Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

John Donovan in 2009. On its website, this former adman has posted more than 25,000 items on oil giant Shell. Reuters

My website royaldutchshellplc.com has been described by the FT as an open wound for Shell. That remains the case five years after the article extracts featured above and below. We still publish and feed to the mainstream media information leaked to us by Shell insiders. Most recently, an 88 page consultative document containing nothing less than Shell’s Global Transformation plans. We also regularly publish legal documents involving Shell that would otherwise be hidden was from preying eyes behind a paywall. read more

After all is said and done who would build a hotel and a heliport, and a dock, besides or within 100 metres of a hazardous substances plant. It would simply not be allowed on land. This is what makes Prelude so risky.

Comment from Bill Campbell on the article:

Shell’s ill-fated $14bn gamble on Titanic Prelude FLNG Barge

FLNG

If FLNG has a future remains to be seen. It is under any measure an outstanding technical achievement. My only concern is the misplaced statements by RDS and Shell Australia on the risks. Doomcaster and I are in agreement, there is and always will be during the commissioning and steady state operation a risk of leakage so we can say the probability side of the risk equation is well understood. Whether it be human failure or otherwise leaks are difficult to avoid. The best database for leaks in the World is the homogeneous population of over 200 North Sea installations covered in HSE data which confirms in 11 years of operation that leakage frequency has a mean time between failures of circa 3 days. My problem is with the huge inventory and congested space is that Shell seriously downplays the potential consequence side of the risk equation. Post Piper Alpha and post Seveso there are two principal risk reducers, reduced inventory (fuel) and lots of space seperating modules from each other, from human habitation, control rooms, admin blocks, and from storage tanks. After all is said and done who would build a hotel and a heliport, and a dock, besides or within 100 metres of a hazardous substances plant. It would simply not be allowed on land. This is what makes Prelude so risky. read more

The Prelude, which is 488m long, arrived in Australia last month © PA

By John Donovan

Shell’s Prelude barge has been described as the biggest floating structure ever built and is said to be 12 times the size of the Titanic. It is a comparison that for obvious reasons Shell does not use, although others do. There have been far more dire warnings about the dangers attached to Prelude than were made about the Titanic’s maiden voyage before it tragically sunk. Most have come from a well-placed insider on the Prelude project and subsequently from Bill Campbell, the retired HSE Group Auditor of Shell International. read more

By John Donovan

Earlier this year we published an article about a spectacular falling out of ‘Security Professionals’ at the top of Shell.

Readers may recall the Mooch like comments attributed to Shell’s US boss Bruce Culpepper about Shell’s Business Integrity Department. He said that they “could not investigate their way out of a wet paper bag;” “they cannot investigate worth a shit;” and that he “did not want those fuckers involved…” If Bruce Culpepper denies that he made these memorable comments, then he is free to sue me for defamation. read more

The television ad stated that natural gas was “the cleanest of all fossil fuels.” This is the second time in 2017 that Dutch advertising authorities have sought to punish the oil and gas industry with Statoil reprimanded for claiming gas to be “clean energy” and “low emissions fuel” in June. The Dutch Advertising Code Authority stated that the term “cleanest fossil fuel” was not in line with the MRC (the Dutch advertising code). FULL ARTICLE

By John Donovan

Saudi Basic Industries has acquired Shell’s 50% share in the petrochemicals joint venture SADAF.

Shell has sold its stake for the sum of $820 million. The deal gives full control of the business to Saudi Basic Industries, the Saudi state-owned chemicals group known as Sabic. The sale proceeds will be used to invest in the growth of Shell’s own global chemical activities, such as in the USA.

According to reports, an advertising standards board in the Netherlands will formally censure Exxon and Shell, as part-owners of a Dutch petroleum company, for advertising the claim that natural gas is “the cleanest of all fossil fuels.” The ad campaign featuring this claim ran earlier this year. Just two months ago, the agency also admonished Statoil for making the claim that natural gas was a “low emissions fuel” and for calling it “clean energy.” As The Guardian reported: “The Dutch watchdog waived punitive action against the NAM company, which is part-owned by Shell and Exxon, in that light. FULL ARTICLE read more

By Tom Kool – Aug 15, 2017, 3:00 PM CDT

Oil prices remain in a game of tug of war as conflicting news sends both the bears and the bulls to the sidelines.

• In 2015, the U.S. spent the least on energy in over a decade, largely due to the collapse of oil prices.

• In real terms, the U.S. spent $1.27 trillion on energy in 2015, down 20 percent from a year earlier.

• In inflation-adjusted terms, as well as in terms of percentage of GDP, the expenditures were the lowest since 2004.

SOURCE

The Judge was almost certainly unaware that Shell global management plotted to exploit the tragic 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City? Had the judge known about this fact and had seen the relevant Shell internal emails, it may have made him less susceptible to the arguments advanced by Shell’s lawyers.  Likewise, I would be surprised if the Judge knew just how far Shell had been prepared to go to evade sanctions against Iran. 

By John Donovan

Havlish v. Royal Dutch Shell Plc was the case heard in the US courts whereby victims of the 9/11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre twin towers attempted to obtain $2.1 billion from Shell that Shell rightfully owed to Iran, but could not pay because of sanctions. Havlish had obtained a $6.1 billion judgement against Iran but had no way of getting payment from the extremist Iranian regime.

A detailed article is printed below. Shell successfully resisted the claim and the case was terminated on May 25, 2016. read more

The Dutch advertising watchdog will on Tuesday censure Shell and Exxon for claiming that natural gas was “the cleanest of all fossil fuels” in an advert earlier this year. It will be the second time this summer that the Netherlands advertising standards board has ruled against the fossil fuels industry… FULL ARTICLE 

Major oil companies are joining Silicon Valley in backing energy-technology start-ups, a signal that that those with the deepest pockets in the industry are casting around for a new strategy. From Royal Dutch Shell Plc to Total SA and Exxon Mobil Corp., the biggest investor-owned oil companies are dribbling money into ventures probing the edge of energy technologies. The investments go beyond wind and solar power into projects that improve electricity grids and brew new fuels from renewable resources. read more

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) remitted 29.8 billion dollars to the federation account and 1.2 billion dollars to Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) between 2002 and 2016, Igo Weli, General Manager, External Relations, made the disclosure on Monday. Mr. Weli spoke in Port Harcourt while reacting to the shut-down of SPDC flow station and gas plant in Belema community by angry youth. The youth accused the company of neglecting them and marginalising their community. Addressing journalists, Mr. Weli said the seizure of the company’s facilities by the youth would not only send wrong signal to the international community, but was capable of discouraging further investment in the Niger Delta. FULL ARTICLE read more

Tristan R. Brown: 14 August 2017

Summary

By Fegalo Nsuke, MOSOP Publicity Secretary: We disapprove of Shell’s attempt to re-enter Ogoniland. We accuse them of the killings of 1995 and for the death of over 3000 persons. We accuse them of the ruin of over 10 Ogoni communities whose inhabitants remain in exile. We accuse them of genocide in Ogoniland and for the complete destruction of our environment.

I do not how best to describe Shell Nigeria and her new ally, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), both of which have exhibited a very high level of irresponsibility in Ogoniland.

On Thursday, August 4, led by the president of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP) the Ogoni people protested against a surreptitious attempt by Shell to re-enter Ogoniland.

The demonstration clearly represented our disapproval of any form of oil business in Ogoni. We made our position very clear, that no form of oil exploitation should resume in any part of Ogoniland without proper negotiations. read more

By Sonali Paul

MELBOURNE, Aug 14 (Reuters) – The last massive component of Australia’s $180 billion liquefied natural gas construction boom arrived on Monday, stepping up a race between Anglo-Dutch giant Shell and Japan’s Inpex to start chilling gas for export in 2018. Company reputations are at stake, as well as first access to overlapping gas fields and Australia leapfrogging Qatar as the world’s largest exporter of LNG. Royal Dutch Shell’s $12.6 billion Prelude project – the world’s largest floating LNG (FLNG) facility – is also behind schedule. FULL ARTICLE read more

by: Nick Butler: Monday 14 August 2017

The move starts small with a business in the UK that will start trading early next year. Shell will supply the business operations as a first step and it will then expand. But Britain is not the limit — Shell recently announced its intention of making similar sales in the US. Given its reach, Shell could sign contracts to supply all the power needed by the UK’s National Health Service or with the public sector as a whole…

FULL FT ARTICLE (free registration) read more