By John M. Biers
TOTAL CEO SEES ARCTIC DRILLING AS RISKY BUSINESS
When was the last time you heard an executive from Big Oil say no thanks to drilling a hot prospect because it was too risky to the environment?
Yet that’s what Total Chief Executive Christophe de Margerie just did with arctic drilling. The feisty de Margerie, in an interview with the Financial Times, is quoted as saying an oil spill in Greenland would ”be a disaster,” and that a leak ”would do too much damage to the image of the company.”
De Margerie did qualify the remarks, saying natural gas drilling in the arctic posed less of a threat than oil drilling. But his comments are sure to prompt a sigh of despair from the oil industry as a whole and particularly from companies active in arctic drilling like Shell and Cairn, which have drilling campaigns in Alaska and Greenland, respectively. Both Shell and Cairn face tough, well-organized environmental campaigns against arctic drilling.
The prospect of arctic riches has left oil and mining companies salivating, especially since global warming will make chipping through all that arctic soil less difficult. Yet de Margerie’s comments reveal a surprising constraint on the forces of development. While U.S. regulators have tightened the rules somewhat on deep-water development, the fact is that deep-water exploration resumed in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and in other basins expeditiously following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. To the average bystander, it may have looked as though nothing has changed since the 2010 BP disaster. De Margerie’s comments indicate that’s not the case.
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
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.
