The Press and Journal
Shell to re-tender main offshore maintenance, modification and projects deal in near future
By Ian Forsyth
Thursday 18 February 2010
Shell UK is looking to cut the cost of a major contract, currently carried out by around 1,000 workers.
The company said yesterday it would re-tender its main offshore maintenance, modification and projects deal in the near future.
The contract, which started in 2002, covers all Shell-operated assets in the central North Sea plus the Brent field in the northern North Sea. The work is carried out at the moment by Sigma 3, whose members are Wood Group, AMEC and PSN.
The contract is due to finish at the end of next year, but a spokeswoman for Shell said the new deal would most probably start before then. John Gallagher, Shells senior upstream international vice-president for the UK, said: We will continue to make significant investment in the UK sector of the North Sea over the next couple of years and we need to do this as effectively as possible.
We are looking for further efficiencies in our business that will be crucial to improving our competitive position and sustaining our business here in the UK.
Earlier this month, Shell said it would cut a further 1,000 jobs worldwide this year after reporting a 69% slide in annual profits to £6.1billion. It also reported a 75% drop in fourth-quarter earnings, to £738million, after pressure on margins in refining offset a year-on-year increase in oil prices.
Shell has cut 5,000 jobs globally in the past year and said it would shed 1,000 in 2010, mainly in downstream and corporate functions, including refining and forecourt sales, to slash costs and make it more competitive against rivals such as BP.
Its business in Aberdeen, where it employs about 1,800, is the hub of its UK upstream exploration and production operations. In 2008, Shell announced a local initiative in the city to right-size the organisation following the divestment of some late-life assets and to become more competitive.
About 250 people working in or out of the city received redundancy notices just before last Christmas.
BP has moved ahead of Shell after chief executive Tony Hayward stripped costs out of the group and boosted its refining performance.
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.
