News and information on Royal Dutch Shell Plc.
Equilon Enterprises LLC, d.b.a. Shell Oil Products US, and tied to Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE: RDS-A) is also listed as a top holder with 19.95% of the company prior to this offering.
Click to continue reading “U.S. biotech Codexis files for $100 million IPO”
December 28, 2009, 12:01 AM ET
Maryland State Retirement and Pension System, Baltimore, divested more than 1 million shares of common stock valued at more than $38.3 million and $3.5 million in bonds of Royal Dutch Shell and its affiliates because the company does business in Iran, the $31.8 billion system announced earlier this month.
The action is the result of a state law enacted last year that requires the system to consider divesting investments in companies that do business in Iran or Sudan and have no plans to cut those operations.
“The board of trustees of the retirement system has taken action to comply with state law,” Nancy K. Kopp, Maryland state treasurer and chairman of the system’s board, said in a news release. “In accordance with the statute, the board of trustees will continue to monitor and evaluate all remaining investments in companies doing business in Iran and Sudan.”
Kirsten Smart, a Royal Dutch Shell spokeswoman, declined to comment. — Doug Halonen
By John Donovan
Extracts from a current Reuters report…
Iraqi and Iranian forces are dug in on either side of a disputed inactive oil well in the sensitive border area, with Iraqis vowing to fight if necessary to fend off another occupation of the well by Iranian soldiers.
The seizure of the well, which Iraq says is part of its Fakka oilfield in southeast Maysan province, triggered protests from the government in Baghdad and caused a rise in prices on jittery world oil markets.
The Iranian forces have since pulled back, but Iraq says they are still on its territory, stirring echoes of the border dispute that led to the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, in which about 1 million people died.
These wells in the Fakka region are Iraqi, and we will defend them to the last drop of blood,” said Brigadier-General Razak Abdul Hassan of the Iraqi border guards at Fakka.
Fakka is part of the Maysan oilfield complex, with reserves of 2.5 billion barrels…
Royal Dutch Shell will be faced with a difficult choice if the situation escalates.
Which regime will it support, the corrupt Iraq government with which it has recently inked a deal for access to Iraq oil, or the fanatical murderous regime in Iran where Shell has set up offices in connection with a news report earlier this month announcing Iran is finalizing talks with Shell for its participation in a multibillion dollar LNG venture?
Will it come to choosing between oil or gas – Iraq or Iran?
Fortunately for Shell, its business principles are only window dressing to conjure up the illusion that Royal Dutch Shell Plc is an ethical company, or otherwise both options would be ruled out on ethical trading grounds.
Shell Asset Management Co., the manager of Royal Dutch Shell PLC’s various pension funds, has taken its stake in hybrid electric power company Enova Systems to almost 20% following a $10 million capital raising exercise.
Click to continue reading “Shell pension fund manager takes 20% of hybrid power firm”
Nigeria, whose population of about 140 million people makes it Africa’s most populous country, is almost evenly split between the mainly Muslim north and a largely Christian south. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, or MEND, said Dec. 19 it attacked a pipeline in the southern oil region used by Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Chevron Corp.
Click to continue reading “Suspected Terrorist Tried to Blow Up Plane, U.S. Says”
John and Alfred Donovan well known in UK / Hague. They perceive Shell played them and so have made it their mission to embarrass, belittle and criticize Shell, which they do quite well.
By John Donovan
Printed below is an email reply received yesterday from Royal Dutch Shell Plc Company Secretary & General Counsel Corporate, Michiel Brandjes (right) together with my self-explanatory, constructive response sent today.
Any further response from Mr Brandjes will be published.
Dear Mr Donovan,
Thank you for your message. I have referred all your emails regarding Data Protection Act (“DPA”) matters to the relevant staff and officers dealing with such matters and take it that they have responded as they deem appropriate. I am at this time not a spokes person for the Company in these DPA matters and a response by a Shell spokes person to a message addressed to me should count as a response by me.
It is in my DNA indeed to respond to all and everything as appropriate. However, while that is the starting position please note that I can not be held to always respond to everything as a Company Secretary. There are messages which do not call for a response or not by me, there are matters in which a further response can not serve any purpose, and there are persons with whom I do not or no longer communicate for justified reasons. I intend to continue to help genuine third parties whom you refer to me and do not fall in the earlier mentioned categories.
Rests me to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
Michiel Brandjes
Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate
Royal Dutch Shell plc
Registered office: Shell Centre London SE1 7NA UK
Place of registration and number: England 4366849
Correspondence address: PO Box 162, 2501 AN The Hague,
The Netherlands
Email: Michiel.Brandjes@shell.com
Internet: http://www.shell.com
From: John Donovan <john@shellnews.net>
Date: 23 December 2009 18:45:21 GMT
To: michiel.brandjes@shell.com
Cc: peter.p.voser@shell.com
Subject: Re: Shell Invisible Investigations and the Data Protection Act
Dear Mr Brandjes
Thank you for your reply. The relevant Shell staff and officers dealing with these matters made no response, not even an acknowledgment. From what you say, it seems safe to conclude that my email to you of 21 December 2009 has also been passed on to the same people.
With regard to your second paragraph, it is good to know that I do not fall within the category of persons with whom you no longer communicate. I am also pleased to read that you will continue to help genuine third parties who contact us. We have always made plain our appreciation. Please be assured that we carefully vet the incoming job applications, business proposals, enquiries etc meant for Shell, using the authority you have given to us, and only pass on what we deem appropriate. Job applicants are directed to the appropriate web page on shell.com. We are always polite.
Reading through the extensive Shell internal and external correspondence supplied to us under the DPA, it is abundantly clear that there is growing hostility, anxiety and frustration. Shell is anxious that it “should not give the impression that we are over-concerned with the D’s website, or that management spends a lot of time worrying about it“.
However, the overwhelming evidence in the documents is that Shell is actually mesmerized by our website, with constant monitoring by Shell lawyers, Shell media, and Shell security on a global basis, with us and/or the site being discussed in Shell conferences, workshops etc. Also countless preparations over the years to try to anticipate and answer questions we might raise at a Shell AGM, when in fact we have not asked any questions at the AGM for over a decade.
All of this activity must cost Shell a fortune. And the collective impact of our activities on the reputation of Royal Dutch Shell Plc is incalculable.
I note that in one recent email, someone asks: “Have you tried to engage with the Donovans, to try to bring then onside of get them to tone down their anti Shell stance?” This prospect seems unlikely for a variety of reasons, including the stumbling block of the person at Shell who everyone seems to turn to when our name comes up, no doubt because of his long involvement with matters relating to us. We both know who I am talking about. Why anyone should pay the least bit of attention to his advice or his self-serving account of past events is beyond my comprehension, bearing in mind that it is his miscalculations over the years that have resulted in the current untenable situation for Shell. If it were not for his incompetence, misjudgment and hostility towards us, our websites would not exist.
I do however believe that with a modicum of goodwill, we could move back to a less acrimonious relationship, where we voluntarily give Shell advance sight of controversial articles authored by us, so that Shell has the opportunity to say if anything stated is categorically untrue, in which event it would be deleted. We would also publish unedited within the article, any comments Shell wished to provide. That would be a step forward for commonsense and accuracy. If Shell decided we were not giving reasonable consideration to what you were saying, then you would obviously cease the arrangement. If Shell has any ideas about how we could work together without impairing our editorial independence, or changing our non-commercial basis of operation, which we wish to preserve, we are completely open to suggestions.
We do intend to continue indefinitely with editing of RDS related Wikipedia articles, publication of our own outspoken articles and blog postings, plus leaflet distribution at Shell Centre and Shell AGM’s (where we will raise some questions Shell has not yet anticipated). We would welcome Shell input to remove any factually inaccurate content from any of these publications.
It does seem a great pity that there is no benefit from the revenues which would accrue from advertising on a website which receives over two million hits every month. Shell is welcome to see the stats. I have suggested to you before that we could donate any such income to a charitable cause. I now have a specific proposal for you to consider while still in the season of goodwill.
When I raised this kind of suggestion before, there were still hard feelings about the outcome of the domain name proceedings. We can now see from the Shell documents provided under the DPA that Shell decided that it would not be appropriate in this case to mount a legal challenge in the courts. Furthermore, from an email date 25 August 2009, I get the impression that contrary to the arguments put forward to the WIPO, Shell never attached any great significance to the domain name, which is no doubt why you did not bother to register it in the first place. Shell only wanted it to stop us using it. So that issue seems settled. I note that legal precedence continues to reaffirm the unanimous verdict reached by the World Intellectual Property Organisation panel of leading IP lawyers headed by Professor Daniel J. Gervais, regarding royaldutchshellplc.com.
Please therefore let me know if you are prepared to give your blessing (no permission is needed) to our proposal that Google AdWords advertising is added to the royaldutchshellplc.com website on the basis that ALL revenue from the advertising, every penny, will be donated to the Shell UK Pensioners Hardship Fund. I am sure you will agree this is a very worthy cause, particularly during the current difficult economic climate.
My father and I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
John Donovan
By John Donovan
Reference my recent email, I received yesterday an email response from Michiel Brandjes, Company Secretary and General Counsel Corporate of Royal Dutch Shell Plc. I will publish it later today along with my reply, which will reveal more information from the remarkable Shell internal documents the company was compelled to provide, following my application under the Data Protection Act.
As will be seen, we remain fans of Mr Brandjes.
MICHAEL DWYER, the Tipperary man shot dead in Bolivia, worked in security on the Shell Corrib project with a Hungarian associate of the main …
But the officials didn’t even stop to blink. They tipped their forelocks to the oil executives, gave a two-finger salute (metaphorically speaking, of course) to the local residents and told the hearing they were entirely satisfied with the project. The rest, as they say, is history
Click to continue reading “Corrib and the art of bog building”
: With all of this money spent on the CEP expansion, it has been built on an old electrical infrastructure. I guess no one is counting how many times you read about a "short" electrical outage at the plant. Tom Purves and the Motiva leadership know exactly why this is happening and how to fix it. They don't want to pay for it. They have been given the project and have turned it down at least twice. Meanwhile, we just keep having outages. Going ot be interesting when both refineries come down in the future.
: LondonLad: the lack of stories concerning Shell should be welcomed, if it implies that Shell are cleaning up their act, perhaps due in part to the efforts of the Donovans.
: US Observer, surely almost all (NOT all)contributors to this website have an axe to grind against Shell, particularly those who have a perception that they have been screwed by Shell in times gone by. As for Itchy Woman, she clearly has a femanistic / burn-the-bra approach to work in Shell. AND I would like to add that once again an old old article (from someone who has an axe to grind against Shell) has to be republished due to lack of news against Shell (I refer to Briggs 2009 article). COMMENT BY JOHN D. Would it not be fairer to say that everyone posting on this blog, including you, has an axe to grind. It is easy enough to look back over your contributions and reach a conclusion.
: It is easy to figure out who Witchy Woman is (LC). She has an "ax to grind" and is using this forum
: @uscitizen Voser is a competent and amicable chap. You claim Shell has delivered on its deliverables. Let me tell you everyone delivers on their deliverable.... But joking apart, look at the promises over the years and how well Shell has delivered on these promises. Their trackrecord is not very good over the last 15 years or so. They are a good money making machine. And sofar they have delivered on their constant or increasing dividend payments. Sometimes by increasing their debt but they have done it. A nice high oilprice has helped, don't you agree?? So my only observation was that his 'promise' to extend North Sea fields is quite opposite their activities in this area. And they have promised this before and done the opposite. It was a nice promise to build a new and expensive office in Aberdeen, more jobs for the UK and more activity and extending of production. Just check back what they have done. And predicting future productionlevels by Shell in general and Brinded in particular is nothing but a sick joke.
: To - an observer of Shell Shell has been delivering on its deliverables - why would you paint Voser as some one who is not??
: This was not a personal attack now was it Witchy one?? #133 Witchy woman on May 8th, 2011 at 1:42 pm Marvin Odum who probably has the worst safety record in Shell goes for a diversity vote and someone who has no safety experience to replace the VP of safety he just fired. Clear message where his priorities lie.
: Witchy Woman - you blase me for personal attacks???? That is so rich! I am defending people that are attacked if you had not noticed - and yes I do slam the folks who are throwing garbage out! Live with it!! Enjoy your retirement! Shell has a good retirement package in the US dont they??
: I feel the value of your posts is also minimal, just a complainer. PS - here is where you bash Denise - remember - or do we need to question your integrity the way folks question Shell leaders?? Witchy woman on Dec 7th, 2011 at 12:35 pm In GOM we thought that hurricane season was done. Why is Hurricane Denise causing so much damage then? Like all Hurricanes though they move on the professionals are left to pick up the pieces.
: According to the Independent article posted today the boss of Shell is telling us all not to get too emotional about fracking. Has he not seen the confirmation that fracking causes earthquakes? You have cited the Reuters article. There are others including coverage of a fracking earthquake in Blackpool England. I have to conclude that Voser is a fracking idiot.
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