Posts from ‘November, 2009’

BBC NEWS

Friday, 20 November 2009

Militants have been demanding a greater share of the oil wealth

The European Commission has signed a $1bn (£602m) development pact with Nigeria, aimed at tackling corruption and promoting peace.

A substantial amount of the funding will be spent on resolving conflict in the oil-rich and crime-plagued Niger Delta, the EU’s development chief said.

The money will also target electoral reform and improving human rights.

But correspondents say many Nigerians will doubt the money will get to its intended targets.

$1 BILLION EU FUNDS 25%: peace and security 44%: governance and human rights 16%: trade, region integration and energy 15%: environment, health, culture and sciences

The BBC’s Caroline Duffield, in Lagos, says corruption touches the lives of everyone in Nigeria and leaves the vast majority of people in poverty.

And she says many Nigerians believe the current government is losing the fight against corruption.

Almost a third of the EU money is devoted to the Niger Delta region.

For years militants have blown up pipelines and kidnapped foreign oil workers, demanding a fairer share of the wealth.

“I’m delighted that a substantial amount of this financing will go to support conflict resolution and the peace process in the Niger Delta which has been ravaged by years of unrest,” said the EU’s development commissioner Karel De Gucht .

Over the past few months, thousands of militants have given up their weapons in an amnesty deal offered by the government in return for the promise of education and jobs.

A three-month respite from the violence has brought back some oil and gas production, but sceptics fear the former fighters could resume violence if they do not quickly find work.

BBC ARTICLE

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has delayed a decision on a request by Shell Oil Co. to drill for oil and gas in Alaska’s rugged Chukchi Sea. The delay came after the oil company asked for time to respond to criticism of its plan to drill in the icy sea, a prime habitat for threatened polar bears.

Shell President Marvin Odum said after a Senate hearing Thursday that he only knew what he “read in the papers” about the delay granted this week by the Interior Department, adding that Shell did not request it. But a letter from the Minerals Management Service, an arm of the Interior Department, says Shell requested the delay so it can respond to a deluge of public comments on the drilling proposal.

John Donovan of the website Royal Dutch Shell Plc .com

LETTER FROM SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED TO JOHN DONOVAN

Shell International Limited
Shell Centre
London SE 1 7NA
United Kingdom
Tel +44 (0120 7934 1234
Fax +44 (0120 7934 5153
Internet http://www.shell.com

16 November 2009

Our ref: LC-SFL

Dear Mr Donovan

Data Protection Act 1998 – Subject Access Request

We acknowledge receipt of your emails dated 10 and 15 November 2009 (copies attached).

We are currently working to comply with your current Subject Access Request (“SAR”) submitted on 4 September 2009, within the prescribed period, which is 40 days beginning with the day on which we received your fee, as per sections 7(8) and 7(10) of the Data Protection Act 1998 (“Act”). Bearing in mind that your cheque was received by Shell on 22 October 2009, we will respond to your SAR not later than 1 December 2009.

As you may be aware, section 8(6) of the Act provides that only the data held by Shell at the time when the SAR is received must be communicated to you. Our response to your SAR will therefore not include any additional documents and information produced after such date. This is in accordance with the requirements set out in the Act; in addition, to accommodate your additional request now would involve significant disruption to our efforts to comply with your SAR within the prescribed period. We therefore cannot accommodate your additional request.

Should you wish to submit a further SAR, please find enclosed the relevant form together with an Information Leaflet. However, please note that when considering your application we will be looking at whether, in the light of Section 8(3) of the Act, we are obliged to comply with a further SAR submitted by you. As you may be aware, a data controller who has complied with a SAR request is not obliged to respond to a subsequent identical or similar request unless a reasonable interval has elapsed between compliance with the previous request and the making of the new request.

Yours faithfully
Shell International Limited
Gavin White
Company Secretarial Department

EMAIL REPLY FROM JOHN DONOVAN DATED 18 NOVEMBER 2009

Copied to Michiel Brandjes and Richard Wiseman

Dear Mr White

Thank you for your letter dated 16 November 2009.

My email dated 10 November requested any relevant documents/notes/instructions relating to:

1. Alleged intimidation by Shell security guards at Shell Centre carried out with the endorsement and encouragement of Richard Wiseman, the Chief Ethics Officer of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

2. Shell statements about me issued recently to the Guardian newspaper and the BBC.

You claim that seeking this information would involve significant disruption which could hamper efforts to meet the SAR deadline. This conjures up an image of a team beavering away day and night gathering the necessary information. I somehow doubt this is the case. Since there has been no request for extra time to deal with what would amount to nothing more taxing than a few minutes work to avoid a further SAR application, with all that apparently entails, it leaves a suspicion that Shell has something to hide and is trying to delay disclosure. This impression is reinforced by the threat that you will not respond to a further SAR application from me until an undefined “reasonable interval”.  Is this months or years?

My email of 15 November relates solely to any relevant Shell correspondence concerning the supposedly decontaminated land at Earley that Shell sold to a property developer for a housing estate. Any such correspondence took place before my SAR application. Consequently there is no possible excuse for it not being supplied. I know that it exists.

You say that you won’t supply any additional documents and information produced after 22 October (whatever that means) but include with your letter two such items, thus acting in apparent breach of the rule you have just quoted.

I would like to make a constructive suggestion which would avoid the need for any further SAR application to Shell by me in the foreseeable future. The last gap was nearly three years and dependent on your response, I have no plans to shorten that interval. I am quite relaxed about waiting until say, 15 December for Shell to supply all of the requested information.

The ball is in your court.

Best Regards

John Donovan

“There is some hypocrisy in locking these resources away while relying on resources produced in other countries,” said Marvin Odum, the President of Shell Oil Co., the U.S. unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc.

“I respect An Bord Pleanála’s recent decision. It is an independent and competent body that is removed from any influence. They have made their decision and now Shell has to respond to that,” he continued. The board has ruled that almost half of the new route was “unacceptable” on safety grounds.

Some oil refineries have been put up for sale. These include Royal Dutch Shell’s (RDSa.L) Stanlow in Britain and its Harburg and Heide in Germany as well as Grangemouth in Scotland, currently operated by Ineos. [ID:nLQ224893]

Received from a worker at Shell Stanlow Refinery

Authentic Shell email sent 18 November

Says company has used “underhanded tactics”

—–Original Message—–
From:   Wood, Ron P SUKOP-OMP/11/06
Sent:   18 November 2009 14:04
To:
Cc:     ‘graham.daley@unitetheunion.com’
Subject: Recognition Update

All,

As planned Alan Rowlands and I , along with our Full Time Officer Graham Daley, met with HR today where we had hoped to be in a position to sign your Recognition Agreement. Unfortunately HR raised, for the first time, that Shell always insists on a ballot in these situations. When we challenged this the only example they could give involved 10 employees working in a joint venture at Gatwick Airport in 2006!!!

Significantly the company has never mentioned this “absolute requirement” in any previous correspondence or meeting. This requirement would only apply if we had a low proportion of members in the agreed bargaining unit and is clearly an attempt to further delay your collective bargaining rights. We will not be going down the ballot route and are meeting the company again on Friday to further discuss signing of an agreement. You will note you were not offered a ballot when you were de-recognised nor when you have your annual pay offers.

Sadly Shell has revealed its true colours and we would advise you all to immediately contact Alan Rowlands in the CCR or on 4267 if management raise any matters regarding union membership, recognition or any type of anti-union message in any one to one or cascade meetings. Clearly the company are involved in an attempt to mislead you about recognition and if you want to know what recognition means go to the Message of Support section of our website (http://www.stanlow.org/Support.htm) and read the message from Dave Thomas, the steward of the Maintenance Techs at CIP.

Our resolve to sign this agreement has only been strengthened by the company’s underhanded tactics and we hope to report more positive news after Friday.

Please can you make sure that all your work colleagues read this email as I may not have them all on our mailing list. If anyone wishes to be added to the mailing list please get them to reply to this email

Regards,
Ron.
Branch Secretary NW428
www.stanlow.org
Correspondence Address:
OMP/11/06,
Shell UK Oil Products Limited,
Stanlow Manufacturing Complex,
PO Box 3, Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, CH65 4HB, United Kingdom
Tel: +44(0)151 350 4500
Fax: +44(0)151 350 4500
Email: ron.wood@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com/uk

(According to information on the Internet, the author of the email, Mr Ron Wood, has worked at Shell’s Stanlow Manufacturing Site in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire for nearly 40 years. He is a steward, branch secretary, union appointed safety rep and represents Unite on the Chemical and Downstream Oil Industry Forum.)

POSTED BY

rwilliamson
on Nov 18th, 2009 at 8:41 pm

IN RESPONSE TO

“IT OFFSHORING: AFTER THE GOLDRUSH”

Matula’s past is littered with Big Ideas that have never materialized. GSAP is simply the latest. He was the mastermind behind SAP Megacentre which was an attempt to standardize the hardware platform used to run the various SAP systems within Shell. He could not even get Lubricants to use it (they continued to use the Pennzoil / Quaker State platform).

Matula, (shown right) like many other leaders within Shell, hasn’t stayed in the same position very long. He moves on and someone else has to come in and deal with the Big Ideas and Promises that he made. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he has spent longer in the CIO role than he has in any of his previous assignments. How much longer will he last?

And his Big Ideas extend beyond IT. While in Corporate Planning in the US, he was a leader to push governance and autonomy out to the various business units. This led to total chaos and was the beginning of the commercial model for IT with Shell (Shell Services International) which was a total disaster that took years and years and millions of dollars to correct.

Comment by IT4me: 2009/11/19 at 9:35am

Interesting. Similar stories abound from his Chemicals days. Endless revolutionary initiatives supported by aggressive suppression of bad news. The opposite of what many consider to be good IT, yet his seat at the top table is reconfirmed almost immediately in Peter Voser’s review. I guess we’ll have to wait till he gets bored and moves on – to Microsoft or wherever.

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The Dutch government approved a pilot project Wednesday to pump carbon dioxide into depleted gas fields beneath a town of 43,000 people as a way of reducing emissions blamed for global warming.