News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Rival Royal Dutch Shell meanwhile is set to post underlying second-quarter profits on Thursday of around 2.4 billion dollars (£1.5 billion), compared with a return of 8.6 billion US dollars (£5.2 billion) a year earlier.
Click to continue reading “Dramatic Fall in Shell Second Quarter Profits”
Hermes Equity Ownership Services, which advises funds on governance, is banking on Sir Mark’s boardroom relationships. These include Shell, which he chaired, where investors have opposed pay policies.
Click to continue reading “Exploiting boardroom connections of Sir Mark Moody-Stuart”
Chevron and its partners, which include Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc, have delayed the go-ahead until Sept. 14, the newspaper reported without saying where it got the information.
Click to continue reading “Chevron Delays Gorgon LNG Development Approval, Age Reports”
In December 2008, based on information provided by the website royaldutchshellplc.com, the Financial Times and other news organizations, including the International Herald Tribune reported the the Shell Dutch Pension Fund was substantially underfunded and that employee contributions would have to increase.
Click to continue reading “Shell Dutch Pension Fund Melt Down Recovery Plan”
Shell said earlier this year it would need to increase contributions to its pension funds, after turmoil in financial markets decreased the value of their assets.
Click to continue reading “Shell put 2 bln eur into Dutch pension fund in Q2″
July 23 (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, contributed an additional 2 billion euros ($2.9 billion) to its pension fund after falling below a regulatory threshold.
Click to continue reading “Shell Pays Extra $2.9 Billion Into Pension Fund”
Royal Dutch Shell Plc is already seeking a buyer for its 17 percent holding in New Zealand Refining at a time when new capacity in Asia is forecast to depress margins in the region for the next two years. Investments in existing plants are profitable again after sellers lowered prices, Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refiner, said last month.
Click to continue reading “New Zealand Refining Falls After Report Exxon to Sell Its Stake”
(Michiel Brandjes, Royal Dutch Shell Plc Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate)
Operating a website – royaldutchshellplc.com – using the dotcom domain name of the world’s largest company Royal Dutch Shell Plc., has resulted in a truly bizarre relationship with the company.
Shell’s current tactics are to express indignation in response to our outspoken criticism and decline to confirm the authenticity of leaked Shell internal documents and communications in the hope that the news media will then not risk publishing related articles. This approach has not worked because the credibility of our Shell insider information is such, that leading news organizations, including The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and the Financial Times, have all published articles without receiving confirmation from Shell of related facts.
Behind the scenes, Shell set up a team to combat/contain our activities but are fighting a losing battle, as must be obvious from the recent Sunday Times article.
Shell tried without success to seize the domain name and later attempted to intimidate our website hosting companies to close down the website (briefly succeeding). We persuaded the relevant US and Canadian hosts to reveal the name of the company issuing cease and desist threats against them which did not want its name disclosed to us. Of course the answer was no surprise. Royal Dutch Shell General Counsel Keith Ruddock later confirmed Shell’s underhand initiative.
Having escaped Shell’s attempts to block free speech on the Internet, we remain free to publish the unwelcome truth about the hypocrisy of Shell senior management, e.g. the con-man supreme, Malcolm Brinded. He makes speeches promoting Shell’s commitment to the Shell General Business Principles pledging honesty, transparency, integrity, etc. while in practice signing off SEC Form 20-F declarations containing fraudulent information, putting profits before the lives of Shell North Sea employees and giving his backing to theft of Intellectual Property and corrupt tender practices.
There is another side to Shell.
We acknowledge that the vast majority of Shell employees, managers and executives are decent hard working people.
Some time ago Michiel Brandjes, the Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate of Royal Dutch Shell Plc gave us permission to vet incoming email meant for Shell and delete what we consider to be spam. We are approached by people who have been unable to find a contact email address for Shell on it’s website. Some email is from people asking us to intervene on their behalf with Shell.
We suggested to Mr Brandjes that he might want to give us the name of someone else at Shell to handle such matters, which can sometimes be trivial, but he left it that all relevant non spam email, as determined by us, be sent to him. Shell job applicants (we receive many applications including CV’s) are directed to the appropriate web page on the shell.com site.
Despite the strange circumstances, Mr Brandjes has always been courteous and good humored and has very kindly gone out of his way to help people when under no obligation to do so.
Because of our respect for Mr Brandjes, when he has asked us under special circumstances not to publish an article relating to Shell, we have complied with his request.
Michiel Brandjes is one of the many good guys at Shell.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil producer, sold some U.K. assets last year, including its share of the South Cormorant, Cormorant North, Tern, Eider, Kestrel and Pelican licenses, non-operated interests in the Hudson license and interests in the Brent System and Sullom Voe terminal.
Click to continue reading “BP Says North Sea Oil, Gas Production Will Drop 9%”
: It appears that Voser finally got fed up with Mr Overpromise/Underdelivery. Despite all the nice words about him, he is clearly kicked out. Plenty of sycophants around him are now fearing for their jobs and positioning themselves whom to kow-tow now. This bearded fellow wasted his great brain on very small details and he was unable to delegate. I think his only real good project was the SLIM project. This was many moons ago and launched him to the top jobs. And there he failed as frequently and eloquently pointed out on the Donovan site. Big brain, a micromanager on par with the pointy haired boss in Dilbert, a vicious and vindictive attitude to those that were of no use to him or that might talk back. In summary: Good riddance and now the legal system of Scotland can go after him. But I doubt they will.
: What goes around comes around.... The announcement of Brinded has long been anticipated. We now wait for the next much smaller announcement.... Tom Purves to retire..... This will make our day when that moment happens. Shell never deals with the issue of bad leadership until it is too late and the havoc has been wreaked.... However, as we say in the US, Every dog has its day..... and today that was Malcolm.
: So early retirement then after all that ....... REPLY BY JOHN D. You are still playing a point scoring game. You seem to forget that the avoidable deaths of Shell offshore workers on Brent Bravo is at the heart of this matter. The deaths occurred after a safety audit led by Bill Campbell exposed a shambolic, illegal and shameful safety regime on Brent Bravo. They occurred after Shell senior Expro management had promised Bill that Shell would bring an end to the "Touch F*** All" culture and the falsification of safety records. The explosion and record breaking fine provide proof that the promises were not kept. There is NO commercial aspect to this matter as far as Mr Campbell is concerned. He is driven solely by a fear of an even worse event due to the same policy by Shell of putting production and profits before the safety of offshore workers. Please give Bill some credit for his integrity and for his long campaign, which has rightly received cross-party support from many MP's.
: Agent provocateur indeed!! Never been called that before, and I am most certainly not in league with Shell in any way! I again reiterate my point : was Campbell fired or given early retirement from Shell and thereby lies his grudge or did he reach full retirement age in the company? An honest answer might convince many that his continuous aggressiveness against Shell is genuine or just an ongoing grudge. This is not a "slanging match" merely a point of clarification. REPLY BY JOHN DONOVAN: Mr Campbell has made it clear that he does not wish to get into discussion with someone making insulting comments while hiding behind an alias. With regards to his comment that you may be an agent provocateur, perhaps he gained that impression from checking your history of postings. Just so there is no misunderstanding, we welcome contributors who provide a counter-balance to negative postings about Shell. I have provided some links to further information about the Brent Bravo scandal. Despite all of the promises by Shell senior management about safety, which including appointing a safety Czar, its track record remains atrocious. Years after the Brent Bravo debacle, it was revealed that the lifeboats for a Shell North Sea platform were not seaworthy. You could not make it up. “Lifeboats trouble at Brent field” published on 14 March 2008, UpstreamOnline revealed “SHELL’s safety record on its Brent Bravo platform in the UK Northern North Sea is once again under scrutiny after the discovery of technical problems with two lifeboats on the installation that resulted in both of them being removed from service.” Jake Molloy, general secretary of the Offshore Industry Liaison Committee was quoted in the article by Christopher Hopson as claiming “If they had loaded up this particular lifeboat, the chances are it could have been launched into the sea in an uncontrolled fashion which would have caused death or injury as it was held in place by corrosion and not by the designed system”. The article said that problems had been found with a second lifeboat on the Brent Bravo platform. It also reported that a lifeboat had launched itself into the sea from Shell’s Tern platform because the brakes and clutches were “dysfunctional” and had damaged the launch mechanism off the platform. Shell confirmed problems had been discovered with two lifeboats on Brent Bravo during “routine maintenance”. Shell was quoted as stating that it viewed the matter seriously and had “mobilised an investigation team on the platform”. BILL CAMPBELL EMAIL SENT TO MEMBERS OF THE UK HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL SAFETY CONCERNS
: LondonLad: In many cases "Reaching Retirement age" in Shell simply means being unable to find a position outside Shell -nowadays the most competent people generally move on long before reaching retirement age and pursue a second career elsewhere.
: To : an observer of Shell, you state "It is commonly known that a great many employees of Shell Expro are freemasons". Where did you get this "fact" from - smoking whacky backy?? I doubt very much that a great many are indeed freemasons. Even if they are (wich I seriously doubt), so what? Let's face it they are a society that provide one of the largest contributions to charities in the UK. I think you very clearly have an axe to grind against Shell. In that context why does Campbell have such a chip on his shoulder over Shell? Was he sacked for some reason? Did he actually reach his retirement age in Shell? Would be nice to know so that we can believe more that his rants are genuine problems he has with Shell rather than caused by some hidden grudge.
: GTW, I know you are right, TP and others will get their due. What is painful is that those whose lives have been changed and whose spirits have been destroyed because of his actions, will not be compensated. Tom is not the only one taking credit for this new cruel process of forced ranking, by claiming credit for what market demand has meant for profits. There are promotions taking place right now because credit is claimed by those executing Tom's plan for performance 'refirings'. I worked in manufacturing sites where management and performance was a joke, and profits were above forecast. It's always been market demand and the hard work of the folks on the ground that make manufacturing successful, Tom is not a pioneer in taking undue credit for local successes, but he has certainly been the cruelest!
: I have no proof nor will I ever find that proof, but this reprehensible conduct of the legal authorities smells to high heaven of masonic lodges. It is commonly known that a great many employees of Shell Expro are freemasons. The police forces all over the world are well presented in the various lodges. I would not be surprised if Brinded himself is a member. Bill Campbell is a very courageous man taking on these evil forces. We in Shell all knew him to be a completely honest and competent Maintenance manager and HSE auditor. But he loses against all the parasites and sycophants whose sole job is to protect the directors. And then live well on the spoils of their abhorrent activities. Top marks for the Donovans who keep this festering sore in the spotlight. To some it maybe a lot of repeating old stories, but those that want to hide and bury their bad actions know that time is on their side. And Shell has deep pockets and knows how to procrastinate.
: John, there is no issue with my post. This is the same GTW that has been providing updates for some time on the ill fated project CEP and the ill fated Tom Purves, both of which should be going fading into the background this year as old worn out news.
: I retract my previous statement. COMMENT BY JOHN DONOVAN: WE HAVE REASON TO SUSPECT THAT THIS POSTING IS NOT IN FACT FROM THE PARTY WHO USES THE ALIAS "GOLDENTRIANGLE WATCHMAN ON THIS BLOG, BUT IS FROM AN IMPOSTER.
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