Posts from ‘August, 2009’

Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) — Arrow Energy Ltd., Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Australian partner in coal-seam gas production, will spend A$300 million ($251 million) drilling wells to supply gas to two planned liquefied natural gas plants in Queensland.

The project on Barrow Island will be run by US oil firm Chevron, and partners Royal Dutch Shall and Exxon Mobil, and will supply gas to China.

Technical experts working with Gorgon’s developers, Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil, found it was possible that carbon dioxide could leak from faults in the geological formation under the island which is supposed to act as the burial site.

By John Donovan

Preventable Deaths on Brent Bravo North Sea Production Platform

Following an investigation by Grampian Police into allegations of corruption involving Shell and the UK Health & Safety Executive, relating to the Brent Bravo scandal, a report was submitted to the Procurator Fiscal, whose officials have subsequently been carrying out further enquiries.

Reliable information reached us today that meticulous enquiries are continuing and deepening.

The allegations were made by Bill Campbell, the highly respected retired former HSE Group Auditor of Shell International. He has supplied extensive evidence to the Scottish legal authorities including taped conversations with very senior people at Shell.

The Police investigation followed an email (reproduced below) which Campbell sent to over 600 UK MP’s. It generated cross party support for his calls for an investigation.

FROM BILL CAMPBELL, FORMER GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: SENT FROM 24 JULY 2007

Subject: This could be the most important whistleblower email you have ever received.

Some unfortunate Royal Dutch Shell workers have already lost their lives. More lives are at stake.

My name is Bill Campbell. I am a former Group Auditor of Shell International. I am writing to you on a matter of conscience in an effort to avert the inevitability of another major accident in the North Sea. The consequences could potentially impact on families in many constituencies, including your own.

As Royal Dutch Shell and the Health & Safety Executive would acknowledge, I am an expert on safety matters relating to offshore oil and gas platforms. In 1999, I was appointed by Shell to lead a safety audit on the Brent Bravo platform. The audit revealed a platform management culture that basically gave a higher priority to production than the safety of Shell employees. To our astonishment we discovered that a “Touch F*** All” policy was in place. Worse still, safety records were routinely falsified and repairs bodged.

I personally brought the shocking situation to the attention of senior management including Malcolm Brinded, the then Managing Director of Shell Exploration & Production. I revealed that ESDV leak-off tests were purposely falsified, not once but many times and that Brent Bravo platform management had admitted responsibility for the dangerous practices being followed. In response to my team ringing alarm bells, management pledged to rectify the serious problems which had been uncovered.

When I later complained that the pledges were not being kept, I was removed from my oversight function.

Four years later, a massive gas leak occurred on the platform. Two workers lost their lives. I have no doubt at all that the inaction of the relevant Asset Manager, the General Manager, the Oil Director and Malcolm Brinded, contributed in some part to the unlawful killing of two persons on Brent Bravo in September 2003.

Shell subsequently pleaded guilty to breaches of the HSE regulations and a record-breaking £900,000 fine was imposed. I thought this would bring about a real change in policy to put the emphasis on safety.

Unfortunately I was wrong. Although I supplied the evidence related to 1999, and the fact that there had been a collapse in controls of integrity from 1999 to 2003 on all 16 of Shell’s North Sea offshore installations covered in a post fatality integrity review to the HSE for review by the Procurator Fiscal, none of this evidence was presented before the Sheriff at the subsequent Inquiry. The situation is explained in a letter to the Procurator Fiscal and the Sheriff (on 24th February 2007).

Shell management has engaged in spin to try to pretend that it is getting to grips with its safety problem. However, its atrocious safety record – the worst in the North Sea in terms of accidental deaths and absolute number of enforcement actions – tells a different story. This fact has resulted in a number of newspaper articles.

I have had meetings with senior Shell people including its CEO Mr. Jeroen van der Veer. I regret to say that I have found him to be economical with the truth. He prefers to support cover-up and deceit rather than confronting the underlying problems. Brinded is now Executive Director of Shell Exploration & Production. He believes in burying evidence.

My family and friends would probably prefer me to give up on this matter and enjoy my retirement after so many years working for Shell.

However, by writing to every MP in the UK, no one can ever say that I did not do my best to avert an inevitable further major accident event in the North Sea. When it happens (I pray that I am wrong) I will make this warning communication available to the media together with the vast amount of evidence in my possession.

At least my conscience is clear. I have done everything possible to ring the alarm bells about Shell management and its unscrupulous attitude to the safety of its employees.

Yours sincerely
Bill Campbell

ENDS

We await the outcome of the Scottish legal authorities deliberations with interest, as no doubt does a key player in the Brent Bravo scandal, Shell executive Malcolm Brinded.

Nigeria depends on the oil industry for approximately 95 per cent of export earnings and 80 per cent of government revenue.”

Royal Dutch Shell PLC is the latest in a small group of Western energy companies pumping crude out of Brazil amid intensifying international interest in the country’s deepwater oil reserves.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Royal Dutch Shell PLC said Tuesday that Japan’s Mitsubishi will take a 5 percent stake in a planned joint venture it has with Iraq to produce natural gas in the south of the country.

WASHINGTON – Shell Oil Co., the U.S. arm of Europe’s largest oil company, spent $800,000 to lobby the federal government in the second quarter, according to a recent disclosure report.

Ed O’Keeffe Photography

By John Donovan

On 18 August, The Sunday Times published an article: “Essar bids for British oil refinery in Shell auction“. It revealed that “Essar, the Indian energy, steel and shipping group, has made a bid for Royal Dutch Shell’s Stanlow refinery at Ellesmere Port…”

After being contacted by Shell insiders and supplied with internal email correspondence, it has become plain to us that the “auction” provides another classic example of Shell senior management disdain for Shell employees: in this case 800 people.

Self-explanatory extracts from one Shell Stanlow insider who has contacted us…

“I must congratulate you on the depth of information provided on your website… It would appear that Shell are about to shaft their on shore employees in the same manner as your article on the disgraceful treatment of its North Sea oil workers and also its African staff. If the leak of information had not occurred I am sure that Shell would not have informed its staff until a sale had been made.”

We have confirmation from another Stanlow insider source that The Sunday Times article resulted from a leak and that the Stanlow workforce had no prior notice of any such announcement.

This is again confirmed in one of the related leaked Shell internal emails in our possession which reveal the depth of disgust at the turn of events.

The following is an extract from an email sent on 11 August by Lennert Klement of A/S Dansk Shell to senior Shell executives including Tom Botts, Shell’s Downstream Executive Vice President for Global Manufacturing and Hugh Mitchell, Chief Human Resources & Corporate Officer (and member of the Royal Dutch Shell Plc Executive Committee).

We are extremely upset that the above announcement was leaked to the press without any prior warning to the SEF and in particular to the delegates of the Manufacturing Work Group. It is despicable that the Stanlow workforce should hear about their future in the manner that this has occurred. What has happened to Honesty, Integrity and Trust, this is ” Shell Language ” often used by Management, it is with regret that none of this was apparent.

Klement is Chair of Shell European Forum National Trade Union Representative.  The email was also sent to Dr. Agnus Cassens, Bjorn Lindberg, and Lia Belilos, all senior managers at Shell.

Comment from a Stanlow insider source:

“The main concerns of the Shell staff who will be impacted by a sale is the loss of their final salary pensions that have been built up over many years of service but will be adversely affected by not reaching full service due to the sale and the fact that all staff who do not currently have a window open cannot apply for other jobs within Shell and hence remain Shell employees but will be ring fenced and sold as commodities to the new owners.

The revelations coming out of the UK concerning the sale of the Stanlow complex are a continued display of what happens when Executives fail to live up to the Company core values.