One of the issues surrounding the takeover of BG by Royal Dutch Shell that most commentators have missed is that it will make RDS even more of an “Upstream” company than it is now. The exploration and production of hydrocarbons is ALL that BG does.
It is also by far Shell’s core business. In the circumstances it makes little sense for RDS to continue with its “Downstream” (Refining, Marketing, Chemicals, Trading …).
These Shell-branded businesses cry out to be freed from the yoke of having to exist in a largely alien world where they are starved of attention and capital.
The option of separating what might be called “Shell Marketing” from the Upstream and floating it off as an entirely separate, and separately traded, corporate entity is overwhelming. There is even a tall office on the South Bank of the Thames which would make it an excellent home!
Paddy Briggs worked for the Oil Company Shell for 37 years, retiring in 2002 to pursue other interests. He has a monthly column in the pensions magazine Pensions Age (“Pensions People”) and was for four years one of two pensioner-elected Trustee Directors of the £13 billion Shell Contributory Pension Fund.
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.
