It’s all about oil prices.
Royal Dutch Shell said Monday it will stop drilling for oil off Alaska’s coast. The move comes after Shell failed to discover a noteworthy amount of undersea oil in a well off northern Alaska despite spending $7 billion on exploration efforts.
The decision will undoubtedly please the many environmentalists who were against the project from the start. But their protests aren’t the reason Shell is calling it quits in Alaska. Instead, Shell’s decision was economic: The price of oil has dropped precipitously over the past year, meaning it’s getting much harder to make a profit on the stuff.
Since OPEC declined to cut oil production in 2014, oil prices have fallen by almost half in response to the glut of supply. Currently, U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude oil is trading at around $44 a barrel, while Brent crude oil is trading at around $47.
This means that the marginal costs of production — that is, the cost of pumping one additional unit of a barrel of oil to meet demands — are correspondingly high. As a result, oil production has also fallen, since there is no incentive to produce oil if its price is below production costs.
For Shell, all this means the high costs of looking for oil near Alaska, where no major discoveries were guaranteed, were just not worth it. Still, the company will take a notable financial hit for ceasing Alaskan operations. While Shell has yet to announce write-off charges, its Alaska holdings are valued at $3 billion, while the company is locked into another $1.1 billion in contractual commitments.
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.
