News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Group
NL TIMES
Shell: Gas field in Groningen must be completely closed this year, in light of earthquakes
SUNDAY, 26 MARCH 2023
The gas field in Groningen must be completely closed this year, said the CEO of Shell Netherlands, Marjan van Loon. Currently, the gas field is still supplying minimal amounts of gas to keep the wells usable, but she doesn’t think that’s necessary. “It can and must be done, so the field has to be closed,” Van Loon said on the TV program WNL Op Zondag.
A large number of press articles have appeared recently mentioning Ben van Beurden.
Since these articles are presumably fed to the press by Shell’s PR team, and Shell is not a one-man company, I checked to see whether other Shell directors have appeared recently in press releases.
The results are somewhat curious. For example, searching for Matthias Bichsel on Google News shows that articles were published about him at least weekly until October last year, but the articles then stopped abruptly. References to Simon Henry seem to have dried up a few weeks ago – until mid-March there were articles on Henry on an almost daily basis, but recently there has been nothing. Harry Brekelmans seems to have had a low profile since his appointment, so it is harder to see whether any change has occurred. Andy Brown has almost as many press articles as Ben van Beurden.
Petrofac Board is recommending that shareholders approve the appointment of Matthias Bichsel at its 2015 Annual General Meeting. If approved by shareholders, Matthias, who has over 30 years’ relevant experience, most recently as Director of Projects & Technology at Royal Dutch Shell plc, will join the Board as an independent Non-executive Director on 14 May 2015. Matthias brings an extensive understanding of the oil and gas industry and the Board looks forward to working with him. In addition, Roxanne Decyk has notified the Board of her intention to step down as a Non-executive Director at the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting. The consequential changes to Board Committee memberships following these changes will be reviewed in due course.
By John Donovan
Knowing from personal experience the track record of Royal Dutch Shell in stealing ideas, I must say that I am staggered by the audacity of Shell in trying to draw (trick?) inventors into entrusting the ruthless unprincipled oil giant with their brainchild. The scheme (scam?) is run in various guises, including Shell GameChanger, Shell Ideas360 and Shell Innovation Challenge. Shell is even offering substantial cash prizes as an enticement. See current example (above) from Shell Australia.
FROM A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR I’m curious about the wording of Shell’s announcement of Bichsel’s departure….
The announcement focusses almost entirely on Brekelmans, and simply says that Matthias Bichsel (right) is leaving after 34 years – hardly a glowing valedictory for the person who has been number two in Shell (worldwide) for the past few years.
Surely some words of thanks for Bichsel’s years of sterling service and achievements at Shell should have been in order? Or perhaps not, as the case may be.
RELATED ARTICLES
Royal Dutch Shell plc today announced the appointment of Harry Brekelmans as Projects & Technology Director with effect from October 1, 2014.
In his new role, Harry will become a member of the Executive Committee and will take over from Matthias Bichsel who will be leaving the company after 34 years.
Harry is a Dutch national and currently Executive Vice President Operated, Upstream International. He joined Shell in 1990 and has held a variety of international management positions.
Extracts from a Seeking Alpha article published 9 June 2014Only a fraction of the big natural gas export projects being developed around the world will become reality, as high costs and low profit margins in the gas sector sink those that once had promised huge returns on investment, Royal Dutch Shell (RDS.A, RDS.B) director of projects and technology Matthias Bichsel tells Reuters. He knows from experience: Estimated development costs for the Gorgon LNG project in Australia (Shell owns 25%) have soared from $37B initially to nearly $55B thanks to high labor expenses and complex technology, Shell quit the Wheatstone LNG project in the country, and it also has abandoned a proposed gas-to-liquids project in Louisiana.
Bichsel will undoubtedly leave shortly, joining Ollila, Rees, Brown, Brinded, Voser, Finlayson, Carne… And when everything starts to collapse, he will at least now have the satisfaction of saying “I told you so”. This is typical for a coward…By John Donovan
Earlier today Reuters published comments attributed to Royal Dutch Shell Plc Executive Director, Matthias Bichsel.
Extract
“There is always so much talk about these big LNG projects around the world, but only a small fraction of them will get built,” said Matthias Bichsel, who is also a member of Shell’s Executive Committee.
The Financial Times has this weekend pointed put “the company’s leadership is changing at a time when its financial performance has been under scrutiny from investors” and also drew attention to the recent profit warning, following a succession of dismal quarterly results.
Jeff Lewis | February 12, 2014 5:18 PM ET
CALGARY – Royal Dutch Shell PLC told regulators it is halting work on its Pierre River mine in northern Alberta’s oil sands and that it has no idea when it may revive the blueprints. The Hague-based company this year cancelled plans to drill in Alaska’s Arctic and postponed development of a liquefied natural gas venture offshore Australia. The company issued a rare profit warning last month before reporting a 49% plunge in quarterly earnings to $2.9-billion.
See our link list of over 500 articles by the FT, Wall Street Journal, Reuters, Bloomberg, Forbes, Dow Jones Newswires, New York Times, CNBC etc, plus UK House of Commons Select Committee Hansard records, information on U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission website etc. all containing references to our Shell focussed websites, or our website founders Alfred and John Donovan. Includes TV documentary features in English and German, newspaper and magazine articles, radio interviews, newsletters etc. Plus academic papers, Stratfor intelligence reports and UK, U.S. and Australian state/parliamentary publications, also citing our Shell websites. Click on this link to see the entire list, all in date order with a link to an index of over 100 books also containing references to our websites and/or our activities.
John Donovan, the website owner
A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
This is not a Shell website. That fact should be abundantly plain from the overall content of this home page and our sister Shell focussed websites, including shellnazihistory.com. Click on the Disclaimer link at top of this page for more information. You Can Be Sure Shell does not endorse or approve of this website. There are no subscription charges nor do we solicit or accept donations. It is an entirely free to use website drawing attention to the negative side of Shell while also publishing positive news about the company. The Shell logo image with the white text used on this website, as per the above example, is in the public domain because its copyright has expired and its author is anonymous. It can be found on WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. Our shellenergy.website publishes Shell Energy customer complaints posted on Trustpilot where there is an ample supply. Use this link for Shell’s own website.
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA – HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
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: 
MORE DETAILS:
MORE DETAILS: After a solicitor acting for Shell threatened to make the litigation "drawn out and difficult" with the intention of draining the resources of a financially weaker opponent, my late father (Alfred Donovan) and I decided to mount a wide-ranging campaign as a counter-measure. We jointly founded the Shell Corporate Conscience Pressure Group, which nearly 15% of Shell UK retailers joined. We regularly conducted ethical surveys involving up to 1500 Shell petrol stations. All responses were opened and authenticated by an independent solicitor who supplied Affidavits confirming the results. In whole page announcements in trade magazines (examples above) we challenged Shell to commission and publish the resuits of independent research asking the same questions and offering respondents GUARANTEED anonymity. Shell never took up the invitation. Instead it asked the UK Advertising Standards Authority to investigate our Shell surveys. No problems were found. The head-cut image of Alfred Donovan appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal. 
