News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Sept. 24 (Bloomberg) — Arrow Energy Ltd., Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Australian coal-seam gas partner, will start drilling in Indonesia and may expand in Europe and Southern Africa as it pursues a 10-fold jump in production by 2015.
Click to continue reading “Shell Partner Arrow Targets 10-Fold Gain in Gas Output by 2015″
The laugh is on us this time…Content of the email received:
In 2004 the Dutch author Cor Houtenboer published exclusively in Dutch in a only very limited edition his book ”Pectina Devastatis” (”Shell decay”).
Unfortunately I only have the summary page of an online bookshop and a newspaper article on this book.
Houtenboer analyzed the decay of Shell up to the spring of 2004 and predicted the total dismantling of Shell somewhere in 2008.
In my view, the credit crunch retarded this process, but with the upcoming reorganization the downfall will resume critical momentum.
Summary page of ”Pectina Devastatis”
Related newspaper article “Poison Cup”
Book Review by The Economist
“A superbly written corporate analysis in which Houtenboer amalgamates his extensive knowledge of anthropology and human behaviour with a sound analysis of corporate processes. His insights suggest either that he is (or was) part of the Shell organization or alternately can rely on important sources on a very senior level within Shell, which is indeed in itself a worrying sign of the profound crisis. This book deserves a Pulitzer nomination.
Within 48 hours of the O’Donnell incident gardai announced unequivocally that “they have found no evidence to support claims by a prominent Shell to Sea protester that armed commandos sank his shellfish boat off the coast of Mayo last week.”
Posting on Shell Blog by a Shell Insider (a reliable high level source known to us)Having seen all the EC-1 and -2 appointments and from many discussions I have with colleagues, it has become clear to me that Voser and Brinded et all want to get rid of critical thinking people in general and Petroleum Engineers in particular, i.e. just the people who have know-how on essential matters such as reserves and production forecasting.
The reserves reporting is now solidly in the hands of lawyers so easy to manipulate for Brinded (above). The overoptimistic production forecasting, a great hobby of our beloved and surpreme leader in Upstream, will now go unchallenged by people with genuine know-how.
Mr Percival wrote a while ago he had full confidence in the technical capability of Petroleum Engineering in Shell. I am curious if he is about to change his mind.
And as Shell goes deeper in dept and the gearing goes up, the rating can only go down. It is very obvious that Voser is trying to sell off Shell in bits and pieces to prop up his cashflow.
Anyone out there taking bets on how long Shell will exist?
Royal Dutch Shell Fat Cat Malcolm Brinded: Big Brain but no scruples, 28 May 2009
Toxic ethical ranking of Royal Dutch Shell, 17 Feb 2009
Royal Dutch Shell Pension Fund Meltdown, 21 Dec 2008
Royal Dutch Shell in U.S. Courts accused of more IP theft, 12 Aug 2008
Shell’s Shocking Track Record of Unethical Trading in USA, 12 Apr 2008
THE SADISTIC SACKING OF SHELL CHIEF EXECUTIVE WALTER VAN DE VIJVER, 16 Nov 2007
Shell Executives hoodwinked New York financial analysts, 01 Nov 2007
Royal Dutch Shell top secret documents revealed daily on ‘anti-Shell’ website, 30 Oct 2007
dailybreeze.comEnvironmental activist Erin Brockovich (right) has agreed to pursue litigation against Shell Oil Co. for contaminating a Carson housing tract.
Shell recently discovered elevated levels of methane and benzene underneath the Carousel neighborhood. The contamination has been traced to underground oil tanks the company operated on the site until the 1960s.
Girardi and Keese, the law firm that works with Brockovich, held a meeting with about 300 residents Saturday in Carson to recruit clients for a lawsuit against Shell, which could be filed as soon as November.
Residents were informed that, in some spots, benzene has been detected at 100,000 times the state standard. In some soil gas samples, methane has been found to exceed the explosive threshold.
“You’ve been exposed to a very high level,” said Robert Bowcock, an environmental consultant retained by the firm. “I’m incensed and angry that Shell let this happen.”
Brockovich, who lives in Southern California, did not attend, but has pledged to be at a future meeting. Brockovich was the heroine of the movie starring Julia Roberts, which told the story of chromium-6 contamination in Hinkley, Calif. In that case, Pacific Gas & Electric Co. was forced to pay a historic $333 million in damages.
Since the movie came out in 2000, Brockovich has been involved in numerous environmental contamination cases across the country, including several involving Shell.
At the meeting, Bowcock said that the contamination is “magnitudes greater” than levels found almost two years ago near the ExxonMobil refinery in Torrance. In that case, ExxonMobil agreed to buy 10 homes and offered price protections for the owners of 10 more.
The testing at the Carousel tract is still in its early stages, and Bowcock said it was premature to predict the outcome. But residents said they were growing increasingly alarmed.
“I’ve been worried about this, but I’m scared to death now,” said Barbara Post, president of the Carousel Homeowners’ Association. “Shell can’t replace my house, and they can’t replace that neighborhood.”
The Carousel development is north of Lomita Boulevard, between Marbella and Panama avenues. It includes about 275 homes.
The testing began more than two years ago, when the Department of Toxic Substances Control launched an investigation of the old Turco Products plant. Those tests turned up elevated levels of benzene, a carcinogen, which was traced to the Shell oil tanks.
Shell has been drilling samples in the streets all summer, and recently began asking homeowners for permission to do further drilling on private property. About 100 residents have signed access agreements with Shell, and the oil giant has taken soil samples from about a dozen homes.
“We take the levels that were detected very seriously,” said Alison Chassin, a Shell spokeswoman. “We believe the next step is to do these tests on residential properties as quickly as possible.”
Bowcock advised residents against signing the access agreements, saying they were likely designed to protect Shell. He said he would ask for a moratorium on the testing until the law firm could have input on the process.
“Shell is not interested in being your friend,” he told the homeowners. “They will do absolutely the minimum they are required to do. We know the games they can play and we’re going to hold their feet to the fire.”
Many residents signed retainer agreements with Girardi and Keese at the meeting on Saturday.
“I am very concerned,” said Cecilia Miramontes, who noted that her husband died of cancer in 2002. “I don’t know for sure if it’s caused by something like that. But my baby is living with me, and I’m really concerned about the value of my house.”
Others said they were going to take some time to think about it before signing up as a plaintiff.
“The lawyers are making it very scary,” Mary Weil said. “We want to wait, and ask what we’re getting involved in.”
The firm intends to pursue property damage claims and personal injury claims related to health effects from the contamination.
Under the attorney-client agreement, the law firm assumes all the litigation costs, which could run into millions of dollars. The firm would take one third of any settlement amount, or 40 percent of any judgment awarded at trial.
Residents were warned that the process could take years.
“It’s going to be an ugly, long road,” Bowcock said. “We will be fighting and fighting and fighting.”
PHOTOGRAPH: Environmental activist Erin Brockovich is shown in a March 2007 file photo. (Getty Images)
The department’s conduct has been called into question several times during the past several years, including a controversial oil payment scheme, and a corruption investigation of George W. Bush’s Interior chief Gale Norton over her support of oil-shale exploration by a Royal Dutch Shell subsidiary months before the oil giant hired her as a legal counsel.
Click to continue reading “Interior Dept. institutes ethics program”
The statement that “Shell has never been involved in “atomic” or “nuclear” research at the Thornton site or elsewhere in the U.K.” appears to be at odds with allegations made by former Shell employee James Featherstone, in a letter he sent on 2 May 2009 to Detective Inspector Nick Sumner c/o Homicide & Serious Crime Command at New Scotland Yard.
Click to continue reading “Shell Chief Ethics Officer Richard Wiseman Refutes Accusations”
Issue Date: CSP Daily News, September 21, 2009
“RVIe maintains the core branding colors in a refreshed and modernized look to ensure that Shell continues to express fuel leadership yet it can naturally integrate with the existing network of RVI sites,” he told CSP Daily News. “Additionally, RVIe reduces costs to the business through the simplification of the Shell curviness to more modern proportions and angles which is easier to implement and manage.”
Highlights of the RVIe Design are:
Introduction of the use of the pecten (scalloped shell image) on the canopy (in lieu of the word “Shell”), which is more recognizable and more zoning friendly.(Click here to read the history of the Shell logo.)
Houston-based Shell Oil Products US is in the midst of a three-year process to sell off its retail holdings by 2010. The company is continuing its plan to dissolve its multisite-operator (MSO) partnerships and to grow through the wholesale class of trade, including wholesaler joint ventures, transitioning more markets from direct-supplied to wholesale- or wholesale/joint-venture-supplied markets.
MOSCOW, Sept. 21 (UPI) — The newly appointed head of Royal Dutch Shell met with a delegation from Russian gas monopoly Gazprom to discuss liquefied natural gas developments.
Alexei Miller, the chief executive at Gazprom, met with Shell’s Peter Voser to discuss progress at the Sakhalin-2 project.
Voser took the reins at Royal Dutch Shell in July.
Gazprom and Shell signed a 20-year deal on gas pipeline development and liquefied natural gas purchases from Sakhalin facilities in April. That deal followed the first LNG shipments from Sakhalin-2 to Asian markets.
Both parties lauded the successful launch of the project, noting its production rate for 2009 was more than initially projected.
Miller and Voser agreed to move forward with plans to develop a working group to discuss development at the Sakhalin facility and corresponding resource fields.
Sakhalin-2 will reach its nominal capacity of more than 9 million tons of LNG per year by 2010.
: 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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