Rather the worry is that oil and gas companies, Schlumberger included, that cut hundreds of staff when prices plunged, won’t have enough hands on deck to develop new resources fast enough when demand growth returns.

Dear Mr Donovan

This link is now making the rounds in the Shell community. It is a link to a magazine for graduates (Intermediair) and widely read by the elite in NL. I think it warrants publishing, even if it is in Dutch. A service to all your Dutch readers…. They can read this stuff and then read and/or contribute to the real truth on your website….

I just read it and it is politically quite correct. Several people who were interviewed did not want their name in the article.

http://www.intermediair.nl/epaper/2009/49/index.html#/

DIMOCK, Pa. — Victoria Switzer dreamed of a peaceful retirement in these Appalachian hills. Instead, she is coping with a big problem after a nearby natural gas well contaminated her family’s drinking water with high levels of methane.

Reuters

HOUSTON, Dec 8 (Reuters) – A hydrogen plant operated by Praxair Inc (PX.N) at Motiva Enterprises’s 285,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Port Arthur, Texas, refinery was shut on Tuesday after an explosion, according to a Praxair spokeswoman.

No injuries were reported among Praxair employees after the blast, said Susan Szita-Gore, company spokeswoman.

“I understand it was a pretty big bang,” Szita-Gore said.

No injuries were reported among Motiva employees following the malfucntion, which was reported to Port Arthur police and fire departments.

Sources familiar with refinery operations said a hydrogen line ruptured on the unit.

Refiners have switched to having third-party providers produce hydrogen increasingly used in the refining of cheaper heavy, sour crude oils in motor fuels that meet strict U.S. environmental standards.

Motiva is a joint-venture between Saudi Refining and Shell Oil Co, the U.S. unit of Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSa.L).

(Reporting by Erwin Seba and Kristen Hays; Editing by David Gregorio)

REUTERS ARTICLE

By John Donovan

The current out of control situation for Shell in relation to the website royaldutchshellplc.com speaks volumes about the laughable incompetence of its senior management and Shell’s army of in-house and external lawyers.

First we have the extraordinary endorsement by Shell of the website in an email sent to Fox News..

“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. Their website, royaldutchsellplc.com is an excellent source of group news and comment and I recommend it far above what our own group internal comms puts out.”

(Much more about the Fox News/ Bill O’Reilly extensive email correspondence about us and our website will follow shortly.)

More recently, a Shell internal email dated 15 July 2009 reveals the disarray and concern following our scoop in breaking the news about Peter Voser’s reorganization plan’s. The high level author of the email raises questions about rooting out the dozen high level execs feeding us with inside information. It asks if anyone has engaged with the Donovans “to try to bring them on side of get them to tone down their anti Shell stance?” It also asks: “are you doing anything to get the website shut down.”

A Shell internal email dated Friday 19 June 2009 reveals that Shell long ago decided not to take legal action against the site. This came as no surprise. We put it to Royal Dutch Shell Ethics Chief Richard Wiseman in November 2008 that we are immune from defamation proceedings by Shell. He denied this but what else could he do? The relevant email correspondence is printed below.

So we are completely free to say what we like about Shell and its useless top brass without worrying about any possible legal consequences from the nasty polluting, conniving, ruthless, greedy, underhand, unethical oil giant. Shell knows us well enough to know we would never take advantage of this unique privilege. We point out how Malcolm Brinded has the blood of Shell offshore employees on his hands and has supported corrupt predatory practices against weaker companies, but have the evidence to support the allegations.

As you can imagine, by this stage Shell executives and employees dealing with these matters must be frightened about putting down anything in print in case it ends up in our hands.

Quite frankly, with the help of Shell insiders around the globe, we are running rings around Shell senior management and its lawyers. This has not gone unnoticed by the media. I have been inundated with requests for interviews. The results will be seen in January.

As the headline correctly states, there is complete and utter disarray at Royal Dutch Shell.

And we have tons of ammunition to relaunch our leafleting campaign at Shell Centre in the New Year.

EXTRACTS FROM AN EMAIL TO RICHARD WISEMAN FROM JOHN DONOVAN: 24 November 2008 00.59

Is it correct as you imply that I am completely safe against legal retribution? Why should that be the case? Shell is not short of resources, being worth over $200 billion and having a 700 plus army of in-house lawyers. Shell would surely be in breach of its fiduciary duty to shareholders if it failed to sue me and\or the website for libel if any comment directed against you as a very senior officer of the company, or against Shell, is untrue. You also have a personal right to sue on the same basis if grounds genuinely exist. Shell, or yourself, could sue me for defamation in the UK where I am a citizen, or in the USA where the website is hosted.

Your comment implies that we enjoy prosecution immunity from Shell in relation to defamation laws. Is this because of a lingering affection for us after 28 years of contact, or is it due to the volume of evidence of serious misdeeds by Shell we have accumulated over latter years, including sensitive and incriminating Shell internal documents.

The apparent prosecution immunity is in line with a written statement given to The World Intellectual Property Organisation by Shell International Petroleum Company Limited in May 1995, saying in reference to our website RoyalDutchShellPlc.com:

“The… Group… have been aware of the site since the beginning and whilst they would not endorse or agree with many of the comments made by the Respondent on the website, they have taken the view that the Respondent is entitled to express his opinions and to use the Internet as a medium for doing so.”

Further evidence of our apparent prosecution immunity from a Shell libel action comes from the draconian defamation case collectively brought against the former Shell production geologist Dr John Huong by EIGHT companies within the Royal Dutch Shell Group. As you are aware, the action is in respect of alleged defamatory comments published on our website in June 2004. We wrote to the High Court Judge in Malaysia (and to Shell) within days of the proceedings being issued informing him that the alleged defamatory passages cited by Shell were authored by us, not by Dr Huong. Despite our admission, Shell proceeded to bury Dr Huong in multiple injunctions, including threatening him with imprisonment for alleged contempt of court. The case is now dragging on into its fifth year without even reaching the discovery stage. In the meantime, Dr Huong has been unable to obtain a job while the litigation cloud hangs over the heads of him and his family. Shell’s failure to prosecute the case on a timely basis is a gross breach of the UN Declaration of Universal Human Rights that Shell purports to support.

Perhaps Shell has granted us immunity from libel laws as a reward for treating the company so fairly. As Michiel Brandjes will confirm, we did not publish an article when he politely asked us not to do on special grounds. As recently as 30 October 2008, we did not publish another article. Its author had sent a draft to Peter Voser and other Shell executives. It was intelligently and competently written but we deemed the content inappropriate for publication. We also routinely give Shell the opportunity to consider draft articles and supply related comment for publication on an unedited basis and to point out any categorically untrue allegations. No other publisher treats Shell so fairly.

Have you granted us immunity because Shell recognises the “unofficial” Shell website fulfils a genuine need? In this regard, we were delighted to recently receive an unsolicited email from Shell Ethiopian employees praising the website for assisting their cause and helping to bring about a settlement of their legal action alleging Shell was selling its Ethiopian employees like slaves.

However, if we are wrong in interpreting Shell’s actions as granting us immunity from defamation laws in the way described, please advise us accordingly so there is no misunderstanding. Conflicts can arise from misunderstandings.

EXTRACT FROM WISEMAN RESPONSE 24 November 2008 14.02

There is of course no immunity from suit for you or any of our other detractors and neither you, nor anyone who repeats what you say, should assume otherwise.

THE COMPLETE CHAIN OF RELEVANT EMAIL CORRSPONDENCE

There is one mistake. The Shell Statement to The World Intellectual Property Organisation was made in May 2005, not May 1995 as stated above.

By John Donovan

Today we publish a leaked Shell appointments list for Upstream Americas containing several hundred additional names of Shell employees.

All will be added to our Shell employee email database so that we can communicate directly from time to time with Shell employees.

We were concerned that the global publicity about Shell’s industrial espionage – so called “invisible” operations against us – might stem or stop the flow of leaked information. In fact, it has actually increased.

The latest list.

Doesn’t the spy look a little like Peter Voser?

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Dec 7 (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Monday approved, with conditions, Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s (RDSa.L) plan to drill the first wells in two decades in the Chukchi Sea off Alaska’s northwest coast.

By John Donovan

The significance of a counter-measures team set up by Shell in March 2007 is now becoming clearer. We only became aware of it due to a Shell internal email dated 9 March 2007 released to us as a result of an application to Shell under the Data Protection Act.

Days later, on 21 March 2007, Shell initiated an IT project to “monitor internal e-mails from Shell servers globally to Donovan and is also monitoring web traffic to determine internal traffic to their website”. The relevant Shell internal email states: “There is history of several former employees taking internal laundry to Donovan also, internal e-mails have appeared on his website.”

Shell’s growing hostility towards us in March 2007 was partly generated by an email I sent to Bill O’Reilly at Fox News entitled “Shell’s treachery in Iran” and by Shell’s obsession over my input as an editor of Wikipedia articles about Royal Dutch Shell. My email to Bill O’Reilly created a panic at Shell, as is plain from the series of emails between Shell and Fox News which I will publish shortly. I will also publish the Wikipedia Shell emails. More s*** to hit the fan. I will also publish an email I am sending to Mr O’Reilly.

The following month, June 2007, Shell made threats to our server hosting companies in Canada and the USA which resulted in our website royaldutchshellplc.com being shut down on 25 June 2007.  It was only a very brief victory, literally a matter of minutes. It is not a realistic proposition to prevent a website which is being operated by a determined adversary. Richard Wiseman will testify to just how determined we are. Although initially unwilling to disclose who had made the threats which led to the brief shut down, when we pressed both hosting companies, each reluctantly confirmed, as we anticipated, that it was Shell. Keith Ruddock, the General Counsel for Shell EP later confirmed in an email to us, that Shell was behind the coordinated threats made to both hosting companies.

So the actions taken in 2007 were concentrated on trying to close the site and when that did not work, trace Shell employees at Shell premises visiting or posting Shell insider information on our website and identity those leaking Shell internal emails to us.

In June 2009, Shell requested external contacts, the “NCFTA” and “CAS”, to carry out “invisible” (covert) investigations to trace the persons communicating with our website. With regards to the cloak and dagger issues associated with the relevant email dated 17 June 2009, the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance will not comment despite repeated requests on whether it is the external organisation identified in the email as “NCFTA”. I understand that Shell is connected with NCFTA along with other companies and investigative agencies, including the FBI. It would seem entirely wrong that a partly government sponsored organisation meant to combat cyber threats and cyber criminals is being utilized to crack down on free speech on the Internet. The latest covert investigations have clearly been prompted by postings on the Shell Blog in June 2009 directed at Shell Motiva VP Tom Purves and his alleged cronies, including a Mr Jeff Funkhouser.

If anyone knows the identity of “CAS” mentioned in the email, kindly let me know ASAP, as I intend to take action on these matters. For enhanced security, open a free hushmail.com email account and send any information to me via johndonovan@hushmail.com. The email will then be automatically encrypted.

Shell once had its own blog – Tell Shell – initially advertised as being an uncensored forum for open and lively debate. Shell then decided the debate was rather too lively and started openly censoring the postings. Shell then moved to secret censorship. Finally the blog was “temporarily suspended”, never to appear again as an operating blog forum.

Shell is now trying to control a blog that it does not own and therefore cannot edit or censor. Hence the cowardly attempt to close the site and when that did not succeed, the return to cloak and dagger activity to try to stem the flow of devastatingly embarrassing postings.

RELATED ARTICLES

ShellNews.net: Secret Censorship on Royal Dutch Shell “Tell Shell” Internet Forum: Sunday 14 August 2005: 13.00 ET: Read the article

ShellNews.net: Royal Dutch Shell suspends its “Tell Shell” discussion forum indefinitely in response to censorship attack: Sunday 6 November 2005: 04.30am EDT: READ

ShellNews.net: The slow death of the ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC “Tell Shell” Internet discussion forum: 25 October 2005: 09.00am ET: READ

Shell Oil and British Petroleum express their vehement support for a global carbon tax in “Copenhagen Communique”

EXTRACTS

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
Monday, December 7, 2009

The big irony behind top globalists descending on Copenhagen in luxury private jets and stretch limos is not just the fact that their own behavior completely contradicts their self-righteous hyperbole about CO2 emissions, but that their propaganda is vehemently supported by the very same big oil interests they accuse climate skeptics of pandering to.

Probably one of the most flagrant examples of climate cronyism to emerge from the climategate scandal were emails in which CRU scientists, the body that provides much of the foundational global warming data for the UN IPCC, discuss how they conducted meetings with Shell Oil in order to enlist them as a “strategic partner” while getting them to bankroll pro-man made global warming research.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE

By John Donovan

The allegations of racism at Shell made by this Shell insider (name and email address supplied to us) comes as no great surprise bearing in mind the way Shell employees in Malaysia and Ethiopia have been treated.

POSTING ON SHELL BLOG BY A SHELL INSIDER “Fred” on Dec 7th, 2009 at 8:36 pm

I fully agree with rockdude1950 since I have been observing all this from the sidelines and also find myself in that position.

Having been with Shell for 31 years (and being 55) I find that my performance has for the first time in my career deteriorated from high to below average in the short space of 6 months. I have also been unsuccessful in obtaining a position at EC-1 to EC-3 level.

I would also like to add ethnicity to the equation since it has also played an important part in the decision-making process regarding retention of staff. After all just look at the ranks of EC-1, EC-2 and EC-3. At least 95%+ are white. Just shows what an ethnic diverse Company Shell is and what decisions were made at EC level. The Swiss after all are not known for their racial equality.

At this late stage in my life it will be difficult to find another job. I have no choice but to take the package when it gets offered but I am contemplating legal action. Anyone know any good lawyers? There is a very good chance that they can make a bundle out of this. Maybe we should pool together and have a class action suit on the grounds of discrimination. Any takers?