Posts from ‘September, 2009’

HOUSTON, Sept. 21 /PRNewswire/ — Shell Energy North America (Canada) Inc., a subsidiary of Shell Energy North America (US), L.P. (Shell Energy), today announced it closed on its acquisition of the Canadian natural gas and power customer contract portfolio of Integrys Energy Services of Canada Corp., a wholly owned subsidiary of Integrys Energy Services, Inc.

Ed O’Keeffe Photography

An offsite meeting is being held this week to bring all Shell Stanlow employees – union and non-union – up to date with what the Unite Union has been doing since news of the Shell Strategic Review was leaked.

It will also be an opportunity for them to listen to some guest speakers, ask questions and raise any concerns they may have.

Speakers include:

·        Andrew Miller,  MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston

·        Graham Daley, Full Time Official (Unite the Union)

·        Mark Lyon, Grangemouth Convenor and GEC member

·       Ian Proudlove, Grangemouth Senior Steward.

According to a well informed source, the meeting was hastily arranged in response to Shell’s leaked plans to auction the refinery. One speaker is breaking his journey home from London to Scotland to attend and another driving down from Scotland specifically for the meeting.

Stanlow United Website

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

“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.”

John Donovan

In an email dated 11 November 2005, Shell International General Counsel Richard Wiseman (now the Chief Ethics & Compliance Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc) dismissed our website in the following words:

“The extraordinary tolerance shown to your internet activities ought to demonstrate better than anything else the fact that we are uninterested in, and unmoved by, your current activities.”

Wiseman’s bravado was undermined by the fact that we already had evidence to the contrary from an email about us that he sent on 24 June 2004 to Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer and his fellow Executive director, Malcolm Brinded. Wiseman informed them that he was contacting Sir Mark Moody-Stuart (a former Shell Group Chairman) about us. Wiseman’s email (supplied to us by a high level insider source) also confirmed that Shell “PX” was briefed and ready to react behind the scenes to our activities.

Under the circumstances, Wiseman’s dismissal of our site clearly amounted to a large serving of BS from one of Shell’s several hundred strong army of in-house lawyers, all at a total loss what to do about our “internet activities”.

You have to laugh. Wiseman subsequently, entirely at his own initiative, sent us an updated photograph of himself (above) to display on our “uninteresting” website. We are not joking.

Here it is:

From: richard.wiseman@shell.com
Sent: 09 November 2006 09:58
To: john@shellnews.net
Subject: RE: Revised email

Dear Mr Donovan,

I have just seen your website.  I notice you are using a rather old photograph of me.  If you must post my picture, you might like to use a more recent, and therefore more accurate, one.

(The flattery implied by showing what I looked like some years ago is of course much appreciated.)

Regards
Richard Wiseman
General Counsel M & A and Project Finance
Shell International Limited
Shell Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom

EMAIL ENDS

Shortly thereafter, our “activities” cost Shell literally billions of dollars following our intervention in the Sakhalin2 project. Insider information supplied to us also led directly to the resignation of Sakhalin Energy Deputy Chairman, General David Greer.

In a further development revealing the truth about Shell’s intense interest in our website, we found out from documents obtained under the Data Protection Act that Shell had set up a team in an attempt to counter our activities. The relevant internal email exposes the hostility towards us and the fact that it is is held in check by fear of reprisal on our part. If you find this difficult to believe, read the email.

And Shell EP General Counsel Keith Ruddock confirmed that in June 2007 Shell had sent cease and desist letters to both of our website hosting companies in an attempt to close down royaldutchshellplc.com. Initially, the web hosting companies would not reveal the name of the party making threats against them behind our backs.

So much for being uninterested and unmoved!

Industry sources said invitations had gone to the chief executives of Total, Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, StatoilHydro, ONGC, Petronas as well as Russia’s gas export monopoly Gazprom and local gas and oil firms.

From a Shell insider

How timely from Dilbert. It might just be that Gale Norton was hired this way. Two stomps of the hoof: hire her. Three stomps of the hoof: sign-on bonus, retention bonus and guaranteed exit bonus.

But knowing Shell, there has to be a process with records, protocols, tickmarks in square boxes and all these things leave traces.

And all this nonsense to get access to some acreage that will never be used because it simply is too costly and devastating on the environment. But that was another department….

It reminds me of Tejas Gas: pay a fortune for some crap. Share the profits amongst the participants or their relatives and make Shell write down the value of this crap a couple of billion US$ a year or so later. Remember: the same people are still largely in place now! Only Phil Carrol, the then CEO of Shell Oil was quietly removed after nearly 10 months.

The lack of development has left many young people unemployed and frustrated. In August, a new militant group emerged. It calls itself the Urhobo Revolutionary Army, after the ethnic group based primarily in the Delta. The group has taken credit for the August bombing of a Shell-run gas plant.

Gale Norton investigation: the Stink of Royal Dutch Shell Corruption: 17 September 2009

Job Cut Rumors Circulating Inside Royal Dutch Shell…: 16 September 2009

Shell Job Cuts Torture: 13 September 2009

Shell’s Ruthless Exploitation of Gas Station Operators: 10 September 2009

Stanlow Refinery Workers Ready to Fight Shell: 10 Sept 2009

Mounir Bouaziz, Shell VP for making deals with corrupt governments: 7 September 2009

Massive Shell Job Cuts, Again: 6 September 2009

Shell EP staff to be cut by 15%?: 4 September 2009

Scottish Authorities deepen investigation into alleged Shell Corruption: 25 August 2009

Shell Stanlow workers offered for sale like slaves in public auction: 24 August 2009

Justice targets Bush Cabinet official in probe

By JOHN HEILPRIN AND DINA CAPPIELLO

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has launched an investigation into whether former Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton illegally used her position to steer lucrative oil leases to Royal Dutch Shell PLC, the company she works for now, officials with both departments confirmed to The Associated Press.

The criminal investigation is focused on a 2006 decision by the Interior Department to award three oil shale leases on federal land in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary. Oil from the leases could eventually earn the company hundreds of billions dollars.

Investigators are looking into whether Norton, named by President George W. Bush to run the agency in 2001, violated a law that bars federal employees from discussing employment with a company if they are involved in a decision that could benefit that company. Months after granting the leases to Shell, Norton left the agency. Shell later that year hired her as an in-house counsel for its unconventional fuels division, which includes oil shale.

Justice Department and Interior investigators also are trying to determine if Norton violated a broader federal “denial of honest services” law. Under the statute, government officials can be prosecuted for violating the public trust for directing government business to favored firms.

Officials spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case.

Norton could not be reached immediately for comment.

“We are aware of an investigation; however, we are not in a position to comment,” said Kelly op de Weegh, a Shell spokeswoman.

The Interior Department’s Office of Inspector General began the investigation toward the end of Bush’s last term, after receiving complaints about the lease process. The IG’s office made a formal referral to the Justice Department earlier this year after concluding there was probable cause of a criminal violation.

The investigation was first reported by The Los Angeles Times.

Prior to becoming Bush’s first Interior secretary, Norton was Colorado’s attorney general and had worked as a private lawyer for timber, oil and mining companies. At Interior, she supported expanded oil and gas drilling on government-owned land.

The development of oil shale largely in the West was one of the technologies that the Bush administration wanted to explore aggressively. In response to a recommendation by then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force, the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management issued six demonstration leases in Colorado and Utah.

Shell was the only company to receive more than one lease. Its U.S. operations are based in Houston.

Associated Press writers John Heilprin and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report. Heilprin reported from New York.

FILE – In this March 20, 2006 file photo above, then-Interior Secretary Gale Norton speaks at the Agriculture Department in Washington. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, FILE)

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

ASSOCIATED PRESS ARTICLE

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

SEPTEMBER 18, 2009, 12:28 P.M. ET

MOSCOW (Dow Jones)–Russian natural gas monopoly OAO Gazprom (GAZP.RS) and Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) may expand cooperation on the shelf off Russia’s Sakhalin Island, Gazprom said in a statement Friday, following a meeting of Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller and Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter Voser, Prime-Tass news agency reports.

Voser and Miller have agreed to set up a working group to work on issues related to the development of the Sakhalin deposits, Gazprom said.

The companies are partners to develop the fields of the Sakhalin-2 oil and gas project. They may expand their cooperation to the Kirinsky block, licensed to Gazprom.

Agency Web site: www.prime-tass.com

WSJ ARTICLE

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

September 18, 2009, 9:08 AM ET

By Ashby Jones

Gale Norton, a secretary of the interior in the Bush Administration, now works as an in-house lawyer in Denver for Royal Dutch Shell. In 2006, while she was still in office, her department granted three tracts in Colorado to a Shell subsidiary for shale exploration. Also while in office, she reportedly had conversations with the oil company about future employment.

Was her discussing potential job opportunities at the time illegal? The Justice Department is investigating. Click here for the NYT article, here for the WSJ story, here for the LA Times piece that broke the story.

DOJ sources told the WSJ that the investigation is still in its early stages.

A Shell spokeswoman said the company has been notified of an investigation by the government, but declined to comment further. The spokeswoman told the WSJ said Norton wasn’t available for comment.

During Norton’s tenure at Interior, she came under criticism from the agency’s inspector general, Earl Devaney, for tolerating what he characterized as a pattern of ethical lapses involving agency officials, including her deputy, Steven Griles. Griles pleaded guilty in 2007 to lying before a Senate committee about his ties to Jack Abramoff, the disgraced lobbyist who is now in prison.

The department’s dealings with energy companies that lease government-managed land have been frequently faulted. Last fall, an investigation by Devaney’s unit found that employees at an Interior Department office responsible for collecting royalties from oil and gas companies broke government rules by accepting gifts from and having sex with industry representatives.

Earlier this week, the Obama administration announced the termination of a program—administered by the same office—that allows companies to give the government in-kind payments for oil and natural gas taken from federal land and waters, rather than paying cash royalties. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said the program would be replaced by “a more transparent and accountable” payment system.

WSJ ARTICLE