Comment: cracking Shell
After seven years of year-on-year declines in oil production, Shells return to volume growth represents a significant turnaround for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant.
For Peter Voser, eight months in to his role as chief executive, it also reflects a new phase in the drive to rebuild the companys fortunes.
Since his appointment last summer, he has announced plans to cut 6,000 jobs and reorganise the group to strip out costs and excessive bureaucracy.
Today he announced plans to intensify that drive by trimming a further 1,000 positions, mostly in middle management and the groups downstream operation.
It also announced some good news on a traditionally weak area for Shell the discovery of new supplies of oil.
Shell said that its reserves-to-production ratio had increased from ten years at the end of 2008 to 11.9 years at the end of 2009, after additions from gasfields in Australia and further deepwater developments in the Gulf of Mexico.
Shell is also reshuffling its portfolio to focus less on areas such as Nigeria and more on unconventional fuels where the groups technology gives it an edge, such as Australias booming coal-seam gas industry, where it is in talks to buy Arrow Energy.
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.
