Royal Dutch Shell is to boost its investment in Brazil by billions of dollars after surpassing its forecasts for oil production in the country last year.
By Robin Yapp, Sao Paulo 6:54PM GMT 14 Feb 2011
The Anglo-Dutch company will drill ten new wells in the next 18 months, seven of them in the Campos Basin, around 60 miles off the coast of Espirito Santo state.
Estimates in Brazil suggested Shell will invest around $2.5bn (£1.57bn) in the next wave of drilling but the company did not confirm the figure.
Andre Araujo, the president of Shell Brazil, said: “I can only say that it will be billions of dollars.”
Shell is currently the biggest private producer of crude oil in Brazil, second only to the state-backed Petrobras.
It ended 2010 producing 95,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day of oil and gas in the Parque das Conchas area of the Campos Basin and the Bijupira-Salema field, off the coast of Rio de Janeiro state.
Production in the Parque das Conchas, or Park of Shells, for last year beat the company’s initial estimate by 30pc. Shell has a 50pc cent stake in the project, while Petrobras has 35pc and ONGC, the Indian oil and gas company, has 15pc.
Mr Araujo told the Brazilian business newspaper Valor Economico that the area had given “an excellent performance … and that allows you to look at Brazil as a country that delivers. This is a great comfort.”
Shell also plans to drill another well in a block in the Santos Basin where it is partnered with Total and where results so far have been considered “encouraging”.
Mr Araujo is also optimistic about starting to explore inland areas in the state of Minas Gerais, where each well drilled will cost around $15m.
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.
