices almost down to $30 a barrel early in 2009.
Since then, prices have recovered above $70.
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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.
