Financial Times: Talk of takeover swirls around BP
By Lina Saigol and Miles Johnson in London and Ed Crooks in Houston
Published: June 2 2010 23:49 | Last updated: June 2 2010 23:49
When a whale is wounded, it does not take long for the sharks to circle. With BP floundering in the Gulf of Mexico, the market has been abuzz with talk of a takeover of the British oil major.
The substantial erosion of BPs market value its shares have fallen 34 per cent since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20 means the company looks affordable to rivals for the first time in decades.
The huge and indeterminate costs for clean-up, damages, fines and compensation analysts forecasts of the cash cost to BP have so far typically ranged up to about $20bn could spiral into tens of billions of dollars.
In spite of that, traders believe BPs fall in market value presents Shell with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Approaches that came to nothing
By Ed Crooks and Miles Johnson
Published: June 3 2010 03:00 | Last updated: June 3 2010 03:00
BP and Royal Dutch Shell have a long history of courtship, with mergers proposed but never consummated.
Lord Browne, BP’s chief executive until 2007, tells in his memoirs of two occasions when the companies were nearly brought together to create the world’s largest private sector oil group.
The first came in 1995, when Shell’s chairman approached Lord Browne, then newly appointed, to suggest a deal. BP’s share price was at a low ebb, and the company seemed vulnerable.
As Lord Browne puts it: “For Shell, it would have been a cheap way of getting a presence in E&P [exploration and production] areas missing from their map.” His tactic was to stall and in the end the approach petered out.
Then, in 2004, the boot was on the other foot. BP was riding high and Shell was laid low by the reserves misreporting scandal that was revealed in January of that year.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.
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.
