Posts from ‘October, 2009’

Jon Chadwick, Shell’s Executive Vice President, Australia – Upstream, said: “The Gorgon project will provide important supplies of energy to the fast-growing economies of the Asia-Pacific region and will have a domestic gas supply component which we anticipate will be jointly marketed to gas customers in Western Australia.”

Only three years ago, Shell, the world’s biggest oil company, was forced to give up control of the giant Sakhalin development, handing over half of its interest to Gazprom after a dispute over costs and the environment.

WASHINGTON — Royal Dutch Shell Chairman Jorma Ollila on Thursday urged the U.S. Senate to make clear progress on legislation capping greenhouse gas emissions before international climate change negotiations in December.

RADIO NEDERLAND

16 October 2009

The Nigerian rebel group the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, MEND, says it will take up arms again and resume attacks on oil production facilities. The group had called a cease-fire in July after Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua offered an unconditional amnesty and released one of MEND’s main leaders Henry Okah. The government says 8,000 MEND commanders and soldiers have taken advantage of the amnesty and turned in their weapons.

However MEND has dismissed the amnesty as a “charade” and says that the government purchased many of the weapons it said had been turned in by rebels.

The attacks against the oil installations, which began three years ago, have reduced Nigeria’s oil production from 2.6 million barrels a day to 1.7 million barrels. Earlier this week, Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter Voser announced that onshore oil production has fallen heavily due to violence in the Niger Delta. “I think we are now at 120,000 barrels per day and we used to be close to 300,000.”

MEND says the revenues from oil drilling do not reach the local population and have also devastated the region’s natural environment.

SOURCE ARTICLE

ISTANBUL (Dow Jones)–Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA) is renegotiating with Iraq about the Kirkuk oil field, one of Iraq’s largest oil producing areas, after it didn’t win access to the field in the country’s first licensing auction, held in Baghdad in June, company sources and Iraqi oil officials said Friday

BOSTON, Oct. 16 /PRNewswire/ — ArcLight Capital Partners, LLC (“ArcLight”) has closed on the acquisition of the remaining 50% membership interest in Houston Fuel Oil Terminal Company, LLC (“HFOTCO”) from Motiva Enterprises, LLC.  ArcLight acquired its initial 50% interest in HFOTCO in October 2007 from Chartco, LLC.

HFOTCO is the U.S. Gulf Coast’s largest black oil facility with 11 million barrels of tankage in operation and another 2 million barrels currently under construction. Since 1979 HFOTCO has been storing, blending and moving residual oil for carbon black manufacturers, refineries, bunker suppliers and oil traders. Starting in 1992 HFOTCO began storing and delivering crude oil and feedstock to area refineries.

“We are pleased to expand our ownership position in one of the U.S. Gulf Coast’s most important and strategic terminal assets”, said Dan Revers, Managing Partner at ArcLight.  “HFOTCO’s strong asset base, impressive management team and significant growth prospects make it an ideal investment for our Funds,” added Mr. Revers.

SOURCE PRESS RELEASE

EMAIL TO RICHARD WISEMAN, CHIEF ETHICS & COMPLIANCE OFFICER, ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC

From: John Donovan <john@shellnews.net>
Date: 16 October 2009 20:48:02 BST
To: richard.wiseman@shell.com
Subject: Leaflets at Shell Centre

Dear Mr Wiseman

Just to confirm that at 2pm today, I visited Shell Centre and personally established with your security staff the boundary between Shell property and public access property in front of the Shell Centre on York Road. No one from within the building had the courtesy or courage to come outside and deal with me, a long term Shell shareholder. Instead, instructions were given over a two way radio.

As I suspected, the boundary is not the line of bollards as your guards intimated at one point, but a boundary much closer to the main entrance.  I arranged for two of our team to stand on the public side of the boundary and hand out leaflets for a short while. They will only be there at times when we deem it worthwhile in terms of Shell employee traffic, bearing in mind that much of the traffic has transferred to other entrances. The team is diligent and have established the best positions to reach the main target audience.

This could have been done on the first day but for the bullying which you supported. You also refused to indicate the boundary, adopting the same evasive and childish tactics as Shell security staff.

All a waste of everyone’s time and entirely contrary to the Shell General Business Principles you are supposed to enforce.

Regards
John Donovan

Previously undisclosed internal emails from the Bush Interior Department and Royal Dutch Shell Plc–which held three leases and stood to benefit more from the amendments than any firm–show a concerted if uncoordinated effort to deal with the expected blowback to the amendments. The emails were obtained by the Tribune Washington bureau.

By a Shell Insider

It comes under many guises and code words, it is hushed at the high levels, among VPs, and in the HR circles, it is not to be openly recognized, it is hidden behind a thin veneer of diversity and giving opportunities to the young.

The little secret of this reorganization is blatant age discrimination. Nobody will admit to it, at least not in public, but the signs and its effects are clear: age, specifically the 55-year-old barrier, is the determining factor in appointments at the EC-1 and EC-2 levels, and it has been hinted as one of the main criteria in EC-3 decisions.

The statistics are eloquent: from the over 55 population that applied to EC-1 and EC-2 positions, barely a couple people survived, and will probably be out before the middle of next year. The less experienced VP’s and HR people will admit that renewing the management ranks and giving way to youth are goals of the transition. As one review panel member put it in choosing an inexperienced younger person over a clearly more qualified but over the hill candidate for an EC-2 position, the younger person had “higher potential”. Or that people are strongly discouraged from applying to lower salary group positions to give opportunities to younger staff. In other words, over 55 need not apply.

The unwritten goal of the transition seems to be to shed 10 years off the average manager’s age.  I suppose that the US Equal Opportunity Commission, and its EC equivalent would take a grim view of this policy. It would be hard to find written evidence, but it can be shown that age discrimination exists by its effects, like the changes in age distribution before and after the transition, or the percentage of unsuccessful over 55 applicants. Some took early retirement, some simply gave up and sold out, but many were simply forced and eased out. I am surprised that the staff council in Holland has not picked up on this. I am surprised that the head of HR and the head of ethics and compliance would go along with this policy.

ARTICLE ENDS

MUSAINT: Ref. “The dirty little secret of Shell’s reorganization” – I can very well believe that age has / does play a part in choice of candidate. I know for a fact (as I was involved with it) that in the reorganizations / redundancies of 1999 & 2001 age most certainly was a criteria that we had to include in the ranking of all staff.

POSTING ENDS

Since the head of ethics and compliance is Mr Richard Wiseman, I have sent him an email inviting him to comment…

From: John Donovan <john@shellnews.net>
Date: 16 October 2009 00:12:00 BST
To: richard.wiseman@shell.com
Subject: The dirty little secret of Shell’s reorganization

Dear Mr Wiseman

I would like to draw to your attention the article by a Shell insider headlined…

The dirty little secret of Shell’s reorganization

The headline was also supplied by the insider.

The last sentence in the last paragraph of the article has a reference to you, although you are not actually named.

Under the circumstances, you may wish to comment on this serious allegation.

If so, your comment(s) would be published unedited and without comment on our part.

Regards
John Donovan

ANY RESPONSE FROM MR WISEMAN WILL BE ADDED HERE (NOTHING ARRIVED)

POSTING ON SHELL BLOG SAT 17 OCT 2009

guest1: On the dirty little secret: Shell has always made allowance to preferentially remove older people (i.e >50) for two reasons. The first: it improved the age profile (traditionally the workforce was relatively old). And second, it was MUCH better for the incumbent as the redundancy package was much better if above 50. At least until a few years ago when a redundancy above the age of 50 was often seen as some form of early retirement. And the closer the incumbent was to retirement, the cheaper it was for the company and pensionfund too. Yes, one could call this discrimination but the bulk of the staff was very happy to be discriminated in this way! Many times the redundancy was held up a while to enable the incumbent go over the 50 year line. What was much worse in my humble opinion was that in the ranking criteria ‘attitude’ started to play a very dominant role and was the vehicle to remove ‘difficult’ people. You know those people that were right but not politically correct. Or put the directors in a difficult spot. Now that I call genuine discrimination!!

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Carson residents sue Shell over toxic chemical

Posted 10/15/2009 10:30 AM ET

CARSON, Calif. (AP) — Hundreds of Carson residents have sued Shell Oil Co., claiming it contaminated a neighborhood with cancer-causing benzene and that at least four residents have died as a result.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Long Beach Superior Court on behalf of 343 residents, involves a tank farm that Shell operated in the Los Angeles suburb from 1924 to 1967.

The residents claim Shell knowingly contaminated the Carousel neighborhood. The lawsuit also names a real estate firm that bought out the developer of the housing tract.

Shell began testing in the neighborhood a few months ago. Preliminary results showed benzene levels up to 100,000 times the state standard. Testing continues.

A call to a Shell spokeswoman early Thursday wasn’t immediately returned.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

SOURCE ARTICLE