Shell Announces Disaster Relief Support for Haiti

HOUSTON, Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – Shell Oil Company and Motiva Enterprises, LLC are donating $100,000 to the American Red Cross to aid in disaster relief and recovery efforts in Haiti.

“This is a trying time for Haiti and a chance for the rest of the world to lend a hand to those in need,” says Marvin Odum, president of Shell Oil Company. “Shell has a long track record of supporting disaster relief efforts. The people of Haiti are in our thoughts and prayers.”

SOURCE ARTICLE

Unity on new penalties will be tough. Major economies such as China rely on Iran’s crude oil, and many non-US energy companies including Royal Dutch Shell are invested in Iran, which has the world’s second-biggest natural-gas and oil reserves. The first target is Royal Dutch Shell, the British-Dutch energy company headquartered in The Hague…

BusinessWorldONLINE

Saturday, January 16, 2010 | MANILA, PHILIPPINES

Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. threatened Friday to shut down its oil refinery in Batangas and cause a fuel supply shortage if the Bureau of Customs (BoC) seizes P43 billion worth of the oil company’s imports to pay for supposed backtaxes.

Customs wants to seize Pilipinas Shell’s shipments worth $923 million arriving on February to May 2010 to cover tax deficiencies from 2004 to 2009 involving shipments of Catalytic Cracked Gasoline (CCG) and Light Catalytic Cracked Gasoline (LCCG).

Pilipinas Shell claims these are raw materials for the production of unleaded premium gasoline for which duties have been paid for, but Customs accuses the oil firm of misdeclaring the goods, demanding the payment of excise taxes levied on finished products intended for domestic consumption.

“The threatened seizure is unjust, premature and oppressive,” Pilipinas Shell counsel Simeon V. Marcelo said in a press statement.

“What makes this worse is that the BoC threatens to seize all of Shell’s shipments, even those that are not CCG or LCGG,” Mr. Marcelo added.

Pilipinas Shell, the second largest oil company in the country with over a quarter in market share, said the seizure would affect 823 workers in the refinery and a loss of P11 billion a month. This would also affect 959 retail stations, Pilipinas Shell said.

The Court of Tax Appeals granted last Dec. 9 Pilipinas Shell’s request for a 60-day temporary restraining order blocking the intended seizure.

The company’s application for an extension of the order is still being heard by the court. — J. B. F. Santos

SOURCE ARTICLE

(AFP) 15 January 2010

LAGOS — Nigerian gunmen have demanded a ransom of 300 million naira (1.98 million dollars, 1.38 million euros) for the release of three Britons and a Colombian abducted this week, the police said Friday.

“The kidnappers have asked for payment of 300 million naira before the men can be released,” Rivers State police spokeswoman Rita Abbey told AFP. She gave no further details.

The four — contract workers for the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell — were abducted on Tuesday between oil city of Port Harcourt and nearby Aba in Abia State.

The gunmen shot dead the foreigners’ police escort and wounded their driver during the attack.

The incident was the first major kidnapping in southern Nigeria since last July, following a lull in the wake of a government amnesty which saw thousands of militants lay down their arms.

Copyright © 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

SOURCE ARTICLE

By Alfred Donovan

Printed below in an article published today by the London Evening Standard, plus a related letter I sent to Members of Parliament in 2004 on the same subject.

London Evening Standard

Recession puts Hakluyt spies out in the cold

Rosamund Urwin
15.01.10

British intelligence group Hakluyt & Company warned today of a drop in revenues this year after businesses cut back on spying on their rivals in the recession.

But the Mayfair-based firm, which has been described as “a retirement home for ex-MI6 officers” and whose boardroom roll reads like a Who’s Who of the City, said demand for corporate spooks had started to pick up again.

Hakluyt is notorious for spying on environmental campaigners for oil giants including Shell and BP a decade ago. It has close ties to the energy industry — one of its founders was former BP chairman Sir Peter Cazalet.

Since then, MPs have called for an investigation into its activities and relationship with the secret intelligence services. Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker tabled parliamentary questions about the group’s dealings as recently as last month.

With swathes of FTSE 100 companies among its clients, Hakluyt has also come under the spotlight for the list of City luminaries which have advised the group, including ex-Vodafone boss Sir Christopher Gent.

Its bulging contacts book has not been enough to shield Hakluyt entirely from the recession, however, with sales expected to slip and margins squeezed during the year to the end of June.

Hakluyt’s deputy managing director Rupert Huxter, formerly Private Secretary to Michael Heseltine and Peter Mandelson, explained: “We were hit by the general economic situation. “A lot of our business is to do with mergers and acquisitions and that side suffered.”

But he said trading had improved in recent months: “We are now back on an upward trend.”

In accounts just filed at Companies House, Hakluyt said it had responded to a slowdown in trading at the start of last year by cutting costs.

Thanks to a strong final six months of 2008, sales climbed by 13 per cent to £21.9 million in the 12 months to the end of June last year. Profits were up four per cent to £4.8 million and Hakluyt raised its payout to shareholders from 230p a share to 250p.

The company’s best-rewarded director — probably chief executive and ex-MI6 man Keith Craig — was paid £850,000.

Hakluyt has a reputation for discreet investigations. It was founded 15 years ago by two former MI6 officers, who named the group after the 16th Century writer and adventurer Richard Hakluyt.

HAKLUYT’S BOARD AND ADVISERS, PAST AND PRESENT

Niall Fitzgerald, chairman: Deputy chairman of Thomson Reuters. Ran Unilever for eight years.

Keith Craig, chief executive: Ex-M16. Joined Hakluyt a decade ago.

Sir William Purves, ex-chairman: Ex-HSBC chairman. Former director of Shell Transport & Trading.

Sir Rod Eddington, ex-adviser: Ex-British Airways chief executive. Left Hakluyt after row over his advisory role to Australian leader Kevin Rudd.

Sir Kieran Prendergast, director: Former under-secretary general for political affairs at the United Nations.

Robert Webb QC, director: ex-general Counsel at British Airways. Current non-executive chairman of BBC Worldwide and non-executive director of the London Stock Exchange.

Mark Getty, director: Of the US oil dynasty. Ex-Hambros and founder of picture agency Getty Images.

SOURCE ARTICLE

MORE INFORMATION ABOUT HAKLUYT

EMAIL SENT TO SEVERAL HUNDRED MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT, 26/27 MAY 2004

SUBJECT: HAKLUYT – THE COMMERCIAL ARM OF MI6?

I am an 87 year old partly disabled war pensioner.

I am not one of your constituents but I want to bring to your attention a matter of public concern to everyone interested in the fundamental right of a UK citizen to a fair trial, free of witness intimidation by corporate sponsored undercover agents.

I have supplied the Lord Chancellor with evidence that all of our key witnesses in a legal action against Shell UK Limited were undermined and/or neutralised by undercover investigators some of whom Shell has admitted hiring. In a systematic fashion every one of our witnesses was intimidated. That is fundamentally wrong. The same tactics were used against us. My letter to Lord Falconer is published on my website www.Shell2004.com

My email address is alfrededonovan@hotmail.com.

It seems that multinational corporations use undercover agents supplied by firms such as Hakluyt because it makes them once removed from direct responsibility for any unpleasant/illegal actions which might subsequently be exposed. In other words, scope for plausible denial with blame being attached to the intelligence firm, rather than the sponsoring client. This may explain the use of so-called “private contractors” in the interrogation of American held prisoners in Iraq. One such private intelligence firm involved, Titan Corporation, is the American equivalent to Hakluyt.

I first wrote to every MP in 1998 warning of a sinister aspect to Shell UK and a corporate culture of cover-up and deceit deeply ingrained at the highest levels of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. Therefore news reports of cover-up, deception and intrigue at Shell regarding the shortfall in oil and gas reserves hold no surprises to me. What I have to tell you involves the same Shell senior management figures named in the recent class action law suits alleging fraud and deceit. (Shell has just downgraded its oil reserves for the fourth time in as many months).

Shell internal emails reveal a conspiracy to mislead investors including numerous pension funds. The deception involved the top management at Shell some of whom still remain in their highly paid jobs. There is even talk of sending a £1m payoff cheque to Sir Philip Watts, the recently sacked Group Chairman. Presumably to secure his cooperation in the pending multibillion dollar law suits. It is all reminiscent of the Mad Hatters Tea Party.

I am a long term Shell shareholder. In 1998 I also wrote to every Shell Transport director bringing to their attention sinister undercover activity against my family in relation to a lawsuit my son had brought against Shell. I recently discovered to my horror that I was in fact communicating directly with the then spymasters of “Hakluyt”, a shadowy organisation closely linked with MI6, specialising in undercover operations for corporate clients, including Shell. I understand that many MP’s believe that Hakluyt is the commercial arm of MI6.

Directors/shareholders in Shell Transport were simultaneously directors/shareholders in Hakluyt. In fact Shell directors including a former Royal Dutch/Shell Group Chairman were at the helm of Hakluyt as its President and Chairman. Shell has admitted using Hakluyt in widespread undercover activities against its perceived enemies (Sunday Times article 17/6/01).

How could Shell promise in its “Statement of General Business Principles” transparency, integrity and honesty in all its dealings and yet be part and parcel of a sinister spying organisation whose stock in trade is deception and trickery? There is a huge credibility gap between these two extremes.

Even Shell’s Code of Ethics is not what it seems. Shell Legal Director Richard Wiseman has confirmed in writing that Shell’s promises of integrity have no legal standing. Like a bet with a bookmaker they are binding in honour only. They are intended to create an image of a highly principled multinational but in reality are worthless; a sham.

My family, our witnesses and our solicitor were besieged and intimidated by undercover agents in the run up to the High Court trial. Burglaries occurred at the residences of a key witness, my son’s solicitor, and at our own house. Our privileged documents were examined. Shell Legal Director Richard Wiseman admitted in writing the activities of one undercover agent who was caught red-handed illegally checking our mail during an intelligence gathering mission. Kendall Freeman, the solicitors acting for Shell made the same written admission but warned us in a letter that other agents were also being used against us. This was also meant to intimidate us.

In addition to the covert operations against us and various NOO’s including Greenpeace and Body Shop, Shell simultaneously set up and paid for a private army of 1400 Police spies supporting the then murderous regime in Nigeria ( Mail on Sunday article 4 April 04)

The preparation and prosecution of my sons High Court Trial against Shell was completely undermined by the “no holds barred” tactics used against us. One key witness, a former Shell manager of long standing was too frightened to give evidence. The Police carried out enquiries but Shell obviously did not disclose its shameful expertise via Hakluyt in using the very tactics being investigated; tactics which in a UK setting, amounted to a criminal conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

This is why I have written to the Lord Chancellor seeking a police investigation. I have also sought assurances about the impartiality of the trial judge who has declined to answer a straightforward question about a possible professional/personal connection with the son of Shell’s Group Chairman at the time of the trial, Sir Mark Moody-Stuart. The judge is a
man of the very highest integrity but I see no reason why he and others involved refuse to answer a legitimate question. I would be grateful if you could support my request to Lord Falconer for an investigation.

Please visit shell2004.com to read my sworn Affidavit concerning these matters. You will also find the world’s most comprehensive news portal website covering the Royal Dutch/Shell Group (on which my correspondence with Shell is being published).

Yours sincerely
Alfred Donovan

ENDS

(BY COINCIDENCE OR OTHERWISE, IN A DRAMATIC TURN OF EVENTS, THE JUDGE SUBSEQUENTLY RESIGNED.  WE THEN DISCOVERED A FURTHER UNDECLARED CONNECTION THAT THE JUDGE HAD WITH SHELL ,WHICH MADE HIS DECISION TO HEAR THE CASE ENTIRELY INAPPROPRIATE)

(SHELL IS STILL SPYING ON US – WHAT THEY NOW TERM AS “INVISIBLE INVESTIGATIONS”.)

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

January 14, 2010 6:01 P.M. ET

Depressed Demand for Fuel Causes Headaches Even as Crude Prices Firm

By GUY CHAZAN

The global refining industry is turning into a major headache for big Western oil companies, putting a drag on earnings even as rising oil prices improve the prospects for other parts of the oil business.

Refining has been hit as the global recession depressed demand for industrial and transportation fuels, especially in Europe, just as additional capacity is coming onstream in China, India and the Middle East.

Meanwhile, prices for oil products like gasoline and diesel have failed to keep pace with the rising price of crude, putting intense pressure on profit margins for refining—the difference in value between the products a refinery makes and the crude oil used to produce them.

The result is a paradox for the oil majors. As oil prices rise, they are earning big bucks from their upstream operations—the business of finding and pumping crude. But they’re seeing profits plummet in downstream operations, which consist of refining and marketing.

That disconnect is becoming problematic for the largest oil companies, says Olivier Abadie, a Paris-based refining analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates. “To resolve this situation I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re thinking about splitting off their downstream divisions, as they did with petrochemicals,” he says.

Analysts have focused on Royal Dutch Shell PLC, because it is more exposed to refining than some peers. On Wednesday, a clutch of analysts cut their fourth-quarter earnings forecasts for Shell to reflect the impact of weak refining margins.

Shell declined to comment for this article.

RBS cut its estimate for Shell’s fourth-quarter earnings by 19% to $2.9 billion and said it expects its refining and marketing divisions to post a loss of $0.2 billion. Brokerage Evolution Securities also cut its earnings forecast for Shell. Shell will release results early next month.

Shell isn’t the only major to suffer. In an update released Monday, Chevron Corp said fourth-quarter downstream results are expected to be sharply lower, because refining margins had declined to the “lowest levels of the year.”

Chevron said the sharpest drops took place in Singapore, where margins slid 46% from the third quarter to just $2.46 a barrel. U.S. West Coast margins fell 27% to $11.83 a barrel.

Exxon Mobil Corp. hasn’t issued a fourth-quarter update, but its downstream earnings fell 90% in the third quarter from a year earlier, a much sharper decline than its overall earnings slide of 68%.

Demand for oil products has declined by 2.1 million barrels a day over the last two years, or 2.4%, according to Cambridge Energy’s Mr. Abadie. Yet the world keeps building more oil refineries. Nearly nine million barrels a day of new capacity will have been added between 2008 and 2014, according to the International Energy Agency, mostly in China and the Mideast.

Western companies have responded by cutting their operations. Shell plans to sell off about 600,000 barrels a day of its global refining capacity, about 15%, over the next three years. It is in discussions with Essar Oil Ltd. of India to sell assets in the U.K. and Germany. Earlier this month it said it will turn its Montreal East refinery in Canada into a fuel terminal, after failing to find a buyer.

Yet the sales aren’t happening fast enough to restore balance. According to Bernstein Research estimates, only five refineries were permanently closed last year, representing some 200,000 barrels a day of upgrading capacity. Yet one million barrels a day of new capacity came onstream last year.

Total SA’s efforts to rationalize its downstream division has hit resistance from its work force. Total workers protested Thursday at two of its French refineries—Flanders, in the north, and La Mede, in the south—over fears the company is planning to shutter Flanders. The plant has been closed since September due to “poor market conditions.” Total has also reduced capacity at its Normandy refinery.

Mr. Abadie says he doesn’t expect refining margins to recover any time soon. “In the normal course of events, they won’t get back to the comfort zone for several years,” he says.

WSJ Article

On a personal note, you are welcome to email to us a head shot photograph for display on our website on appropriate articles, as your colleague Richard Wiseman has already done.

The Times

Business big shot: Simon Henry, of Royal Dutch Shell

Emma Keens

After being knocked off the top spot as Europe’s largest oil and gas producer by market capitalisation this week, Shell executives did not get much time to lick their wounds.

The Anglo-Dutch company’s shares continued their slide yesterday amid talk that it had been guiding analysts to reduce their fourth-quarter earnings forecasts by about 20 per cent. A handful of downgrades served only to fuel that fire.

One man feeling the pain more than most will be Simon Henry (right), Royal Dutch Shell group’s chief financial officer, whose first year in the role has been anything but smooth, with falling demand continuing to pummel the oil industry.

Mr Henry, a Shell lifer, succeeded Peter Voser, now chief executive, last March, just after Shell had reported the biggest annual profit in UK corporate history of £22 billion, despite also registering its first quarterly loss in more than a decade. Profits have since fallen and, in October 2008, Mr Henry and Mr Voser said that Shell was cutting 5,000 jobs after quarterly net profit dropped by 73 per cent to $2.99 billion (£1.85 billion).

Mr Henry said at the time that he could see no significant upturn in demand in the near term, saying: “Oil stocks are well above historical levels and therefore there is quite a stock overhang.”

Yesterday’s notes from respected Merrill Lynch and RBS analysts appeared to herald more of the same for the fourth quarter.

People in the City will not envy Mr Henry the job of explaining all this to the shareholders, but perhaps one of his strengths lies in his experience of handling Shell’s more controversial announcements. It was Mr Henry, then Shell’s head of investor relations, who was thrust on to centre stage in 2004 to admit that Shell had overestimated the value of its “proven” resources by 25 per cent.

Sir Philip Watts, chairman at the time. dodged the job of placating the City, but he and two other senior executives lost their jobs soon after the debacle, leaving room for Mr Henry to step up as chief financial officer of exploration and production.

Mr Henry joined Shell as an engineer in 1982 after graduating in maths from Cambridge. But he soon switched to accounting and qualified as a member of the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in 1989. He has held a number of roles within Shell, including oil products shareholder finance adviser for Asia-Pacific and finance director for the Mekong Cluster.

• Shell is fined over accident at oil refinery

• Essar bids for British Shell oil refinery

TIMES SOURCE ARTICLE (Photo of Simon Henry by Thomas Fasting of Shell)

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

JANUARY 13, 2010, 12:58 P.M. ET

By James Herron

Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

LONDON (Dow Jones)–Several analysts cut their earnings forecasts for Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) Wednesday as an increasingly grim picture of the company’s refining and marketing operations emerged.

Brokerage Evolution Securities reduced its full year clean earnings per share estimate for Shell by 12% to $1.91. Royal Bank of Scotland cut its fourth quarter earnings estimate for the company 19% to $2.9 billion, citing “extremely weak refining margins.”

ING analyst Jason Kenney said he now expects a fourth quarter loss of $150 million in Shell’s refining and marketing division.

“We now anticipate [fourth quarter] results from the downstream business to show a quarter-on-quarter decline of 87%,” said Evolution Securities analyst Richard Griffith.

Evolution expects Shell to post a 25% year-on-year fall in clean net profit to $2.91 billion for the fourth quarter of 2009, despite a 29% rise in the price of oil from year earlier levels. “While the upstream part of Shell should have benefited from higher crude prices, the downstream business…has continued to deteriorate,” Griffith said.

Refiners are caught between crude oil prices that have soared on expectations of a global economic recovery and refined product prices that have remained low due to weak end user demand. The amount of money a refiner could earn by processing a barrel of oil in the fourth quarter of 2009 was just over a quarter of its level a year earlier, according to data from BP PLC (BP).

It’s not clear when refining proift margins could recover, because that depends on a combination of industrial demand, economic growth and employment, said Kenney. The only thing for sure is, “we’re a long way off from that,” he said.

Shell’s downstream operations are such a “dog’s dinner” that it will prevent the company posting year-on-year profit growth until the third quarter of 2010, Kenney predicted.

This is in stark contrast to BP, which Kenney expects to post a 76% year-on-year rise in fourth quarter earnings and continue this strong momentum through 2010. “BP and Shell are worlds apart,” he said.

BP is ahead of Shell because it is already reaping the benefits of a restructuring and cost cutting program started in 2007. “Shell’s ‘Transition 2009′ internal restructuring is running behind BP’s program, but appears similar in ambition and scale,” said RBS in a research note.

“Around 5,000 staff were expected to leave Shell by the end of 2009, suggesting that pre-tax cuts in operating costs of $1 billion in the first nine months of 2009 will intensify this year. Operational momentum is likely to improve in 20011-2012,” it said. RBS recommends buying Shell shares.

Shell B shares closed down 1.4%, or 25 pence, at 1798p Wednesday.

Company Web site: http://www.shell.com

-By James Herron, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)20 7842 9317; james.herron@dowjones.com

WSJ ARTICLE