Abbott also takes on a headache in the form of the company’s Motiva U.S. refining joint venture operation, where a new refinery unit faces piping and vibration problems .
Thu Sep 12, 2013 1:10pm BST
By Andrew Callus
(Reuters) – Shell is to make John Abbott head of its fuels and chemicals business, pitching the deliverer of its Canadian oil sands expansion project into an industry debate over whether the “downstream” business he will run still fits with oil and gas extraction.
A 53-year-old Briton who joined Europe’s top oil company straight from university in 1981, Abbott is credited with bringing Royal Dutch Shell’s Athabasca oil sands expansion project in Canada on stream in the period 2008-2012.
He will join the company’s top executive echelon, the executive committee, taking on the role of downstream director at a time when Shell and its fellow top-tier multinational oil companies face shrinking returns on investment and growing exploration costs per barrel produced.
Some smaller oil companies in the United States have demerged their refining divisions into separate companies in an attempt to deliver more clarity of direction for investors. Some shareholders want Shell and the rest of the world’s top five to follow a similar route.
Athabasca is a project that complicates that debate because it extracts heavy oil and refines it as part of the same integrated operation. Oil sands accounted for 147,000 barrels a day or 4.4 percent of Shell’s output in 2012.
Abbott also takes on a headache in the form of the company’s Motiva U.S. refining joint venture operation, where a new refinery unit faces piping and vibration problems .
He will take over on Oct. 1 from Ben van Beurden, who will become Shell’s new chief executive from Jan. 1 next year.
In his current role of executive vice president of manufacturing, reporting to van Beurden, Abbott oversees the operation of 30 or so refineries and petrochemical plants worldwide and is responsible for about 30,000 employees and contractors.
Like many of Shell’s senior executives past and present, Abbott has been with the company for more than three decades. He has held management posts, mainly in the downstream segment of the business, in Asia, north America and Europe.
Van Beurden is to replace Peter Voser, who surprised insiders and shareholders earlier this year with news he will retire at the age of 55.
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.
