Shell’s Sakhalin influence

Jo Blow: In my opinion Voser is not doing anything that will cause any more then a token improvement, if even that occurs. Fundamentally all he is doing is re-arranging names and titles. To cause change, you first must drive accountability, you do not drive accountability from the bottom up, you drive it from the top down. You have Williams sending message after message speaking of our 4th quartile performance with 1st quartile people in downstream, yet the only people getting the boot are lowly JG3 and lower in the organization. These folks are not accountable for setting direction, they execute the direction given them. In the Motiva world, you have a project that escalated out of control in regards to cost and schedule, yet the person who SHOULD have been held accountable moves on to a promotion. None of the senior leadership of that project were held accountable with the exception of D.B and J.J, and a couple lower graded managers. It was not Forrest or even Tom who were held accountable. These are prime examples of why our culture drives us to 4th quartile performance. If people are not held accountable for their respective jobs and actions then the culture will spiral to where Shell is today. Nothing I have seen of Voser's plan seems geared towards fixing this so do not expect much change.

John Donovan: If anyone has any email relating to the cutting of IT contractor rates, please supply precise quotes from the content, or even better, send it to me after taking appropriate precautions.

MalaysiaBolih: Jo Blow. You hit the nail right on the head. Unfortunately Voserisation is not going to change anything but instead creating more VPs. Organisation is designed based on people we have. sob..sob....In EP Asia, Paul M you will get to keep your day job. With you in, BP n SF will still keep their jobs in EC-3. Wonder what you will be busy with apart from NOVs. Michiel , surely you can do better than that. Buckle up.

AsiaDragon: IT4Me- it has been known IT cost has been very high. When benchmarked with the industry it is around 2.5 times. However cutting the cost of contractors' salaries maybe the wrong thing as these are the people who actually worked. Voser is right by putting under Finance. We should be critically reviewing the overhead itself, that is those responsible in putting the contract in place and doing nothing after that. Of course their bosses as well. We have a JGA boss plus few JG1s now, 20 years ago, we had a JG3 as our boss. So it is now or never. However agree maybe the way it is done. We still have "Respect for people" as our core values.

IT4me: A small but amusing turns of events in IT last week saw the entire contractor workforce (in Downstream anyway) receiving the same announcement via their agencies of an immediate 12% cut in rates. IT contract rates have softened during the downturn, so cuts are understandable. What's unusual is that this was done at only a few days notice, across the board, and mid-contract. Some recipients of this broadcast had 6 months or more left on their current assignments (whose duration was specified by Shell to secure their availability and rate) while others where in their final weeks of handovers to offshored replacements. In both cases, this was eyebrow-raising: early termination of contracts is normally only for misconduct or non-performance. Within a week, the smoke cleared. Contractors appear to have overwhelmingly said NO, ie most were prepared to stay for the full term or leave immediately, and nothing in between. The prospect losing large number of contractors on the same day sensibly prompted a rethink, and clarification emails were duly rushed out explaining that the cuts were ... um, OPTIONAL (I'm summarising over 300 words in one here, so that's approximate). So that's alright then. Not an earth-shattering event, but perhaps another small insight into declining standards within this great company ?

John Donovan: Scapegoat, you have hit the nail on the head. If Shell management acted at all times in accordance with its claimed core business principles, there would have been no reserves fraud, no fines for price-fixing, no fines for safety breaches which have cost Shell employees their lives, no $15.5 million settlement for misdeeds in Nigeria or multiple settlements of claims for IP theft from the Donovan's. If Shell management was not rotten at the core, this website would not exist. We look forward to the day when you are able to supply information in your own name. When you are ready, we will be very happy to publish any incriminating/embarrassing documents relating to Shell/Motiva operations.

scapegoat: In regard to deeply Concerned, and to our host, I appogize for using certain name but the intent was to show what happens when we hire certain people without a thourough background check. In the future I will only put initials, but when all the checks clear, I will re register with my real name. That way those reading and those whom I am speaking about will know where it came from. Those who know me know I only speak the truth. If in the future they want to deny certain actions they can take it up with me. Sorry if the truth hurts, but hiring unscrupulous individuals only serves to let them ruin the careers of longtime employee's who tick them off. If the corporation really practiced its core values we wouldn't be here blogging today.

John Donovan: Reply to Deeply Concerned: The site traffic has increased since the “US centric rantings” started. Some of these postings deal with serious issues. I do however agree that the last postings are, as you correctly say, “very close to the bone”. In one case allegations made under the cloak of anonymity were about matters alleged to have occurred two decades ago, which do not even relate to Shell. We did delay publication, but I was persuaded that we should support the right to freedom of speech on the Internet. However, on further reflection, I think my decision was a mistake and I apologise for it. I have deleted a name from the relevant posting by "scapegoat" made on July 2nd. We have made comments about Shell related events that happened a long time ago but we have done so in our own names, thereby giving relevant parties the opportunity to take legal action against us if they disagree with what we say. That is entirely different from making such allegations on an anonymous basis and using someone else’s website to do so. As previously stated, we welcome ALL postings relating to Shell or this website and enjoy reading robust debate about directly related issues. I would appeal to contributors, please do not put us into the position of having to censor postings.

Deeply Concerned: ..... and highly irritated! John, you have to step in with respect to the US centric rantings. Shell was not able to close down your site but if this nonsense continues (the last postings are very close to the bone) the site will die of its own accord as folk will just not bother to look / read / post.

motivasux: I saw it Motivaman and I agree with you. It will be interesting to see how all this turns out. I witnessed a staff person talking on the cell phone while driving in the plant yesterday but couldn't catch him to confront him. I know who he is and will try and have a conversation with him today. Wont matter though.