News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Group
Repeated Safety Violations: Because One Breach Just Isn’t Enough
Posted By John Donovan 18 August 2023
In an awe-inspiring display of audacity, Shell’s Prelude FLNG facility has recently unveiled its unconventional approach to workplace safety – one that is sure to set new standards in the realm of fiery entertainment. The facility, nestled off the picturesque coast of Western Australia, doubles as a thrilling unintended firework extravaganza, exposing workers to risks of explosions and flames.
Report: Output from Shell’s Prelude FLNG Shut Again
December 22, 2022
Shell has stopped production at its Prelude floating LNG plant off Western Australia after a fire.
A Shell spokesperson told Reuters on Thursday that the fire at the giant FLNG unit “was rapidly extinguished.”
The 488-meter-long, Shell-operated, Prelude FLNG unit forms part of an offshore development that produces natural gas from the remote namesake field, located approximately 475 km north-northeast of Broome in Western Australia. The Prelude is the world’s largest FLNG unit.
Argus Media
Australia’s Prelude LNG cleared for restart
Published date: 18 March 2022
Production at the 3.6mn t/yr Prelude floating LNG project in the Browse basin offshore Western Australia (WA) has been granted approval to restart, Australia’s offshore security regulator said.
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (Nopsema) has closed a direction issued to project owner and operator Shell on 23 December 2021, instructing it to “demonstrate that the facility can operate safely in the event of power loss before production can commence”. Shell also confirmed that the direction has closed, but has no further comment at this stage.
ArgusMedia
Australia’s Prelude LNG faces indefinite shutdown
Published date: 28 December 2021
Production at the 3.6mn t/yr Prelude floating LNG project in the Browse basin offshore Western Australia (WA) will be halted until Shell demonstrates that its facility is able to operate safely in the event of power loss, Australia’s offshore security regulator said.
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (Nopsema) issued a notice to project owner and operator Shell on 23 December, instructing it to investigate the “incidents and associated consequences” that took place at the Prelude facility early this month and present a plan for all necessary corrective actions.
Shell resumes production at massive floating LNG plant
SHELL has resumed production of LNG from its huge floating processing plant – Prelude – following a series of project setbacks that halted output for almost a year.
The oil major said this week: “LNG cargoes have resumed from Shell’s Prelude FLNG facility.”
Shell repeated the statement it has made in response to a series of setbacks at the project, which at 488 m long is the largest ship ever built: “Prelude is a multi-decade project, and our focus remains on delivering sustained performance over the long-term.”
Shell resumes LNG shipments from world’s largest floating structure
2020 Was One of the Worst-Ever Years for Oil Write-Downs
By Collin Eaton and Sarah McFarlane: Dec. 27, 2020 9:00 am ET
The pandemic has triggered the largest revision to the value of the oil industry’s assets in at least a decade, as companies sour on costly projects amid the prospect of low prices for years.
Oil-and-gas companies in North America and Europe wrote down roughly $145 billion combined in the first three quarters of 2020, the most for that nine-month period since at least 2010, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. That total significantly surpassed write-downs taken over the same periods in 2015 and 2016, during the last oil bust, and is equivalent to roughly 10% of the companies’ collective market value.
Henning Gloystein: APRIL 24, 2018
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Shell and Inpex are on the final stretch of a years-long race to export gas from offshore northern Australia, where both have spent billions of dollars building the world’s biggest maritime vessels to grab a slice of Asia’s booming LNG market.
Anglo-Dutch energy major Royal Dutch Shell and Inpex, Japan’s biggest oil and gas producer, are vying for first gas from two overlapping fields after delays and cost overruns that have plagued both projects.
The pair have spent billions on offshore facilities, including Shell’s 490 meter (1,600 ft) long Prelude floating liquefied natural gas unit and Inpex’s Ichthys Explorer semi-submersible platform, both the world’s largest of their class.
From a Regular ContributorCancellation of both the Browse and Masela FLNG developments on the same day suggests that the issues about which Bill Campbell has warned may finally have won the day.
If so, this is a huge climbdown for Shell, with several billion dollars in probable write-offs.
It’s perhaps not surprising, given the plethora of warnings from technical sources that there were serious risks involved.
Could Prelude be next to be axed? Parking a multi-billion dollar vessel in cyclone alley for 20 years never seemed like the most appropriate use of the pension funds invested in Shell…
Unfortunately for Shell it formally committed to the Prelude development in May, 2011, a time when oil was selling for around $120 a barrel, three-times the current price of around $41/bbl.
No-one blinked and share prices barely fluttered when a $40 billion plan by Australia’s Woodside Petroleum ngIf: ticker to develop a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) project was torpedoed earlier today.
However, the knock-on consequences of sinking the Browse project will be felt most acutely at Europe’s biggest oil company, Royal Dutch Shell ngIf: ticker .
The immediate impact on Shell is that it has a 27% interest in the Woodside-led Browse LNG project, but it is also nearing completion of the world’s biggest floating LNG barge, the $12.6 billion Prelude project.
By a Regular ContributorIf RDS wants to cut capex (and exposure), FLNG is a good place to start, as Simon Henry suggested yesterday. The Arctic should be next.
The Arctic is rapidly acquiring a similar profile to the Brent Spar fiasco. The issue is not whether Greenpeace is right or wrong, it is whether Shell can win the hearts and minds of the public to support their efforts. So far, Shell’s own incompetence has been the most significant issue in eliminating any public support they once enjoyed.
The destruction of drilling vessels and criminal convictions for polluting the environment and failing to keep the required records support the view that Shell do not know what they are doing. Neither Shell’s army of lawyers nor the judges on whom they rely have ever worked offshore and have no idea of what it entails. However, the first time that there is any illegal discharge into the sea or the air (and it will happen), or a fatality, injury or well control incident, the lawyers who are supporting Shell’s current efforts will have nothing constructive to say.
By Angela Macdonald-Smith: Jul 30 2015
Royal Dutch Shell has signalled that a final go-ahead next year for the Browse floating liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia is far from a certainty given the cost challenges of the venture in the depressed oil price environment.
Chief financial officer Simon Henry listed Browse among several large international projects that would be subject to “the dynamic nature of decision making as we take both the oil price environment but also the supply chain and the cost level into account.”
By Wendy Laursen 2015-07-05
Drydocks World has marked a major milestone by completing the world’s largest turret mooring system.
At almost 100 meters high, weighing over 11,000 tons and with a diameter of 26 meters, the turret will ensure Shell’s Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility can operate safely in the most extreme weather conditions.
The FLNG will be stationed in the Prelude gas field off the northwest coast of Australia. It will be Shell’s first FLNG deployment. The technology allows for the production, liquefaction, storage and transfer of LNG at sea, as well as the ability to process and export liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and condensate.
Written by Rita Brown – 03/07/2015
Shell has awarded the Technip Samsung Consortium two contracts for its $40billion natural gas project in Australia.
Shell’s Browse project covers the installation of three FLNG units to develop the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa fields in the Browse Basin.
Shell, which has a 27% interest in the scheme, will use its floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) technology to leveraging the site’s 15.4 trillion-cubic-feet of gas.
The Technip Samsung Consortium will manage the front-end engineering design (FEED) elements of the Browse FLNG project, taking into account the composition of the gas, local weather conditions and factors specific to each of the three fields.
Royal Dutch Shell and Woodside Petroleum have insisted that workers to be stationed on vast floating liquefied natural gas plants far off the Western Australian coast will be safe despite serious concerns having been raised in a parliamentary inquiry that they won’t be evacuated even for severe tropical cyclones.
A WA parliamentary committee examining the safety of floating LNG highlighted fears that workers would be thrown around within their accommodation modules during cyclones and could experience psychological stress at being unable to leave the vessel.
These claims do not appear to be founded on fact but appear to be simply propaganda; …the Shell claims are fiction, wishful thinking. Royal Dutch Shell, bound by its general business principles of honesty and integrity, casts these principles aside by simply fabricating stories re the health and safety risks of FLNG, as a means to an end. By Bill Campbell
In recent articles I challenged the unsubstantiated claims, with respect to the health and safety risks associated with FLNG, made by Shell on its websites. These claims do not appear to be founded on fact but appear to be simply propaganda. Shell would dearly wish that the risks of Prelude FLNG for example were quote on par with the risk levels of modern offshore installations, but this is a statement drawn from the ether, with no credible analysis to support it.
The industry itself does not support the Shell euphoria with their more down to earth and sober assessment of the risks as we venture into the unknown by locating a hazardous substances plant on a vessel on the high sea for the first time.
By John Donovan
According to an article by Dominic O’Connell published in a whole page article in The Sunday Times on 9 November 2014, Prelude is in danger of becoming a white elephant. (See page 5 of the Business Section)
The article correctly describes Prelude as the brainchild of Royal Dutch Shell (unless it turns out that Shell pirated the technology).
Shell is described as a venerable oil and gas company said to have a history of making big plays that might not generate dividends for decades.
By John Donovan
A parliamentary inquiry into the safety of floating LNG (FLNG) processing plants is underway in Western Australia this week.
On 28 December 2013, I published an article revealing that a whistleblower inside the Shell Prelude project – the first of these gigantic processing plants, had contacted me. The person in question supplied me with internal information and photographic evidence supporting his anxiety about potentially dangerous, shoddy workmanship.
The whistleblower was intimately involved in the project at a high level and had deep concerns that warnings issued to Shell (and other parties) were ignored and financial considerations were taking priority over safety issues. He was particularly anxious about alleged use of totally unqualified personnel.
The New York Times magazine has published an informative article by Robert Sullivan about Prelude, under the appropriate headline:
The dangers associated with innovative technology, with potentially disastrous consequences, are heightened following the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo rocket ship explosion in the US.
To obtain an overall assessment on risks relating to Prelude, the article by Robert Sullivan is best read in conjunction with a series of articles by experts triggered by a well-placed whistleblower directly involved in the equally pioneering Shell Prelude project. Includes articles by Bill Campbell, the retired distinguished HSE Group Auditor of Shell International and Hans Bouman, another retired Shell guru with a track record of spotting potential pitfalls in major Shell projects.
By John Donovan
I have received a comment about the most recent Bill Campbell Prelude article from another expert, a former Shell executive.
I refer to Hans Bouman, the retired Groningen Gas Field Asset Manager for NAM, a joint Royal Dutch Shell/ExxonMobil operation.
Mr Bouman is the expert who in 2002 warned Shell/Sakhalin Energy internally of his concerns over the Sakhalin2 project, including an unforgiving schedule, a theme he returned to a number of times.
Extract from a May 2002 internal email from Hans Bouman to Engel van Spronsen, Technical Director, Sakhalin Energy:
Final article in a series of five articles by Bill Campbell, retired HSE Group Auditor, Shell International, about risks relating to the Shell Prelude FLNG project.With the implementation of the recommendations post Piper A, turned quickly into legislation, the potential consequences of hydrocarbon releases have been markedly reduced, but Floating FLNG facilities cannot comply, other than that front end gas feed from the reservoir will be shut in and the process gas flared, huge amounts of volatile hydrocarbon liquids remain stored in the hull, which is also the primary structure supporting the process, utilities and the living quarters.
Prelude for example has in its hull, tanks with a capacity to hold 220,000 m3 of LNG, when the cryogenic liquid is returned to gas this equates to 132 million m3 of methane. It also has capacity for 90,000 m3 of LPG and 126,000 m3 of Condensate, with an overall capacity Shell states equivalent to 175 Olympic swimming pools.
Aptly named Prelude, at 488 meters long, 74 meters wide, and clocking in at 600,000 tonnes when fully ballasted, the FLNG facility, which is under construction at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea, will be the largest object ever floated on the ocean. Bruce Steenson, Shell’s general manager of integrated gas programs and innovation, has been widely quoted as confirming that Shell is working on an even larger design. “That next one will be off the rails,” he told Reuters. Prelude will be sitting out in the middle of nowhere in cyclone alley central. Shell has no intentions of untethering the facility every time a bad wind blows and towing it to shore. Instead, a number of factors are supposed to ensure that Prelude sits tight in savage seas.
Floating LNG (FLNG) production plants are approximately the size of four football pitches. As these vessels are set afloat in the middle of the ocean to face nature’s wrath, and have people working in the restricted space available, it is simple to understand the mammoth undertaking, in not only their construction, but also making them seaworthy, safe and environmentally sustainable. Every single step of the design, construction and operation process is abound with risk…
By John Donovan
It seems that the alarming articles we have published about the Royal Dutch Shell Prelude FLNG project, highlighting risks based on insider information and expert opinion, may have had an unintended impact.
According to a Dow Jones news report published today, GDF Suez SA and Santos Ltd have both withdrawn from their plans to develop their own floating liquefied natural gas project off the northern coast of Western Australia – the Bonaparte venture.
The Capital.gr article points out that budget overruns at a number of LNG developments in Australia “have underscored the risks for international energy companies weighing new projects.”
Extracts from an article by Tim Maverick published 17 April 2014 by trefis.com The recognized leader in FLNG technology globally is Royal Dutch Shell PLC. FLNG vessels, which dwarf aircraft carriers in size, serve as floating liquefaction, storage and offtake facilities. And they certainly come with a host of advantages. You see, a floating project is estimated to take only two-thirds of the time of a land-based project. That’s not surprising, since you’re able to sidestep land development. This is of particular concern in Australia, where natural gas fields are located close to environmentally sensitive coastal areas.
Tales of the Unexpected – When the party ended with a bang!: 3rd in a series of articles by Bill Campbell (right), retired HSE Group Auditor, Shell International, about safety issues relating to the Shell Prelude FLNG project
By Bill Campbell
LNG is natural gas (methane) refrigerated, the chilling process eventually turning the gas into a liquid shrinking its volume by 600 times. As we are aware from elementary physics, energy cannot be created or destroyed, so the whole economic model of the use and transportation of LNG worldwide, which really started in the 50’s and is due to exponentially expand in the next decade, is that the heat energy contained in one metre cubed of the liquid equates to six hundred metres cubed of methane. So the physical characteristics of liquified natural gas is what makes it economically viable in its transportation over in some cases many thousands of miles from its source to where it will be used when converted again into its natural state. But it’s this conversion that can make it so dangerous should it spill or leak into the atmosphere accidentally.
The concept of a floating gas factory is so far untested. Alain Poincheval, project director for Prelude at Technip said… the vessel is being designed for the harshest environmental conditions at sea including Class 5 cyclones. Prelude, which is being built by Samsung Heavy Industries, is expected to finish construction by the first half of 2016 and industry estimates put the project cost at roughly $11 billion-$12 billion. Despite the unproven technology, a number of other FLNG projects are already under development.
A Prelude to disaster?
Introduction by John Donovan
On 28 December I broke the news that a whistleblower had supplied me with photographic evidence to support their concerns over the safety of the construction of Shell’s Prelude FLNG flagship vessel. The Prelude insider source alleges that packages are being installed on the vessel by totally unqualified personnel and accuses management of a failure to understand standards and regulations and claims the construction work would never pass UK standards. The source has been intimately involved in the project and is genuinely concerned that warnings issued to Shell management (and other parties) have been ignored and financial considerations are taking priority over safety issues. His warnings prompted a regular contributor, Bill Campbell, the retired HSE Group Auditor of Shell International to author articles on the subject that take into account his decades long experience and expertise. This is the second in an intended series.
…customers of certain Far Eastern shipyards have found that in spite of vessels being delivered with all of the necessary certification, unsurveyed welds have not always been up to the standards of the specific “randomly selected” welds on which the certification had been based. This may have interesting implications for the Prelude vessel…. Since Shell does not seem to be able to ensure that the welds on their pipelines in Kashagan were properly executed, all of which should have been inspected, are they any more likely to be sure of the welds on Prelude?Mitsui paid $1.1 bn, and Anardarko perhaps $2.66bn to settle their liabilities in respect of Macondo.
Mitsui and Anadarko shared responsibility with BP because they were fully appraised of what was going on, and gave their approval to the Macondo operations. Shell is in the same position in Kashagan. It is rather naïve to compare Shell’s role as a partner in Kashagan with that of a shareholder in a public company.
In order for partners to give approval they require adequate information, to which they have ready access.
See this Wall Street Journal article for more information.
On another related subject, customers of certain Far Eastern shipyards have found that in spite of vessels being delivered with all of the necessary certification, unsurveyed welds have not always been up to the standards of the specific “randomly selected” welds on which the certification had been based. This may have interesting implications for the Prelude vessel…. Since Shell does not seem to be able to ensure that the welds on their pipelines in Kashagan were properly executed, all of which should have been inspected, are they any more likely to be sure of the welds on Prelude?
OFFSHORE EXPERT: “Having read this Prelude document a few times to take it all in, it seems to me that the main issue is how do you design for a 10,000 year event?” COMMENT: “I am not an expert and would only say that so-called 10,000 year weather events seem to be occurring annually at the moment. If Noah was still around, and residing in Southern England, he might well be looking for his carpentry tools.” John,
Regarding recent discussions on this website about Shell Prelude FLNG project, information available via this link provides useful input.
The 28 page section of a 75 page Shell document gives a description of the development and goes into great detail, providing answers to most of the issues raised by a fellow Shell Retiree.
Having read this Prelude document a few times to take it all in, it seems to me that the main issue is how do you design for a 10,000 year event?
The many issues raised with respect to cyclonic activity, waves, wind and the ability to weather vane are answered. There are two thrusters located near the stern with a total power of 6 megawatts or 8,000 HP. More than ample to ensure the heading of the facility is optimum at all times. Other issues with respect to Green house gas emissions during operations and other environmental are dealt with in detail.
3 December 2013
By Edd GentThe world’s largest ship has been launched but developer Royal Dutch Shell already has plans for something bigger.
The Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) plant The Prelude is half a kilometre from bow to stern, room for four football pitches on deck were it not for a clutter of kit towering up to 93m high that will draw gas from under the sea bed for dispatch to Asia by the boatload.
But as the partly-built structure floats out of dry dock for the first time, Shell has said it wants to consolidate its advantage as the first mover in FLNG – an as-yet untried technology for which Prelude will be the flagship.
COLIN Barnett’s push to create thousands of construction jobs by keeping the huge Browse gas project onshore has suffered another blow after Woodside Petroleum said it wanted to develop the project using radical floating LNG technology.
Woodside and its joint venture partners are now expected to formally commit within months to using FLNG for the Browse gas fields.
By James Paton – Aug 20, 2013 1:12 AM GMT+0100
Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (WPL), Australia’s second-biggest oil producer, will recommend using Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA)’s floating liquefied natural gas technology to its partners to develop the Browse project.
The selection of floating LNG requires the approval of the Browse partners, including BP Plc (BP/), PetroChina Co. and Shell, Perth-based Woodside said today in a statement.
“A compelling case has emerged for floating LNG as the best option for early commercialization†of Browse, off the West Australian coast, Chief Executive Officer Peter Coleman said in the statement.
The Prelude FLNG project had strong cost fundamentals and would make a significant contribution to the Australian economy, Shell Australia’s General Manager for Production, Michael Schoch said in a media statement released by the AGT’s official public relations agency Avviso PR.
“We estimate that Prelude will bring benefits to Australia of some $41.3 billion (AUD 45 billion) over the life of the project, of which taxes would be around $11 billion (AUD 12 billion). The overwhelming majority of people who work on the FLNG facility will be Australians. By 2015, we expect to double the workforce in Shell Australia’s Perth office from 500 to 1,000 – and many of these new people will be working on Prelude,†he added.
Oil and gas major Shell plans to build more floating LNG plants after developing its world first Prelude project off the coast of Western Australia.
But the global leader in floating gas processing would not reveal whether it would develop more than one floating LNG vessel for Woodside’s Browse joint venture project.
“I don’t believe any one of the players has actually mentioned any numbers,” Shell Australia General Manager for Production Michael Schoch told a gas technology conference in Perth.
The West Australian: July 2, 2013
Shell has defended its proposed $12 billion Prelude floating LNG project off the Kimberley coast insisting it would make a significant contribution to the Australian economy.
Premier Colin Barnett has strongly opposed the use of floating LNG technology on offshore WA oil and gas projects, arguing it will cost local jobs, deny benefits to indigenous groups and cost the State royalties.
But Shell Australia’s General Manager for Production, Michael Schoch, will told a conference in Perth today that Prelude would bring benefits to Australia of some $45 billion over the life of the project, $12 billion of which would be paid in taxes.
Peter Kerr, The West Australian June 19, 2013, 7:17 am
Premier Colin Barnett has renewed his attack on Royal Dutch Shell’s “unreliable” floating gas processing technology, claiming its susceptibility to cyclones is worrying customers in Asia.
In a remarkable intervention during Parliament’s Question Time yesterday, Mr Barnett also showed he had refused to accept the loss of a land-based LNG hub at James Price Point. He issued a veiled threat that he would strip Woodside Petroleum and its Browse Basin partners of their State-based gas retention leases next year if they pursued FLNG.
Hundreds of unionists gathered outside Parliament House in Perth to protest against the potential loss of jobs in the gas industry.
They have blocked all the entrances stopping MPs and staff from entering the carpark.
The Australian Metal Workers Union say a decision by Woodside and Shell to use floating LNG platforms rather than onshore gas processing hubs will cost thousands of jobs.
Woodside recently shelved plans to build a $45 billion gas hub at James Price Point, north of Broome.
It is believed the company is investigating the use of floating LNG technology to process gas from the Browse Basin.
AAP: June 11, 2013 9:05AM
UNION members have protested outside Parliament House in Perth saying floating LNG projects will rob locals of jobs.
Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) members gathered on Tuesday to voice their concerns about the vessel-based liquefied natural gas projects.
Energy giant Royal Dutch Shell is using floating LNG technology for its Prelude gas project off the West Australian coast.
And Woodside is leaning the same way, having abandoned plans for an onshore processing plant for Browse Basin gas.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Prelude vessel, seen here in an image illustration, vying to be the first floating LNG facility in the world, will be as long as the Empire State Building and six times the weight of the largest aircraft carrier. Source: Rex Features via AP Images
April 26, 2013
Escalating costs to build liquefied natural gas plants on land in Australia, where energy workers earn the highest salaries in the world, are driving developers out to sea in search of billions of dollars in savings.
Peter Klinger, The West Australian April 4, 2013, 6:21 am
Royal Dutch Shell says the development schedule for the industry-leading Prelude floating LNG venture in the Browse Basin has not been affected by technical problems that have beset its drilling rig.
The Shell-chartered Noble Clyde Boudreaux had been out of action for more than a month off the coast of Exmouth, where it was scheduled to drill the Palta-1 exploration well. The Palta permit, owned by Shell and Mitsubishi, is 70km from the Ningaloo Reef. The drilling of the Palta-1 well has sparked widespread condemnation from environmental groups.
By Sarah Young
LONDON | Wed Dec 5, 2012 6:24pm GMT
(Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L), the world’s biggest LNG company, will move the headquarters of its integrated gas business to Singapore from Europe as part of its quest to feed Asia’s surging demand for the fuel, the company said on Wednesday.
“It will be the largest object man has ever built that floats,” Shell’s upstream director Andrew Brown said of Prelude, a 500 metre long vessel costing over $10 billion (6 billion pounds), being constructed to supply Asian markets with gas from Australia.
10/18/2012| 02:38am US/Eastern
Media Release 18/10/2012
Today Shell celebrated the cutting of first steel for the game-changing Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility’s substructure with joint venture participants, Inpex and KOGAS, and lead contractor, the Technip Samsung Consortium, at Samsung Heavy Industries’ Geoje shipyard in South Korea.
Shell’s Projects & Technology Director Matthias Bichsel commented: “We are cutting 7.6 tonnes of steel for the Prelude floating liquefied natural gas facility today, but in total, more than 260,000 tonnes of steel will be fabricated and assembled for the facility. That’s around five times the amount of steel used to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Today’s ceremony marks a major milestone in this project, when the innovative thinking and new technology and engineering solutions which will make FLNG possible begin to be realised.”
SEPTEMBER 9, 2011
LONDON (Dow Jones)–Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA.LN), Friday confirmed that it has made solid progress in starting up three world-class oil & gas projects in 2011, which at peak will add some 400,000 barrels oil equivalent, and is on track to deliver its strategic targets for 50-80% growth in cash flow from operations from 2009 to 2012.
MAIN FACTS:
-Shell’s three-year strategic plan, outlined in 2010, is building the foundations for profitable growth for shareholders in the future.
Jason Alden/Bloomberg: A Shell station in London, U.K. Shell posted adjusted earnings of $6.6 billion, matching the mean estimate of nine analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
By Eduard Gismatullin – Jul 28, 2011 8:47 AM GMT+0100
Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europes biggest oil company, said second-quarter earnings almost doubled on higher oil prices and project startups in Qatar and Canada.
Net income rose to $8.66 billion from $4.39 billion a year earlier, The Hague-based Shell said today in a statement. Excluding one-time items and inventory changes, profit matched analyst estimates.
By Ben Sharples and James Paton – Jul 27, 2011 7:19 AM GMT+0100
Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Europes largest oil company, will halt refining operations at its Clyde plant in Sydney before mid-2013 and convert the facility into a fuel-import terminal.
The plant, which processes about 79,000 barrels a day of crude oil and employs 310 people, is no longer regionally competitive against Asian mega-refineries, the Hague-based company said in an e-mailed statement today. The plan was initially announced in April.
SYDNEYRoyal Dutch Shell PLC on Friday approved construction of a giant vessel designed to chill natural gas for export at sea, allowing it to unlock gas deposits stranded hundreds of miles from land.
Similar vessels are being considered for several projects in deep water around the world where piping gas back to land to be liquefied would be too costly. Shell’s final investment approval for its Prelude floating liquefied natural gas development marks the first time that construction of such a vessel has been approved anywhere.
FEBRUARY 22, 2011
PERTH (Dow Jones)–Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) said Tuesday that it expects to sign off on its first floating liquefied natural gas project within months, and plans to build at least six FLNG plants around the globe.
Shell hopes to take a “final investment decision in the next few months” on the company’s multibillion-dollar Prelude FLNG project offshore northwestern Australia, Shell Australia Chairman Ann Pickard, told a business event in Perth.
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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. 
